The undated photograph was taken just after the great storm of Sept. 8, 1900, and though no formal recovery plan had been announced, it went without saying that one of the state's earliest settlements and its largest city was coming back — and in a big way. Image: A devastated Galveston after the Great Storm of 108 years ago. Photo: AP
In another September, 108 years later, the resolve is tested again, and the response is no different. Hurricane Ike may have altered the city's physical landscape, but the psychological makeup of its people seems unfazed, even with the knowledge that the storm surge breached the vaunted Seawall and sent waters flowing where water had not been in more than a century.
Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas struck the expected note of fortitude when she told the island's evacuated residents that the damage, while considerable, was no fatal blow.
"The city of Galveston is not in ruins," Thomas said last week. "We will rebuild stronger, smarter than ever before."
PROGRAM NOTE: Eliot Jennings, EOC Coordinator and EADP Lecturer will discuss the recovery process following Hurricane Ike's devastation onlong the Texas Coast in a live broadcast this morning at 10am CST on the Earth Frenzy Radio Show.