With great interest I watched the news of Hurricane Ike as it came ashore in Texas on Saturday. Hearing reports of 2 million people in Houston without power now is staggering. To think it might be weeks before power is restored sounds incredibly devastating.
Of greatest interest to us is the condition of the Texas Medical Center in Houston. Its 46 member institutions make it the largest medical complex in the world. Of course, they have all kinds of emergency preparedness with power generators and floodgates.
In particular Cissy and I are glad to hear about M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. We have made a dozen trips there for medical services in the last few years. This facility appears to have sustained only cosmetic damage, mostly roof and ceiling leaks. It has 17,000 employees, of whom the 1,800-person “ride-out team'' remained during the storm. It also had 596 patients during the night on Friday.
Our most recent visit there was three months ago. We enjoyed a side trip to Kemah on Galveston Bay. Today I have compared our photos of our visit to the entertainment complex to what it looked like on Saturday.
Fortunately, it looks like its marina with hundreds of vessels rode out the storm well. The amusement park is filled with water. The boardwalk where we ate dinner and watched passersby looks like maybe it was washed away. The concert area in front of the hotel looks like a large pond.
My thoughts and prayers go out to the millions of people who are dealing with the horrible aftermath of this storm.
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