US President George W. Bush was set to meet with his top disaster relief aides yesterday to discuss assistance to victims of Hurricane Ike, the White House said.
Since downgraded to a tropical depression by the Miami-based National Hurricane Center, Ike has flattened hundreds of homes, flooded communities and knocked out power for millions of people as it barreled across Texas.
Bush was expected to meet Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Federal Emergency Management Agency Director David Paulison for talks on confronting the crisis. Earlier, the president declared a major disaster in Louisiana after issuing the same declaration for Texas.
The storm’s force spread a swathe of destruction across on 800km span of the coast, largely cut off oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, and caused at least US$8 billion in onshore damage.
In Galveston, street after street was filled with water. Windows were blown out of flooded homes, broken furniture lay in the streets and tree branches littered roadways.
Some deaths were reported, Chertoff said without specifying, but Texas Governor Rick Perry cautiously voiced optimism that his state had been spared the worst.
More than 2.2 million people fled inland but more than 100,000 residents of low-lying areas — including 20,000 in Galveston alone — decided to ride out the storm despite warnings from the national weather service that a wall of water up to 6m high could spell “certain death.”
“Fortunately, the worst-case scenario that was projected in some areas did not occur, particularly in the Houston ship channel,” Perry told a press conference. “But there is plenty of damage out there.”
The center of Ike made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane early on Saturday on Galveston Island, where the sea swelled up in fury, whipsawing the country’s fourth-largest city, Houston, and prompting thousands of 911 emergency calls across the hurricane impact zone.
At 9am yesterday, tropical depression Ike was hovering over the southern state of Arkansas and was expected to move on to Missouri and other central Mississippi valley states later in the day, bringing with it torrential rains.
Texas and federal agencies launched the state’s largest search and rescue operations just hours after Ike barreled ashore.
Houston’s port is one of the world’s largest and computer models had forecast that much of it could have been submerged by the storm surge.
In Galveston and nearby Clear Lake, boats were tossed about a marina like toys, electricity poles and oak trees snapped or uprooted, siding was shorn off buildings and homes, and floodwaters covered entire neighborhoods.
Strong winds and rain raked Houston, home to the port, key refineries and a metropolitan area of more than 5 million people.
At the landmark Chase Tower, the tallest building in Texas, windows were blown off most of one face of the building, while glass, furniture and computers rained on streets below, witnesses said.
Also See: Ike abuses Texans’ Reliant Stadium, game rescheduled
Taiwanese Olympic badminton men’s doubles gold medalist Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) and his new partner, Chiu Hsiang-chieh (邱相榤), clinched the men’s doubles title at the Yonex Taipei Open yesterday, becoming the second Taiwanese team to win a title in the tournament. Ranked 19th in the world, the Taiwanese duo defeated Kang Min-hyuk and Ki Dong-ju of South Korea 21-18, 21-15 in a pulsating 43-minute final to clinch their first doubles title after teaming up last year. Wang, the men’s doubles gold medalist at the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, partnered with Chiu in August last year after the retirement of his teammate Lee Yang
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
RSS