Search

Several letters to the editor are presented in response to the article ''Losing Power but Finding a Way to Connect,'' by Penelope Green and Joyce Wadler in the November 8, 2012 issue, regarding the Hurricane Sandy which devastated New York.

Hundreds of thousands of people remained without power Thursday after a line of deadly storms struck last Friday. In West Virginia, the leader of the National Guard said he had not seen a more widespread power loss in the state in decades. In Ohio, the chief of a major utility said the damage was worse than what was caused by the remnants of Hurricane Ike in 2008. At least 27 people have been killed in the storms or their aftermath, including deaths from heat-related causes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

GALVESTON -- The lush canopy of trees shading Galveston's Victorian homes is gone, claimed by the saltwater storm surge of Hurricane Ike. But in the three years since the storm, the barrier island's citizens have led a grass-roots effort to preserve the memory of the trees by carving more than 35 sculptures from the remaining stumps, which stand among thousands of replanted saplings. More than 35,000 of Galveston's trees -- many planted after the devastating 1900 hurricane -- were cut down after Ike. The tree sculptures, carved from stumps still rooted in the ground, have become a whimsical yet reverent way to remember the past in the face of this loss. Three sculptors have been at work since late 2009, grinding away with chainsaws and chisels to transform the stumps into dolphins and angels and birds. Their work has become one of the island's most-popular tourist attractions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International AMID A FINANCIAL CRISIS, [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A year after Hurricane Ike devastated Galveston Bay's oyster beds, the oystermen who have been harvesting seafood from the bay's fertile waters for generations are barely hanging on, and many fear that this could be their last oyster season. The boats that fan out over the bay every morning are harvesting only a third of what they usually do, and some longtime oystermen are thinking of finding a new line of work. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There are many signs that this seaside town has revived a year after Hurricane Ike flooded more than 17,000 homes and businesses. The big resorts are humming again, and on hot days people throng the newly restored beaches. The port is open, and the cruise ships are back. Most of the businesses on the Strand, the island's historic strip of shops and restaurants, have reopened. Yet the progress has been slow, and officials say it may be several years before the city fully recovers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Hurricane Ike barreled west across the already beleaguered islands of the Caribbean on Sunday, raising the death toll and destruction across the waterlogged region. In Haiti, where the fourth-largest city, Gonaives, remained underwater from Hurricane Gustav, rain fell and at least 10 more people died of drowning, according to reports from news services. By late Sunday the number of people reported killed in Haiti just from the effects of Hurricane Ike reached at least 58. The total of those killed in Haiti in the recent storms was in the hundreds. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]