Galveston refuses to rest in peace

Two years after Hurricane Ike, blogger Douglas McIntyre dubbed the city of Galveston No. 10 on a list of America’s top 10 dead cities on his blog, 24/7 Wall Street.

This label comes as a bit of a surprise to many Galveston and Houston area residents who are still working diligently to overcome the aftermath of Ike.

McIntyre, the former editor-in-chief of Financial World magazine, cites the loss of industry, tax base and decrease in population that Galveston has seen in the past six or seven decades as his primary reasons for including Galveston on the list.

However, by looking primarily at the U.S. Census and other statistical reports, McIntyre is not accurately taking into account the resilience of Galvestonians and other Gulf Coast residents.

While Mcintyre focuses on the past 60 to 70 years, Galveston has faced overcoming extensive damages during various periods of rebuilding since the Great Storm hit in 1900. Hurricanes have wrought havoc on the island in approximate 20-year intervals ever since. The most recent storm, Hurricane Ike, even caused enough turmoil to reach the status of the original Great Storm.

Sources of damage to the island include several major storms, such as Hurricane Carla in 1961, Alicia in 1983 and Ike in 2008. It is true that the University of Texas Medical Branch, the seventh-largest employer in the Houston-Galveston area and the largest employer in Galveston, experienced great financial losses from Ike. Many jobs were scaled back and more than 3,800 full-time jobs were cut causing the city to almost lose its medical branch of the economy.

In addition, the island took a hit on its tourism industry because of storm damage and the overall economic downturn. As a sister to the tourist industry, the Port of Galveston, which is owned and operated by the city of Galveston, suffered costly damage to its terminal as well.

After suffering from all this trauma, it is awe-inspiring to see that Galveston and other Gulf Coast communities have without a doubt made impressive strides in recovery over the past two years. Galveston College, UTMB’s neighboring institution, shows the signs of recovery with its enrollment numbers, which stood at 2,229 students in fall 2008, and fell to 2,167 students enrolled in fall 2009 during the peak reconstruction post Ike. Two years following Hurricane Ike, however, enrollment has increased to 2,275 registered students with more continuing to register for this term.

Galveston is now ranked as the fourth- busiest cruise port in the U.S., even after the sustained damages, and currently generates $1.1 billion in direct spending in Texas. Plans for 2011 include two new cruise ships, the Carnival Magic and the Carnival Triumph, that will begin to dock along the island’s waterfront.

Despite losses, UTMB is making a comeback after receiving more than $1 billion from FEMA for repairs and renovation. Projections show that by the end of this year, nearly 1,000 contract workers will be employed and rebuilding UTMB. Old buildings will be demolished to make room for the university’s future expansion plans, which include a more advanced academic medical center. In addition, all four UTMB schools are experiencing increases in enrollment.

Five million annual visitors generate more than $800 million in tourism revenue for the city. The tourism industry’s revenue should only continue to grow as popular tourist attractions, including Moody Garden’s Palm Beach and Rainforest Pyramid, encourage visitors with the debut of enhancements planned for 2011.

Galveston was only one of many cities and communities to be devastated by hurricanes in the past decade. New Orleans was listed as No. 5 on McIntyre’s list. Just as the communities of New Orleans, Biloxi, Pensacola, and other Gulf Coast cities continue to recover from catastrophic natural disasters, so shall Galveston, Shoreacres, Bacliff and other Texas cities. The resilience of communities across the Gulf Coast will not waiver in the wake of disaster or die because of the aspersions from the blogosphere.