The city of Galveston has released its first damage-assessment maps after Ike.
There are three maps listed here.
The one most people are interested in is the first, from 61st Street east.
Increase the size of the blow-up on the toolbar to, say, 50 percent and you get a pretty good idea of how bad things are.
The city says:
The city’s initial assessment of the community’s 24,000 structures noted the structure’s damage and current condition. These evaluations translated into color-coded FEMA categories that reflect the property’s degree of inhabitability.
All island properties were originally assigned one of three colors based on the structure’s current condition:
Red: unsafe; leaning; structurally unsound; completely destroyed; collapsed or structure missing.
Yellow: general interior flooding; wind damage; or significantly damaged, but repairable.
Green: no damage or only minor damage; or missing siding; shingles; handrails; breakaway walls.
There’s a whole lot of yellow on the map, not to mention the area of dark gray near the coast that signifies, simply, “flood area.”
— Richard Connelly
This article appears in Oct 16-22, 2008.