Many head home to see what Ike left behind

All along I-10, cars bore east with coolers strapped to their roofs, trunks stuffed with duffel bags and boxes of Cheerios, back seats crammed with children and dogs. Convenience stores along the way stacked empty gas cans ready for purchase right near their doors and flats of water close to the cash registers.

Sylvia Garcia works the register at a Whataburger fast food restaurant off I-10 in east San Antonio. She’s seen travelers coming and going for days now, and sees the anxiety etched on their faces.

“Don’t worry about it, sweetie, we got you,” she said to one evacuee, handing him a free cup of coffee and a box of juice for his little boy.

Buc-ee’s travel stop in Luling, 140 miles from Houston, with its flashing sign promising “Homemade Fudge,” “Dippin-Dots,” “Jerky” and “Fabulous Restrooms,” was crammed all day with eastbound travelers.

Will Williford walked his boxer, Maggie, on a patch of grass outside while waiting for his wife and two daughters to use the bathroom. The family lives in hard-hit Orange, but friends said their house escaped any serious damage. A neighbor wasn’t so lucky. “He has four feet of water in the house, has a tree in his house and no flood insurance,” Williford said.

The Willifords rebuilt after losing their roof to Hurricane Rita in 2005. While they were lucky this time, they wanted to go home to help the good Samaritans who helped them.

“All we can do is go back and help everybody else pick up the pieces,” said Williford’s wife, Lisa, “and be grateful that we weren’t hit so hard ourselves.”

Nancy Garcia wished that she was as fortunate. She, her husband and two daughters left Houston Thursday evening and made the nine-hour drive to Monterrey, Mexico, where they waited Ike out with her mother-in-law. They woke at midnight to begin the 500-mile journey back.

Her brother, Nestor, lives only a block and a half away. He evacuated to San Antonio but returned Saturday to see what was left. He called his sister and cried, “My house. My house is all destroyed.”

Garcia, at least, still has a home, though the carpet was soaked and a tree toppled onto the trampoline in her back yard. Branches are everywhere, and the house, someone told her, smells like fish.

She’d heard all the warnings to stay out, but felt the need to go home nevertheless.

“We just want to see what we have left,” she said.

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