$6 billion storm? Ike delivers economic punch

More than 11,000 workers have filed unemployment insurance claims in the wake of Ike, according to the Texas Workforce Commission.

The longer it takes to reopen schools and businesses, the greater the risk that Galveston's best workers will be snapped up by other areas.

Downtown on Galveston's historic Strand, Eddie Ferre, whose father owns Luigi's restaurant, said it will be December before they can gut their flooded restaurant and reopen. All their waiters moved to Dallas and Corpus Christi to find new jobs, he said.

Even if Luigi's could reopen sooner, Ferre's mother, Martha, wondered who would come. Their upper-tier clientele comes from the big beach houses on the hard-hit western end of the island.

In the short term, the area will benefit from the huge influx of government recovery spending and insurance money, said Galveston County Judge Jim Yarbrough, the county's highest-ranking elected official. But the recovery will be uneven.

"Property values are probably going to take a punch in the stomach," and many people will initially be afraid to rebuild, Yarbrough said.

'People will come back'
Most of Galveston's workforce is stuck off the island, which will remain closed to residents for at least another week. The city decided its water, sewer and electrical infrastructure was too badly damaged to support its population of nearly 60,000.

At the same time, out-of-state recovery crews stream onto the island every day, snapping up business that local companies need to stay afloat.

"Why can't we get our own people here?" asked Patricia Bolton-Legg, who runs Competitive Electric with her husband. "We get all of these out-of-towners here. They're going to take our business."

Ike slammed Galveston in the midst of a nearly decade-long economic renaissance. About $2.5 billion of new construction was under way when Ike swamped the narrow island, Sjostrom said. About 80 percent of the island's structures are still standing, so Galveston will not be starting from scratch.

Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas said she is optimistic that crowds could pack the city's downtown again as soon as late October.

"We've had a lot of storms here," she said. "People will come back."

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