Ike leaves debris on miles of Texas beaches

Free rummage sale
Michaelsen, 55, burned some vacation time to wander the debris field with tape measure in work-glove-clad hands. He is building a greenhouse for his wife and started looking for materials along the 60-mile-long free rummage sale.

Eric Gay / AP Debris, including these items collected by cleanup crews on Padre Island National Seashore, litter more than 60 miles of seashore.

"I can take care of a few house projects, use my (time off) and clean up the beach all in one afternoon," Michaelsen said after dropping a large plastic lid — perfect drip pan for a leaky Jeep at home — into the bed of his pickup. "The way lumber costs anymore, and this is just lying here."

Some unknown architects made a little shade on the beach by pounding some two-by-fours and plywood together. They furnished it with a few of the hundreds of plastic patio chairs on the beach and used orange spray paint to dub it the "Shark Shak." It was the perfect spot for J. Carl Lee and his Jack Russell terrier, Hunter, to stop for lunch.

Looking around, Lee thought there could be a business opportunity for someone willing to mine the beach's plastic.

He only saw one problem. "You wouldn't have enough trailers to pull all the plastic off this beach."

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