The verdict...

In my opinion, Southeast Texas has fared better with Ike than we did with Rita.

But still, at the same time as I say that, imagine the devestation that would have to happen to be classified as 'worse' than Rita.

There is structual damage to homes throughout the Golden Triangle. As soon as I got in today, driving down I-10 to Highway 69 South (which is really the only way possible from I-10 West of Orange), we could see trees down, power lines down, entire side walls of large buildings down. Office buildings with interior office space visible. Debris on the roads. An army of Entergy and energy trucks heading into town.

But what I didn't see was the need for the myriad of blue roofs that we had with Rita.

Roofs were spared. There aren't entire neighborhoods that are gone, rather, maybe, one in every ten or fifteen homes recieved damage.

The City of Groves was working fast today, getting debris moved off the roadways making them passable. Monroe is clear all the way down from Twin City Highway, and the city workers were literally working from street to street clearing it all.

There are some trees down on homes. There's a house on the 6400 block of Jefferson with a tree branch smashed on top of a truck. But, the truck was the only thing that saved the entire block from losing the power lines that the green part of the branch was resting on.

There's a house down Garfield, at the corner of Madison, that had a tree crash down on it.

There are sparatic, VERY SPARATIC, businesses open. In fact, now that I say that, I don't recall seeing nothing but a few gasless gas stations.

Bruce's Market Basket has structural damage to the facade and it looks like the roof on the west end of the building has suffered. And in front of the store, Spanky's Liquor is out of commission. It had to be a slight tornado in the area that did it...the roof peeled back and front wall came crashing down.

On a positive note, much of the liquor was spared.

When we first came in, we hit Orange. The water is receding and fast. That's good news for Orange residents, AND Bridge City residents.

However, with the water as high as it got (in parts of Bridge City, it was up to the eves of the homes), many of the residents are looking at severe losses and property damage.

Port Arthur neighborhoods off of Woodworth have green waste throughout the streets. Lamar State College-Port Arthur's campus is littered with what I think is the roofing of the Gate's Library. The Port Arthur Administration Building's vertical column windows were all blown out, leaving the elevator area exposed to the outside elements.

There is running water in Groves. But, that doesn't mean everyone should come back...there is still no power, and Entergy crews have said that because of severe damage to their Beaumont infrastructure, they don't expect to get power back in Mid, South County neighborhoods before they get those up and going. It has to be done in that order.

So, evacuees, you may very well be in a better situation evacuated than back here. Please take that into consideration before you just up and come back.

I haven't been to Port Neches or Nederland yet, but I did run by Memorial's stadium and saw that their new, jumbotron scoreboard stayed up and unharmed.

Which is good news for PN-G and Nederland fans worried about their own. I'll blog that tomorrow.

Hopefully, I'll get it to where I can blog about certain areas right after I drive by them. Hopefully here, we'll have another Pollabear.org video of Ike damage soon, so stay put.

Mike Tobias, The Port Arthur News