Kemah, TX -- October 11, 2008
Many homes along the Southeast Texas coast 
were destroyed by Hurricane Ike. Some Survive

Paul Strizek, Homeowner:
My mom purchased this house in 1963, and
the adjoining lots, and we lived here off and
on over the years, and basically what we had
here was winds over 100 miles an hour -
somewhere around hundred and ten, hundred
and twelve miles an hour, a twelve-foot storm
surge above the mean sea level, and then on
top of that, we also had wave action above the
twelve feet.  If I had not made the
improvements to the house, the house would
be gone, as many of my neighbors' houses
are that were on the ground.  The fact that
improvements were made, saved my house.
The primary thing I did was starting in 1994,
we had the house raised up off the ground -
elevated - and totally reconstructed.  The
rafters had to be built a certain way, and had
these metal ties that hold them together.
These windows in front, I believe, the large
sliding glass doors are all hurricane rated, I
believe, supposedly up to 150 miles an hour.
Still, we had everything boarded up when
Hurricane Ike came.  The water flowed
underneath the house where I had a small
storage area - it had no structural component,
in other words it didn't hold up the house or
anything like that, and it was built to give
away, and to break away when high water
comes, because you know it's going to come.
It's not a matter of if, it's just a matter of when,
and those walls gave way, and I have a water
line that comes up to the house, that broke.  It
was just plastic, it was very easy to fix, and
you know, the roof is damaged a little bit, not
very much.  I'm just blessed compared to so
many of my neighbors.  Raising the house up
was really a fairly major part of the total
renovation, but it was somewhere around
thirty-five or forty thousand dollars.  I know it
was a good investment because I've had
people - you know, every other month
someone calls wanting to buy the house and
the land, and the value of the house and the
value of the land is appreciating greatly over
what I spent by a factor of four or five times.
A year from now, there will be people in this
area who are not thinking about a hurricane,
and about Hurricane Ike, and a year, two
years, five years down the road.  The further
these things get away from you the memory
begins to fade, and you don't think about
what's going to happen, and so I would urge
anybody that has the wherewithal to make the
improvements now, get their house elevated if
they're in this kind of a situation, and save
themselves a whole lot of grief further down
the road.
For more information, visit www.FEMA.gov