Hurricane Ike impacted the upper Gulf Coast in September 13, 2008, the people and communities have worked relentlessly to recover from the storm and rebuild their lives. 

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James D. Yarbrough
Galveston County Judge
Its right at a year anniversary now, and everyday day sometimes I thank God seems like it���s been 10 years we being dealing with Ike and another times it seems like its been two months, so it���s been kind of like a mixed bag its gone back quickly. We are not we need to be where we want to be, but we are on track.


Bob Arbeitman
Jamaica Beach, TX Resident
More and more people are coming back. I mean if you look at the area here over the last six months things have just gotten much better, you know we are not recovered by a long shoot, but they are way better than they were some months ago.


Josie Walker
Galveston, TX Resident
Compared to other people that had hurricanes I think we have done a real good come back.

John Simsen
Emergency Management Coordinator
It���s hard to believe that a year is past. I feel pretty good about where we are. I think if you were to drive around the county today versus a couple of weeks or a couple of months after the storm the difference is amazing.

Bob Arbeitman
Jamaica Beach, TX Resident
Physically the house is essentially fully recovered is as good as it was before.


Steve Spicer
Jamaica Beach, TX Fire Cheif
Everybody just did their own thing cleaned their own homes and hired their own contractors and it is a year later and you can hardly even tell there was a storm.


James D. Yarbrough
Galveston County Judge
Every storm every event is unique and it���s a, you have to deal with the circumstances and the facts as you get them as they come in for each event. 


John Simsen
Emergency Management Coordinator
In this area where you are basically facing a hurricane or a tropical storm every year or a year and a half on average they gotten use to the montroe that when you see the storm approaching in the gulf you should be prepared you should have been prepared June 1.


Steve Spicer
Jamaica Beach, TX Fire Cheif
I think a lot of people learned that evacuation is the way to go.


John Simsen
Emergency Management Coordinator
We are going to continue to pursue that and push people to understand that this is the coast we are definitely at risk all the time and we really don���t have any alternative but to evacuate.


We are on the right path as I tell people we are not in a marathon we are not in a sprint we got a lob way to go, we don���t want to run out of steam, but hopefully as we look back two or three years from now we are going to say Hey! We learned a lot of lessons from Ike rebuild better smarter mitigated what we could and when we have another similar type of event we���ll have less damage.

Bob Arbeitman
Jamaica Beach, TX Resident
I hope we don���t see a storm like that for a long time again���


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Close slate
One year later communities affected by Hurricane Ike rebuild smarter and stronger to mitigate against future disasters.

For more information visit 
www.fema.gov