Opening Slates:
 
1) The Village of Tiki Island in Texas
sits on about 12 miles of canals.
Hurricane Ike filled
those canals with debris.
 
2) FEMA is funding
the wet debris removal.
 
Transcript:
 
Mayor Charles Everts
 Tiki Island took a direct hit from Hurricane Ike. We had about a 12-foot storm surge where everything downstairs in most structures was impacted in some way either by tearing out the walls or destroying sheetrock and what-have-you. Ever since that time we���ve been in a recovery effort. We���ve finished our dry land recovery, pick up and clean up October 15th. We���re now in the process of canal debris clean up and we���re very pleased with the way things are going. We���ve got an excellent team here. We appreciate the job that FEMA���s done in cooperating with us to be successful in getting the clean up done and getting back to normal.

Tim Cullather
We���re in one of our final phases now of our storm recovery and that is getting the debris out of the canals. Tiki is a canal community. We depend upon the canals for a, to be able to navigate, for our boats to get in and out and we���ve had difficultu getting it started. There are so many different agencies involved. With a lot of help we worked our way through that and as you see the contractors are now in the process of removing the debris from the canals and processing it. People are beginning to get their boats back in the water and will help to maintain our property tax base and the value of the community.

Tiki is a small community, we���ve got one square mile, about twelve hundred population for about half full time residents, and half of weekend or seasonal people. We know we���re a small community, we can���t do things by ourself.

Rufus Young
We made a little head way, I think we���ve done got 400 yards out of here in a week of debris, ain���t it about 400 yards, Jimmy? They���ve got them big ol��� dumpsters full. We may get about 3 boat loads a day like this.

Tim Cullather
Fortunately we���ve had great leadership from the Galveston County, from Judge Yarbrough down through the emergency management staff, John Simsen, John Lee and others to help us be able to get the debris removal started, to get it going. We���re just so pleased that the help was there when we needed it and we���ll be back on our feet very soon and we���ll be prepared for the next nurricane season.

Ending Slates:
 
1) For more information, go to:
www.fema.gov