50 People Still Missing After Hurricane Ike
12:00 AM CDT on Friday, October 3, 2008
The Associated Press
GALVESTON – Search teams looking for as many as 50 people who remain
missing since Hurricane Ike have identified five “hot spots” where they
will focus their efforts, officials said.
Hurricane Ike blew
debris from Bolivar Peninsula to areas including Trinity Bay, near
Anahuac, Texas, where the storm destroyed a fishing camp. Dozens of
people are still missing more than two weeks after Ike struck.
Mounds of debris scattered across Bolivar Peninsula likely conceal the remains of those still missing, authorities said.
The search for bodies also is expected to move offshore to uninhabited
Goat Island, where one storm victim’s body was found and where large,
remote piles of debris have collected.
The renewed efforts to
find bodies has come too late for some, including Dallas-area
contractor Raul “Roy” Arrambide, whose mother, sister and nephew
disappeared while evacuating from a beach house in Port Bolivar. The
two vehicles they left in have been found, with no sign of bodies.
“I really don’t have any confidence with the way this is being done,” Mr. Arrambide said.
Meanwhile,
the Harris County medical examiner’s office reported the death of a man
killed when struck by a limb while cutting trees Sept. 27. That brings
the storm’s toll in Texas to at least 33.
Also, the state
attorney general’s office said it was suing a hotel in Nacogdoches and
one near Katy for raising their rates during hurricane evacuations.
The Associated Press
