February 27, 2009

Kemah & the Remnants of Ike ¹

by Wendy • featured, Headline, My Life As It Happens • Tags: hurricane ike, kemah boardwalk

We wanted to take Catherine to the Kemah Boardwalk last Friday. It’s a beautiful area with an aquarium, rides for the kids, restaurants, shops, and views of Galveston Bay. I thought we would have a nice family outing and meet up with Lisa and Ken for dinner.

Kemah is a quaint waterfront town that was hit pretty hard when Ike came rolling through. The town is known for the Boardwalk and the small town charm and personality. When the hurricane hit, it pretty much destroyed the Boardwalk and much of the community. It has taken months for them to recover and get back up and running. Only a month or so ago I had heard that the rides were working and the restaurants were operating, so imagine my surprise when we drove through the town and found that many of our familiar haunts are no longer there or are still destroyed. I was even more shocked to see that the only rides that worked were the train and the carousel. The playground was gone, the stingray exhibit was demolished, many of the restaurants, while finally open, are still being repaired. You could just see the spirit of the area had not completely returned. I was saddened to see that the damage was so extensive. I don’t know why I expected it to be fully fixed up. Maybe because it was only 6 months ago when my East Coast sisters & brother-in-law came to Texas and we toured Kemah when everything was okay. It’s shocking really.

I feel pretty good that we did our part by participating in the rebuilding of Kemah. We took Catherine on the train ride (which she was completely facinated by), the carousel (wasn’t too sure of but sort of got into it by the last go-round), and ate at the Aquarium (did I mention how much she loves animals?).