Texas Real Estate Daily

As the numbers of foreclosures and unemployed workers rise across the nation, the economic blow to Denton County continues to remain soft in comparison.

The somewhat optimistic local financial forecast is likely caused by the composition of the city of Denton and Denton County, said Dr. Bernard Weinstein, director of the University of North Texas Economic Development and Research Center.

“The United States’ economy is slipping into a recession, but Denton County is different,” Weinstein said. “For the next six months, the city of Denton and Denton County is recession-proof.”

The two universities, county government and state school help insulate the county from the shell-shocked business environment that has corroded economies elsewhere in the nation, he explained.

And those few industries that have experienced job growth despite nationwide job cuts — such as education, government and health care — all have a home in Denton and throughout the North Texas area, said Weinstein.

“But there will be no growth like what we experienced in ’07 or the first half of ’08, because we are in a period of economic contraction,” Weinstein said.

That economic contraction is reflected in the rising national unemployment rates and foreclosure numbers as well as on Wall Street.

In the past week, stocks have plummeted as major lenders have crumbled — declaring bankruptcy, being sold or seeking government assistance to cover major debts.

The situation has sent stock market indexes on a roller-coaster ride, significantly down one day and up 300 points or more the next.

The unsteadiness in the financial markets has some concerned, though more on a national scale than locally.

“The markets we’re in are very much like what we encountered in the ’60s and ’70s,” said Sennett Kirk, owner of Kirk Securities in Denton. “It looks like to me that we are in a long period where we are correcting for that long-term bear market.

“Again, I think we are not to the end of it,” he added.

He suggests stockholders should hold steady and not panic, despite the headline-grabbing news as Wall Street continues to grapple with the significant changes believed to have been sparked by the subprime mortgage-lending crisis that has sent foreclosures skyrocketing across the U.S.

“For people looking to buy, I would wait on that,” Kirk said.

For those with stocks, “what you don’t want to do is have some gut reaction and start bailing out when you should start standing pat or actually start buying stocks,” he said.

On the foreclosure side, Denton County and surrounding areas are continuing to see hikes of more than 30 percent in the number of residential postings, though in overall smaller numbers than across the country, according to records from Foreclosure Listing Service Inc.

Five hundred or more homes have been posted for Denton County’s monthly foreclosure auction in three of the first 10 months of the year. And foreclosures in the county have already topped last year’s numbers with two months still left in 2008, records show.

For August, the national unemployment rate rose from 5.7 percent to 6.1 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Despite daunting national numbers, Denton County, and Texas as a whole, is staying ahead of the game.

The statewide unemployment rate stood at 5 percent this month, while the city of Denton fared even better at 4.4 percent, according to state records.

Billy Welch, owner of Spirit Ink, a new custom screen-printing, embroidery and letter-jacket patch company, said he was surprised to see success since opening in January.

Welch was concerned about how his business would weather turbulent economic conditions.

“I thought we might see some effects with T-shirts and things of that nature. They are not a necessity,” Welch said. “Our store here and the store in Sherman are doing more business than ever.”

He said he has reason to be optimistic about the future of his stores, especially as the University of North Texas and Texas Woman’s University start to fill their fall classes with his target demographic.

“If it was going to affect us, it would have done so during the summer months,” he said.

Other businesses in Denton are also doing well, said Linda Ratliff, economic development director for the city of Denton.

“We are still continuing to grow in population and jobs,” Ratliff said. “Denton’s sales tax numbers indicate that our retailers are maintaining sales.”

City records show sales tax numbers have increased throughout 2008.

City officials and local residents also anticipate the opening of a new major retail center, expected to pump sales tax allocations into city coffers and attract more shoppers to Denton next year.

A spokesman for the Rayzor Ranch project told Denton Chamber of Commerce members recently that “dirt will fly” at the site described as the northern gateway to the city.

The development, which will include an estimated 2 million square feet of retail space, is expected to start again after a summer-long standstill on property that was razed earlier this year.

Officials say construction will be a welcome sight.

Karen Dickson, vice president of economic development for the Chamber of Commerce, said Rayzor Ranch has become popular among local businesses and has become like a beacon of hope in these tougher economic times.

“Everyone is talking about Rayzor Ranch,” Dickson said.

The lagging economy has not just impacted the business side — other organizations are feeling constrained.

Chuck Carpenter, president of the chamber, said local businesses have told him they’ve been feeling uneasy about the economy in general. And the chamber is feeling the pinch for money as well.

“We’re having to be even more cautious,” Carpenter said. “You learn in a nonprofit to cut something or go without.”

Businesses that sell luxury items are having an especially hard time in the economy, said a city economic development official.

Even with national media reporting declining automobile sales — especially of large, luxury vehicles — that isn’t necessarily the case locally.

Denny Aldridge, general manager at James Wood Autopark, said that while his customers are worried about the economy, those who have always driven big sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks or luxury cars are not giving up their habits.

With the state of the economy changing weekly and food prices going up, Belinda Peréz, co-owner of El Chaparral Grille, a Mexican restaurant off the Square, is adapting.

Peréz now shops at food wholesalers to help save some money.

“Business is still moving along,” Peréz said.

Karin Seligmann, a local real estate agent, said the economy hasn’t inhibited her operations.

“Our team is doing fine,” Seligmann said. “We’re maintaining our volume from last year, and we’re No. 1 this year versus last year. From my perception, we’re doing quite well.”

Maintaining a clientele is important to developing repeat business, Seligmann said, as well as finding a niche in real estate. But even then, success is not certain in this economy.

“We’re doing well, but the business as a whole is not doing as well as last year,” Seligmann said.

Even if some businesses aren’t doing as well as last year, each sale helps.

Alex Payne, owner of Axis Realty Group, said commercial real estate sales in North Texas have been going well, particularly in the medical field, but Denton has been affected as national retail chains hold back on opening new stores.

“Retail is a little slower right now,” Payne said. “Certain restaurant chains are not willing to expand in the area.”

Retail sales tax allocations to the city of Denton show a continued uptick, though in the 1 percent to 4 percent range in recent months.

Chris Rosprim, who oversees the commercial side for Scott Brown Properties, said they are still getting a number of calls from businesses seeking all sizes of space — small, medium and large. The problem, he said, is availability of space.

One business that has benefited commercial real estate agents is the activity along the Barnett Shale, as oil and gas companies call asking for warehouse and office space, Payne said.

The oil and gas industry is one aspect that helps Denton County, said Terry Clower, associate director of the UNT Economic Development and Research Center.

“Denton County jobs are helped with the oil and gas sector,” Clower said. “That is one of the main differences in the region, compared to other states that don’t have this industry.”

The banking business is striding along, despite national groans, said Glen McKenzie, executive vice president of DATCU in Denton.

This could be because the credit union held onto its capital — twice that of the regulatory limit, McKenzie said.

“Our delinquencies and losses remain far below the industry norms,” McKenzie said. “We do not have any of the subprime loans that have caused the mortgage situation that is occurring across the country.”

Greg Moye, with Practical Financial Planning LLC in Denton, said Denton is interconnected with the rest of an economy that he expects will tighten in the real estate and financial sectors.

Overall, Moye said, the current economic situation reinforces the importance of saving money to ride out occasional economic bumps.

“So hang in there if you are having a rough time, and stick with the fundamental blocking and tackling,” Moye said.

Moye doesn’t expect his financial business to take too many hits, he said, and he expects a steady flow of business.

It’s all about stacking the deck in one’s favor and avoiding large losses, which is easier to do in Denton, he added.

“On the whole, though, I’d prefer to be here than most other parts of the country,” Moye said.

Credits: DentonRC

One of Texas’ largest utilities has finished restoring power to East Texas homes and businesses that lost electricity due to Hurricane Ike.

Oncor spokeswoman Carol Peters told The Associated Press on Saturday that the utility has “normal operations” in the Lufkin, Nacogdoches and Tyler areas of East Texas.

Initially, 108,000 Oncor customers in East Texas were without power after the massive storm. Crews had to reset or replace hundreds of poles, transformers, substations and downed lines.

Overall, power has been restored to more than half the customers in Texas whose electricity was cut by Ike, though state officials said about 1.2 million remain in the dark.

Credits: Chron

The national economy may be struggling, but Central Texas homes remain a wise investment, according to the latest Multiple Listing Service (MLS) report from the Austin Board of REALTORS®. In the Austin area, the median price for single family homes reached $195,000 in August 2008, up two percent from one year ago and a record for the month.

The 1,992 single-family homes sold in August represent a 20% decrease from one year ago. These sales contributed $521,503,608 to the Austin economy, a 20% decrease from August 2007. The 1,792 pending sales and 3,114 active listings recorded for this month each slipped 18% from one year ago, while active listings rose five percent to 10,348. The average number of days a single-family home remained on the market also increased this month, up 19% from last August to 69 days.

“The fundamentals of Austin’s economy are solid,” says ABoR Chairman Socar Chatmon-Thomas. “Our city’s job market receives high marks for its consistency, which in turn drives more people to move here. A robust labor pool and an expanding population are key to maintaining a healthy housing industry.”

August 2008 - Single Family Homes

• 1,992 was the number of homes sold, down 20% from one year ago
• $195,000 was the median price, up 2% increase from one year ago and a record for August
• $521,503,608 was the total dollar volume of properties sold, down 20% from one year ago

The Austin Board of REALTORS® is a non-profit, voluntary organization representing more than 9,000 licensed REALTORS® in Central Texas.

Credits: RIS Media

The decision by the federal government to take over Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae has created some buzz in the local housing industry on how it could help stabilize the mortgage industry and ultimately stimulate sales.

Since the announcement, interest rates for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages have dropped, and the government’s actions are expected to make it easier for buyers to obtain a mortgage in the coming months.

“The lowering of interest rates is always a good thing to attract buyers,” says Tom McCormick, president of Astoria Homes. “I think people are awfully nervous about the economy and sensitive to the opportunities that are out there. It’s one of those deals that if you were considering buying a home, it will be hard not to look because I think this will be the best time people will ever see.”

The local housing market has been picking up, and this will make it even better, McCormick says.

New-home closings have remained weak with only one month so far this year in which there were more than 1,000 sales. The existing-home market has picked up considerably this year: In August sales were 93 percent greater than they were in August 2007, according to the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors.

“If you look at the past six months, I think we are moving in the right direction,” McCormick says. “And I see nothing but good going forward. I think you are going to have much better interest rates and better affordability. The federal government can borrow at the cheapest rates of anybody.”

Before the takeover, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had been government-sponsored enterprises that owned or guaranteed about half of all U.S. mortgages.

Monica Caruso, spokeswoman for the Southern Nevada Home Builders Association, says it’s unfortunate that it had reached the point where the government had to step in, but her industry sees some positives coming out of it.

“It is going to increase the liquidity in mortgage markets and going to restore confidence in the financial markets,” Caruso says. “I believe it is a step in the right direction for the continued recovery in the financial markets.”

That is important to homebuilders who are trying to maintain their financial arrangements with lenders and enable them to move forward with projects, Caruso says. Lending standards have tightened, which was necessary to restore confidence, but some of those standards will likely be loosened, she says.

“I believe it is going to reduce inventory (of existing homes) by making money available to legitimate buyers,” Caruso says.

She says she doesn’t expect new-home construction to pick up significantly in the next six months, not until the supply of resale homes is whittled further. According to the Realtors group, 22,710 existing homes were for sale at the end of August.

Much of the home construction is taking place because buyers want new homes instead of purchasing existing homes, Caruso says. But there is plenty of pent-up demand from aging Baby Boomers who want to upgrade, but can’t do so until they can sell their homes.

“That is one of the stumbling blocks we face,” Caruso says. “They are in our sales office, and hopefully everything that is going on will help that.”

Steve Bottfeld, executive vice president of Marketing Solutions, agreed the short-term benefits for the housing market could be positive with lower interest rates and increased confidence among lenders, but he has questions about the government’s ability to run the entities over the long run.

Bottfeld also says he is concerned that speculators will be bailed out, and that the nation’s debt will continue to increase.

“The problem we have with nationalizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is the same problem we have with Iraq,” Bottfeld says. “We have no exit strategy.”

The government had no choice but to act because since both enterprises handle about 50 percent of the mortgages in the country, their failure would have been devastating for the economy, Bottfeld says.

“If either of them failed, we would have a depression in 20 minutes,” Bottfeld says. “But all it is putting a Band Aid on cancer. They have to look at the way loans are done. They have not gone after the root cause.”

That means going after the appraisal industry for falsifying appraisals and Wall Street investment bankers who sold the loans to investors knowing what would happen, Bottfeld says.

The next question is what effect the takeover will have on the ongoing foreclosure crisis. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have increased payments to loan servers as a way to encourage them to help more borrowers avoid foreclosure.

Bottfeld says he expects short sales will take less time to process and foreclosures should be reduced because homeowners can get refinancing. Banks want to get rid of potential foreclosures because they have a lot of nonperforming assets on their books, Bottfeld says.

Resale home inventory

For the second week in a row, the number of resale homes posted on the Multiple Listing Service remained below 22,000, according to Applied Analysis. Sixty-five percent of the homes on the market are either vacant or occupied by a renter. Owners are living in only 35 percent of the homes.

The number of listings is down 24 percent from a year ago. Much of the drop is attributed to fewer listings of owners who live in their units. There were 7,320 homes under contract with 3,050 pending to close.

Crystal Ball housing seminar

One question haunting members of the Las Vegas real estate community on a daily basis is how to cope with hard times. That’s the theme of the Oct. 23 Crystal Ball seminar looking at the valley’s housing market.

Guest speakers will include Frederick Chin, president of Atalon Group, the takeover group that is managing financially troubled Lake Las Vegas. Other speakers are Mary Connelly, president of William Lyon Homes, Astoria’s McCormick and Mark Stark, president of Prudential Americana Realtors. Larry Murphy will focus on third-quarter housing statistics.

“Our goal was to look at problems facing all of us from the perspective of a private builder, public builder, a major developer and major Realtor,” say Bottfeld, who will moderate the event. “How these people deal with their problems teaches us how to better manage our own.”

Credits: In Business Las Vegas

Shrimpers and oystermen are dredging their boats from the muck. Tourist areas on the coast that should be bustling at the start of convention season are flattened. Lingering power outages are keeping offices empty and restaurants closed from Texas through the Midwest.

It will take months or more to tally Hurricane Ike’s financial toll, but one thing is clear: Almost nobody in its path escaped unscathed.

“Every industry has been impacted by this storm,” said Jeff Sjostrom, president of the Galveston Economic Development Partnership.

The storm carried hurricane-force winds as far north as Kentucky — which suffered its widest power outage in history — and driving rain clear into New England.

Risk Management Assessment Inc., which quantifies risks for insurance companies, estimated Ike’s impact would land in the low end of the $6 billion to $16 billion in insured losses that the firm initially predicted.

In Houston, where the booming energy industry has kept the nation’s fourth-largest city economically stable in a nationwide slump, the outlook was downright positive. The city’s port survived with minimal damage, and the Gulf of Mexico’s oil and gas production barely took a dent.

“I’d rather be in Houston right now than Wall Street,” said Leo Linbeck III, a Rice University professor.

Ike crashed ashore last weekend near the mouth of Galveston Bay, which produces about 15 million pounds of seafood each year. Shrimpers and oystermen there will practically have to start over. Even those who can salvage their trawlers will have to cope with the carpet of debris Ike dumped on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico.

Seafood wholesalers were hit hard, too. Ike destroyed the docks owned by Prestige Oysters Inc., one of the biggest harvesters in the Gulf, and slid its shrimp houses off their slabs. Owner Lisa Halili is wondering what to do with an arriving flock of immigrant fishermen who hold work visas but no longer have jobs.

More than half the oysters sold in the eastern U.S. come from Louisiana and Texas. But Ike killed oyster reefs with waves of shocking saltwater, and officials say Ike’s march through Galveston Bay will be catastrophic to an industry that generates more than $100 million annually.

“This storm, nobody realizes, has totally wiped out the industry,” Halili said. “You can’t buy an oyster reef. It takes hundreds of years to get them back.”

Representatives of Louisiana’s $2.6 billion seafood industry are asking the state’s congressional delegation for federal relief. Early estimates indicate the industry sustained up to $300 million in economic losses to Hurricanes Gustav and Ike.

Cattle ranchers lost entire herds in some Texas counties, and animals not among the 4,000 killed right away may still die from eating the grass or drinking water tainted by salt.

More than 11,000 workers have filed unemployment insurance claims in the wake of Ike, according to the Texas Workforce Commission.

The longer it takes to reopen schools and businesses, the greater the risk that Galveston’s best workers will be snapped up by other areas.

Downtown on Galveston’s historic Strand, Eddie Ferre, whose father owns Luigi’s restaurant, said it will be December before they can gut their flooded restaurant and reopen. All their waiters moved to Dallas and Corpus Christi to find new jobs, he said.

Even if Luigi’s could reopen sooner, Ferre’s mother, Martha, wondered who would come. Their upper-tier clientele comes from the big beach houses on the hard-hit western end of the island.

In the short term, the area will benefit from the huge influx of government recovery spending and insurance money, said Galveston County Judge Jim Yarbrough, the county’s highest-ranking elected official. But the recovery will be uneven.

“Property values are probably going to take a punch in the stomach,” and many people will initially be afraid to rebuild, Yarbrough said.

Most of Galveston’s workforce is stuck off the island, which will remain closed to residents for at least another week. The city decided its water, sewer and electrical infrastructure was too badly damaged to support its population of nearly 60,000.

At the same time, out-of-state recovery crews stream onto the island every day, snapping up business that local companies need to stay afloat.

“Why can’t we get our own people here?” asked Patricia Bolton-Legg, who runs Competitive Electric with her husband. “We get all of these out-of-towners here. They’re going to take our business.”

Ike slammed Galveston in the midst of a nearly decade-long economic renaissance. About $2.5 billion of new construction was under way when Ike swamped the narrow island, Sjostrom said. About 80 percent of the island’s structures are still standing, so Galveston will not be starting from scratch.

Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas said she is optimistic that crowds could pack the city’s downtown again as soon as late October.

“We’ve had a lot of storms here,” she said. “People will come back.”

Credits: Associated Press

Texas City Independent School District plans to reopen its campuses Tuesday — and there could be a large influx of new students.

Texas City Superintendent Bob Brundrett told members of the district’s board of trustees at an emergency meeting Thursday that any students who say they are homeless because of damages to their residence from Hurricane Ike must be accepted by the school.

“This is something we need to be prepared for as a district,” Brundrett said. “We have to accept these students at face value when they say they are homeless.”

Brundrett said the district would do research later this year to verify the students are indeed eligible to attend a district campus.

Brundrett is asking all staff of the district’s campuses to report for work Monday. Power has been restored to all the schools.

“We need to restore some sense of normalcy,” Brundrett told the board. “We need to get these kids in a clean, safe place with air and food. I’m not sure how much educating we will do at first, but we need to be fulfilling basic needs for the kids.”

According to a survey done by the school’s principals, 59 percent of the teachers have confirmed they will be at work Monday. According to the survey, some of the district’s teachers are still on Galveston and won’t leave their homes for fear of not being allowed back.

The district will be able to run all of its buses, although some may have to make double runs if there is a large number of new students.

As for damage to the campuses from the storm, the estimated total for repairs is $115,000. Damage to school roofs accounts for $80,000 of that total. The district anticipates all of the money being reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Several of the sports facilities received damage. The scoreboard was destroyed at Stingaree Stadium and damaged part of the track when it collapsed. The southwest light pole of the stadium is also without power.

Robinson Stadium had part of its fence blown down, and a light pole along the third base line is tipped over. A door on a storage garage has also been blown in, with no one able to get inside.

Credits: Galvnews

Along – inevitably – came Dick Lavine, of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, to pooh-pooh Arthur Laffer’s assertion this week that, man, the Texas economy puts California’s in the shade — yes, the dark, snoozy, all-enveloping shade, as opposed to the sunshine of growth and development.

Lavine’s contention: We’re really not all that good. “Texas’ current policies,” he said in a statement, “leave us with a less-educated, less-trained work force and consumers with lower median income. That isn’t the way to attract economic activity.” Further, he said, as quoted in the Austin American-Statesman, the state’s tax climate doesn’t explain Texas’ present prosperity. “It is what’s underneath the ground,” he affirmed – a reference to oil and natural gas, in which the state remains comparatively rich at a time of burgeoning worldwide demand for both commodities.

Let’s unpack this thing a little bit. Can Laffer’s report, written on behalf of the free-market-oriented Texas Public Policy Foundation (of which I am a senior fellow), be so remarkably obtuse in its attribution of Texas prosperity to good economic policies? That is, to low taxes and business-friendly ideas and modes?

It’s certainly one way of putting the matter, and given the bias of the Center for Public Policy Priorities toward government activism and spending, there’s no surprise in Lavine’s reaction. We have on display here two different ways of looking at the world.

Laffer’s way emphasizes incentives and human choice; Lavine’s, and the center’s, stresses affirmative and specific direction, accomplished through the deliberate diversion of resources from one locus to another. The center’s approach is top-down – the nudge, the shove, sometimes the kick in the behind. A low-tax, low-regulation policy points to no specified outcomes beyond the ones that human creativity and initiative come up with. Between the two approaches there’s miles of territory.

But we’re not talking theory alone here. We are talking – Laffer is at least, and we should closely attend – actual results, real outcomes in the real world. Freedom works. No kidding.

Energy prices can’t possibly explain the continuing prosperity of Texas. They help state revenues, sure, but they also hurt consumers. High gasoline prices discourage pumping gasoline and thus paying gasoline taxes; pinched incomes discourage shopping and thus paying more sales tax. Energy probably is a wash right now for the state in terms of revenues.

More to the point, Lavine errs in suggesting that pro-business policies (low taxes, light regulation) don’t encourage business to do business here. A prime Laffer insight in constructing his extraordinary supply side theories is that taxpayers respond to incentives. If the taxpayer figures out, and it doesn’t take long, that the more he earns, the more he pays, pretty soon he starts assessing how hard and long he works. By contrast, if he finds that tax policy rewards work and investment, he says to himself, golly, I think I’ll work and invest more. Duh.

My pal the late Molly Ivins used to ridicule the Legislature for yokelry, dim-wittedness, and so on. But let me tell you, no set of representative officials that understands the connection between incentives and outcomes — and acts on that understanding — can be called dumber than, say, the Harvard economics faculty.

As for Lavine’s plaint concerning schools: come on, Dick, own up to the fact that the multi-multi-millions we now pour into public schools, compared to the mere millions of not many years ago, haven’t improved the schools. And won’t, until the pursuit of knowledge becomes a cultural commitment, a duty rather than just a right, an obligation, an ethic. I haven’t heard of many ethics you can purchase with money.

If the Center for Public Policy Priorities genuinely wants to upgrade education, it should promote instead of obstruct development of new models. A robust commitment to school choice, on the part of all interested parties, would likely spur not only creation of a network of innovative private schools but also new interest by the public schools in meeting customer needs.

CPPP’s commitment to a command model in economics likely explains its touching faith in the ability of government to triumph by throwing money, money, and more money at every problem in sight.

We order you: Grow! Get better! That’s the command model at work. Well, as Art Laffer reminds us, it really isn’t working in California and likely wouldn’t work here either.

Just to be sure, though, let’s not try it.

Credits: East Texas Review

Travis Johnson’s expansive home in Missouri City’s Estates of Silver Ridge suffered what he called “an almost unexplainable amount of damage” from the cruel, capricious fury of Hurricane Ike in the wee hours Saturday morning.

Once the roof came off, several ceilings collapsed and sheets of rain poured in. For a while, Johnson and his wife and young children took refuge in a closet, hoping for the best.

So, the Texans’ mammoth defensive tackle was asked after the team’s first post-Ike practice Tuesday if it’s going to be difficult for him to focus on playing football anytime soon?

No, he said. Is he disheartened? Absolutely. Is he distracted? Absolutely not.

“This is what bought me the house in the first place,” Johnson said. “This is my job. To be a professional, you’ve got to take the good with the bad. We’re blessed to be able to come out here and enjoy our teammates, our friends.

“There’s a lot of stuff I’ve got to figure out, but I’ll be all right. It was sad to see my house like that. You work to have the American dream, to have a nice house, a car, two dogs and a cat. To see it destroyed, it’s kind of disheartening. But you’ve got to pick yourself up.”

That was a universal theme for Texans players, coaches and executives as they returned to work after an unnerving and ill-timed four-day hiatus caused by one of the most devastating natural disasters ever to strike the area. Conspicuously lost in the tempest was the scheduled home opener against the Baltimore Ravens, a chance to seek redemption for an ugly season-opening defeat in Pittsburgh.

Instead, the Texans must confront the reality of having to play 15 weeks in a row — and away from Houston the next two Sundays. Against a backdrop of rumbling 18-wheelers and blaring police sirens (a major disaster-relief staging area has been established nearby), their forlorn-looking deflated practice bubble and the gap-toothed retractable roof of Reliant Stadium, they began preparing for their trip to Nashville to play the Tennessee Titans.

“It’s going to be very challenging for us,” quarterback Matt Schaub said, “but it’s something that, collectively, we can get done. If we rally around each other, we can accomplish some great things. When we’re between the white lines or in the meeting rooms, we (need to) focus on what it takes for us to be successful, which will not only be therapeutic for us but also for the city and our fans.

“Once we get outside this facility and go back home, that’s when we can think about — those personal things we have to deal with.”

The Texans’ new normal is an imperfect environment, one that’s clearly less than conducive to tackling a nemesis in the Titans to whom they’ve lost in 10 of 12 previous meetings. Yet, as general manager Rick Smith reminded, “That’s the hand we’ve been dealt, and we’ve got to work through it.”

Ike didn’t bring tragedy to anyone in the Texans’ extended family, just a thousand irritations — some major, most minor. They’re dealing with the same problems as most of the area’s population — whether it’s a lack of electricity or no fuel for their cars or a lot of spoiling food in the fridge or toppled tree trunks resting on rooftops.

Mario’s home smashed

A mighty pine bashed into defensive end Mario Williams’ new Memorial-area home and the roof of his mother’s home in Sugar Land flew off. Owner Bob McNair may be a billionaire entrepreneur/businessman, but he wasn’t spared Ike’s ravages, either. His River Oaks mansion has no power and many beautiful old trees on the property have been lost. At least one of them is resting on his roof, too.

But, like Johnson, McNair hadn’t lost his perspective.

“It’s such a tremendous tragedy,” he said. “The breadth of the storm — it was as big as the state of Texas. We’d never experienced anything like that. The people in Galveston and the Bolivar Peninsula took the brunt of it, much more than we in Houston did. Our hearts go out to them. All we have to do is clean up the debris and repair our houses, but many lost everything.”

McNair concedes that football, despite all he personally has invested in it, is suddenly a secondary concern.

“It’s a distraction and one that should be a distraction because there’s human loss involved,” he said. “We should be concerned about that. But everyone has come together. We appreciate the security, the fire departments and the police departments. We’re all in the same boat with the loss of power. Very few of us have any. As the old saying goes, ‘You don’t appreciate the water until the well goes dry.’ You flip the switch and nothing happens. That’s a reminder.

“But a lot people lived in this country for a long time without power and running water, and they did just fine. So I’m sure we’ll work our way through this.”

As Johnson suggested, it shouldn’t be that hard.

“I can’t do anything about what happened,” tight end Owen Daniels said, “so all I can do now is focus and get ready for Sunday.”

Before Ike struck, the admitted weather junkie had confessed the prospect of experiencing his first hurricane excited him. Daniels now understands the folly of that thinking, after his home also took some nasty blows.

“It’s a mess,” he said. “I have big holes in my ceilings (and) the carpet’s ruined. I’d say I really don’t like (hurricanes). ”

Place of refuge

But Daniels never lost electricity, so he became a popular destination or, as he called it, “a house of refuge” for perspiring teammates – if not an extended-stay option.

“With my guestroom ruined,” he said, “there’s really no place to sleep except the couches downstairs.”

More than one Texan insisted the team could profit from its shared misery by pulling closer. Receiver Andre Johnson said he’d also welcome teammates “hanging out” at his Bellaire house, which wasn’t damaged and has electricity.

“We’ve been calling around, checking on each other and making sure everyone was OK,” Johnson said. “It’s difficult. All we can do is just help each other as much as we can. And help other people around our neighborhoods, too, if they need it.”

The scope of the disaster fully hit home for Johnson when he approached the stadium and saw the gaping holes where roof sections had been. Being from Florida, he had experienced a hurricane’s fury before, but, he admitted, “It was bad, worse that what I thought it would be. It’s a devastating time.”

Credits: Chron

Dallas ISD school officials visited hurricane shelters this morning to enroll children who were displaced by Hurricane Ike.

The representatives were expected at Samuell-Grand Recreation Center, Loos Field House, Ellis Davis Field House and the Dallas Convention Center. Bilingual staff members planned to be at each shelter.

“If the parent wants them in school, we will get them in school,” said Jose Luis Torres, executive director of parent services and school choice for Dallas ISD.

At Samuell Grand Recreation Center in East Dallas, school district representative Rene Martinez helped with enrollment and registration. The center had 23 children ranging from ages 5 to 15.

There is no definitive time-limit for the evacuees to be in Dallas in order to register their children to school. “If it’s one day, it’s one day,” said Mr. Martinez. “Two days, two days. We’re taking this on a day-to-day basis.”

The center, which was converted into a shelter by the American Red Cross, has hosted evacuees since last week when Hurricane Ike hit the Texas Coast.

“We’re just trying to make life as easy and comfortable during this time for these folks,” Mr. Martinez said.

School representatives were also at the convention center recruiting parents and children this morning and a town hall meeting may be held in the afternoon, said Dr. Torres.

The Dallas Morning News was denied access to the convention center and unable to contact school representatives on scene.

As of Saturday, the convention center had about 250 children staying there, Dr. Torres said. The number of evacuees at shelters continues to fluctuate as people find housing with relatives and at hotels. He said the district expected to enroll about 100 children at the convention center today.

After Hurricane Katrina, Dr. Torres said about 2,500 evacuees enrolled in the Dallas school district. The majority of those children were elementary school students and some still remain.

Evacuee children in the Dallas area who are not staying in one of the shelters can enroll at their nearest school.

Fort Worth ISD officials are preparing for representatives to visit each evacuee shelter in the city. District spokesman Clint Bond said the Fort Worth ISD hopes to make those visits this week to help families decide whether to enroll their children.

Lewisville ISD also is accepting evacuee enrollment.

The Texas Education Agency continues to leave it to parents to decide if it makes sense to enroll their children in local schools based on their circumstances.

Parents should consider how long their children will be in the area. Some Gulf Coast school districts will extend the school year to make up the time lost from Hurricane Ike.

Credits: Dallas News

Rescuers uncovered obliterated neighborhoods in hard-to-reach areas of the U.S. Gulf Coast today, and feared they would find more victims than survivors of Hurricane Ike, the storm responsible for the deaths of at least 34 people across nine states and the evacuation of thousands from south Texas.

Many of those killed lived far to the north of the Gulf Coast as the storm slogged across the U.S. midsection, leaving a trail of flooding and destruction. The storm claimed more than 80 lives in the Caribbean before reaching Texas.

Houston, littered with glass from skyscrapers, was placed under a weeklong curfew and millions of people in the storm’s path remained in the dark. Tensions were rising among more than 1,000 who had spent several nights at the city’s George R. Brown Convention Center. They complained that they couldn’t get information about how to get food and clean clothes.

A massive effort was under way across Texas to get food, water and ice to people who had no power. It could be weeks until the more than 2 million without power have their lights turned on again. Lines snaked for blocks down side streets at gas stations that had little fuel to pump, and thousands packed shelters looking for dry places to sleep.

A Texas helicopter task force flew 115 rescuers onto the heavily damaged resort barrier island of Bolivar Peninsula, just east of the hard-hit city of Galveston. Task force leader Chuck Jones said they were the first rescuers to reach the area.

“They had a lot of devastation over there,” Jones said. “It took a direct hit.”

Some subdivisions in the area are completely gone, he said.

Beginning cleanup was still a distant thought as rescue teams continued going door-to-door to look for survivors and bring them to shelters. Crews had no idea what they would find on the peninsula, which from the air, revealed house after shattered house.

Relief workers were hoping to make it back from Bolivar to Galveston tonight, but they were packing for an overnight stay just in case.

Snapshots of damage were emerging everywhere: In Galveston, oil was coating the water and beaches with a sheen, and residents were ordered off the beach. Dozens of cement vaults popped up out of the water-swollen ground, many disgorging their coffins. Several came to rest against a chain link fence, choked with garbage and trinkets left behind by mourners.

Rescuers said they had saved nearly 2,000 people from waterlogged streets and splintered houses by Sunday afternoon. Many had ignored evacuation orders and tried to ride out the storm. Now they were boarding buses for indefinite stays at shelters in San Antonio and Austin.

President George W. Bush made plans to visit the Gulf Coast on Tuesday. He said the hurricane had constricted the nation’s energy supply, driving up prices and frustration. After a briefing on hurricane recovery efforts, the president said he was concerned about the “upward pressure” on prices for consumers.

Bush also said restoring power is an extremely high priority and urged power companies to “please recruit out-of-state people to come and help you do this.”

There were still at least 37,000 evacuees seeking temporary shelter in the state’s 284 facilities, officials said Monday.

Canned goods and thawing meat were helping Susie Griffin feed her husband, 24-year-old daughter and 2-year-old grandson in a home with no water. But the Orange resident did not know how long that would last — she is running out, and was first in line to get food, water and ice from a National Guard supply station Sunday.

“Once it defrosts, you’re in trouble,” she said of the small amount of meat she has in her freezer. “I don’t think anything is open. You have to go to Louisiana, but you’ve gotta have gas to go there.”

Ike was downgraded to a tropical depression as it moved north. Roads were closed in Kentucky because of high winds. As far north as Chicago, dozens of people in a suburb had to be evacuated by boat. Two million people were without power in Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana.

Credits: Boston Herald