Article from "THE WALLSTREET JOURNAL".
HOUSTON -- The nation's energy capital is, for now, anything but.
Four days after Hurricane Ike roared through Houston, at least 1.8 million households and businesses coped without electricity. Gasoline and diesel supplies were scarce, and many had no running water.
Which explains the odd spectacle of the Hotel Indigo bucket brigade. No water means no sanitation -- a quickly deteriorating situation for the posh west Houston hotel. In desperation, hotel General Manager Joseph Zaffuta sent his staff on a pool raid.
They dunked the Indigo's fleet of hotel-room trash cans into a neighboring swimming pool and carted the water back to their hotel -- where they trudged from room to room each day, flushing stagnant toilets.
The devastated Gulf Coast has begun to shift from search-and-rescue mode to a mammoth cleanup job. President George W. Bush flew in Tuesday to survey the damage and promise federal aid, including coverage of hotel costs for evacuees who can't return home. Mr. Bush promised a "better tomorrow."
[Jesus Molina, working for an independent power contractor, works to restore power to a traffic light in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike in Houston.] Associated Press
Jesus Molina, working for an independent power contractor, works to restore power to a traffic light in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike in Houston.
But brighter days may be some time coming. The major regional utility, CenterPoint Energy Inc., said that 1.4 million customers are still in the dark and warned it may be two weeks or longer before power is fully restored to metro Houston, the nation's fourth-largest city. Entergy Texas Inc., which covers other parts of east Texas, said it may not restore service to all 370,000 disrupted accounts until Oct. 6.
All across this city, executives and managers and clerks and pizzeria owners have had to figure out how to make do.
At the Mint Cafe, a Mediterranean restaurant getting minimal electricity, owner Salem Dergham brought in some portable coolers and opened for lunch offering only a couple of salads and sandwiches he could prepare using a gas grill. Customers were sparse.
With only one working refrigerator, he had already lost $2,500 of ingredients and had to shoo away passersby who hoped to make dinner out of the spoiled items he had discarded. Choosing optimism over despair, Mr. Dergham kept busy Tuesday making hummus in the hopes that power, and customers, would return by morning.
Those coping without electricity are well-aware that their woes seem trivial in the wake of the largest storm to hit Texas in a quarter century. Hurricane Ike has been blamed for at least 40 deaths in several U.S. states; in Texas, 3,540 people were rescued from flooded or wind-shredded homes on the coast, and 29,800 evacuees remain in shelters. As Mr. Dergham put it: "There are always people in worse situations, so I can't complain."
But across the city, tempers were still fraying, especially in gasoline lines, which stretched for three hours or longer at the few stations open. Scuffles broke out in some lines, and some station managers handed out free snacks to try to keep the peace.
For Houstonians, whose city is the hub of the nation's domestic energy production and oil refining, it is a painful irony to contemplate power outages and fuel shortages that may last weeks. "It's pretty frustrating and aggravating," said Mike Niblett, who said he drove around for hours looking for an open gas station before getting in a line that stretched around the block.
Fuel to keep generators humming is especially prized; to conserve, residents and businesses with backup power are trying to use as little as possible.
Jess Stuart said he hasn't taken a shower since 10:30 p.m. Friday, just before the hurricane roared in. He is using a generator to keep his refrigerator going, but not the pump for the water well that supplies his ranch in Richmond, Texas.
"I put Speed Stick [deodorant] on every two hours," he said. "I haven't had anyone tell me I smell bad. But I'm sure I do."
Thirty-five H-E-B grocery stores had reopened in the area by Tuesday with the help of small generators, but portable toilets were the best they could offer for sanitation. Scott McClelland, president of the H-E-B chain, is glad to have those. "One thing I can tell you about hurricanes," he said, "is that experience breeds competence."
As Ike drew near, Mr. McClelland reserved the portable toilets and parked refrigerated trailers outside his stores to save some of his dairy products.
Mr. McClelland advised his employees to "follow their noses" to ferret out spoiling meat, fish and other perishables. He hired 50 dump trucks to come to his stores as soon as the wind and rain lifted so employees could toss out the spoilage.
And he is looking the other way when employees show up in shorts in the muggy heat. "I don't think we're going to write anyone up for missing their uniform," he said. "We're just so happy to have them."
For other business owners, adjusting has been more difficult. Shannon Chapman, a real-estate agent specializing in apartment leasing, has been taking calls on her cellphone from desperate residents whose homes were destroyed in the storm. She is working to find them places to stay -- but with the power out at her office, she can't print out the leasing contracts used by her agency, In the Loop Properties.
She is hoping landlords will accept a good-faith security deposit, assuming her clients can find a working ATM to get cash.
At the Hotel Indigo, the staff remained wearily polite as the fourth day without power dragged on. The kitchen wasn't open. The rooms were so dark, guests had to prop doors open as daylight faded to get a dim glow from the emergency lighting in the halls. The carpets were damp in some areas, the air was slightly musty, and a clerk at the front desk smiled under tousled hair that testified to the lack of showers.
The general manager, Mr. Zaffuta, procured a huge generator just after the storm, at a price of $25,000 a week, but had no diesel fuel to run it and no electrician to connect it. "So it's sitting there teasing me," he said.
At 2:30 p.m., he finally got the generator going, though the hotel isn't taking new reservations until full power is restored.
Along with its oil, Houston is famed for its strip clubs -- one business venue where a dim, sweaty ambiance might not hurt. Yet most awaited the restoration of electricity to reopen.
Rick's Cabaret in North Houston will begin welcoming customers at 11 a.m. Wednesday. "We just want to get our people working again. Let them make some money," said Chief Executive Officer Eric Langan. "
—Rebecca Smith contributed to this article.
Write to Kris Hudson at kris.hudson@wsj.com and Stephanie Simon at stephanie.simon@wsj.com
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