HOUSTON, TX - Hurricane Ike's fearsome winds damaged more than half of Houston's 2,000 apartment complexes, tearing off roofs, tumbling walls and wreaking havoc on buildings with a history of decay and neglect, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of new city data. Nearly 150 apartment complexes, home to more than 93,000 renters, were damaged severely. Most of those apartments were located among the city's most vulnerable neighborhoods, where blight already had driven many buildings into disrepair even before the storm, according to the data.
Although many residents have resolved to rebuild their homes and resume their lives, others were driven into federal aid programs or new complexes, where the damage was less severe. "Many of those (apartments) we were looking at because of maintenance issues had sustained considerable damage," said Doug Anders, a Houston police officer recently tapped to push for better coordination among the various city departments with apartment inspection responsibility. "The materials are falling apart to start with, and the wind comes along and tears them down the rest of the way," he said.
Apartment damage could be particularly widespread in Houston. More than half of its residents rent, and the city has a glut of older, low-income units that grew during Houston's boom three decades ago, when many apartments were built quickly to accommodate housing demand. Mayor Bill White in recent months has ordered increased scrutiny of multifamily structures, pledging $1 million a year in new staff after the Houston Chronicle earlier this year documented substandard conditions citywide.
Collected under Anders' direction by police after Ike's landfall, the city's apartment inventory provides a look at the extent of apartment damage across Houston. The properties were categorized based on the extent of their damages, allowing code inspectors to focus their time on those where conditions might threaten residents' health. At least 145 complexes sustained severe damage, such as missing roofs, damaged walls or soaked carpets. Among those was Willow Creek Apartments near the South Loop and Gulf Freeway, where winds and flooding left at least nine buildings uninhabitable and 200 residents were forced to move. Estimates are likely conservative because police have yet to canvass the entire city, Anders said.
In some of the hardest-hit complexes, residents already were struggling, in some cases paying rent through government subsidies. According to the data, most of the severely damaged complexes are in neighborhoods where the average building was built before 1980 and where at least half of households earn less than the city median of roughly $40,000 a year. Those areas also suffered the brunt of Ike's winds. As its eye passed over northeast Harris County early Sept. 13, its trailing band of hurricane-force winds, 74 mph and above, savaged the Houston area in an arc stretching from the southwest to the northeast.
At the Crestmont West Apartments on Selinsky Road in south Houston, for example, hundreds of residents were forced to move after wind ripped the roofs from at least 13 buildings, damaging more than 200 units. The property owner, National Community Renaissance, flew in workers to register residents with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It also pro-rated rents, and deposits were refunded to help them relocate, said Jim Aliberti, senior vice president of property management.
Margo Thomas, who lives in a downstairs unit, slept in her bathtub as Ike crossed over her complex, near the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. and South Acres. She was awakened by a crash outside in the early morning hours, and soon after, a neighbor told her their building's roof had been ripped away. Thomas, whose carpets were drenched with water, remains upbeat, noting that the storm forced her to move closer to her daughter in a neighboring complex. "I feel blessed, in a way," Thomas said.
Most of the complex is now shuttered and bare, as workers rip carpets and drywall out of exposed units. A rancid pile of insulation, furniture and appliances stretches across a parking lot, where homeless people last week rummaged for scrap. "It looks nasty. It really does," said John Lovett, a resident who was allowed to stay in the complex. "They'll clean it up, though."
A few blocks east, residents at the Crystal Springs Apartments were spared catastrophe but faced minor damage from the storm. Chiviya Bryant, who lives in a one-bedroom apartment with her three children, still has a hole in her ceiling near the front door. Rain leaks in, she said, soaking the carpets. She worries about mold. "My floor, it's all wet," said Bryant, complaining of a sore throat from the mildewy smell in her apartment. "Why should I pay the rent?" In other complexes, industry officials said, managers moved quickly to avoid further damage, for example, by placing tarps over roofs to prevent leaks from displacing residents and threatening structures.
John Ridgway, president of the Houston Apartment Association and a regional vice president at Pinnacle Realty Management, which manages about 30 properties in the area, said the storm has been a financial challenge for the industry. Some owners face huge costs to cover insurance deductibles. "It has been a big deal, in part because of the things that everybody has had to go through: loss of power, trees down, damage to the roof," he said. Still, Ridgway said the damage is sometimes magnified at apartment complexes. "When a roof in a property is damaged in a storm like this, it's not just one family that's affected. It's multiple families."
Source: chron.com