Survival tales from Hurricane Ike

[peejay 327]

2 were swept across bay and survived

In similar tales, they each fought to stay afloat and dodge debris

By CINDY HORSWELL

2008 Houston Chronicle

Sept. 27, 2008, 11:12PM

Neither Mark Davidson nor Mike Anderson intended to take a 14-mile ride on Hurricane Ike's storm surge after crashing waves and 110-mph winds decimated their beach houses on Bolivar.

Nonetheless, the pair survived — one for 14 hours, another for 36 — as they were swept across East Bay and washed up into Chambers County along with tons of debris from Bolivar beach homes.

What at first seemed implausible — these survivors finding soft drinks, a child's life jacket and even a kayak in the midst of a raging hurricane — is instead a story of two men on two separate journeys with a desperate determination to survive.

Both were rescued among tons of debris, from refrigerators to furniture, compressed like a trash compactor along miles of the mostly uninhabited salt marsh of Chambers County.

Today, the 49-year-old Anderson says it was thoughts of his family that kept him alive. Though his feet are still scabbed and swollen from a flesh-eating bacteria, the other abrasions and ant bites that once covered his body are mostly healed.

Anderson, who spent 36 hours in the water clad only in shorts, was discharged Friday after 11 days in the hospital.

"Sometimes I wanted to give up, but I held on. Thinking of my family kept me alive," Anderson said.

His wife, Dawn, and their two children, ages 6 and 4 months, evacuated their home in Crystal Beach. Anderson stayed behind.

"I thought it would never hit us," he said. "There were people who had sat through Category 3 storms and this was only a 2. Nobody realized the water would be that bad."

But the day before Ike roared ashore, when the sun was still shining, water began to submerge Texas 87, the only exit road for those living on the Bolivar Peninsula.

Plywood and a rafter

About 1 p.m., after telephone pleas from his family, he tried to escape in his van with his two miniature Doberman pinschers and his son's guinea pig. He barely made it across Rollover Pass when water started splashing over his hood and gushing in the windows.

He decided to swim to a sturdy-looking rental house a few hundred yards away, transporting his pets in two trips. On the last trip, he had to dive through the driver's window as the van rolled over.

Once inside the home on 14-foot pilings, he felt safe. He was wrong.

By midnight, waves blew out the windows and knocked the door off its hinges. He stuffed furniture in the gaping holes, but the creaking house began to float.

He dove into the water and clung to the roof until the house began to sink.

Dog paddling through giant ocean swells that often sucked him under, he said, "I bargained with God that I would try to be a better man if he would give me something to float on."

The answer came in some plywood and a rafter, which kept him afloat as the current carried him, along with tons of debris, across the submerged Bolivar Peninsula and East Bay.

He came to a halt about six miles inside Chambers County atop a bed of floating wreckage.

"It felt like I was going 50 miles per hour," he said. He could see treetops poking up from the water.

By the time he stopped, his body had been raked by rain, wind and flying debris.

The debris field turned out to be an excellent salvage yard. He found a pear, a can of Sprite, and some Tupperware to catch rainwater.

He rested there, trying to avoid the alligators and water moccasins.

The next day, helicopters circled overhead, plucking four others from the water, but they didn't see him.

Only after Anderson swam to a nearby oil well did some passers-by hear him yelling for help.

The deep waters had receded, allowing a Smith Point resident and a sheriff's deputy wading in knee-deep water to carry him to their cars, ending the 36-hour-ordeal.

Realizing the mistake

For Mark "Harley" Davidson, 48, it was his training in the U.S. Coast Guard that helped to save him. He spent 14 hours in the water and one night in the hospital, but he said even those 23 years in the Coast Guard were not enough to temper his terror during that long night in the dark.

His wife, Denise, and yellow lab, Daisy, had both heeded the evacuation order. But like Anderson, Davidson never believed he was putting himself in danger by staying.

"I really thought the storm was heading to Freeport," he said.

Yet now, the Davidsons mourn the loss of their quaint white and green clapboard house on Avenue D that was knocked down to its slab.

Davidson realized he had made a terrible mistake staying when Gulf waters began lapping the floor under his stilt house — even on the Friday before the storm came ashore. He went to his dresser and put on his dog tags in case he was found dead.

Waves began crashing through the boarded windows and roaring winds rocked his house off its pilings, setting it adrift with him inside.

"I didn't want to be trapped there," he said, recounting how he swam through his doorway and held on to the roof.

A table and a kayak

When the house hit a dead power line that cut through the roof "like a band saw," he moved hand over hand across that same line to reach a telephone pole.

He could see houses floating and colliding like bumper cars. He sought refuge on another rooftop but slid inside the house as it cracked open. He got his long ponytail tangled on a nail that pulled him underwater.

Struggling to the surface, he decided to swim to the open water, away from flying debris. A small tabletop floated up. He used it like a boogie board.

In the distance, he noticed what he thought were beach houses on the opposite shore in Chambers County.

Instead, he found only a giant debris field of wrecked Bolivar homes.

He climbed on a piece of plywood to rest. "I wondered what else I might find there," he said.

His salvage skills netted him a bottle of Gatorade, a child's life jacket and a kayak.

He drank the Gatorade and used the bottle to bail water from the kayak.

A National Guard helicopter spotted him in the kayak. His 14 hours of hell were over.

Davidson and Anderson, who lost his home and air conditioning business, don't know whether they'll ever go back to Bolivar.

"I would only return if I lived in a recreational vehicle," which could be moved at the first hint of a storm, Davidson said.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6027456.html

[Ban Hammer 14,300]

so this is why they tell people to evacuate the area.

[IAMX 3,055]

Glad he survived, but he certainly isn't getting any praise from me for ignoring warnings and sticking it out anyways, especially sitting right in the Bolivar Peninsula Area, which is sitting right on the gulf, beach side.

[natty bumppo 297]

^ if only ...

[peejay 327]

There are so many other news tid-bits going on right now that this stuff has kind of died off in the national media. Unfortunately there are always clueless fools that remain behind when these mandatory evacuations are in effect. Unfortunately too, these people cannot be forced to leave. They have the right in America to be stupid. The government cannot forcably arrest them for their own safety. They can only warn them of the danger of remaining for certain death. When the cops leave and warn you that you are on your own...maybe you should take the hint. Oh well! What you sow is what you reap.

The local media is full of stories of coastal residents that cannot be accounted for and their relatives that are looking for them. Some of these missing people probably won't ever be found. All the debris of these wrecked homes on Bolivar Peninsula have been pushed by the storm surge into a huge pile on the north shore of East Galveston Bay on the opposite shore from Boliver Peninsula. It will take years (if ever) for the debris to be cleaned up. No telling how many bodies are buried under the mass of trash and debris.

How anyone can be foolish enough to camp out on a peninsula that is only 2-3 feet above sea level when a storm surge of 12 - 20 feet is eminent is beyond comprehension. When you play with fire you are going to get burned. Hurricanes are not to be taken lightly. What were these people thinking?

[natty bumppo 297]

you mean ... darwin lives ?

[peejay 327]

you mean ... darwin lives ?

Survival of the luckiest? The rest are screwed.

I went through my first hurricane as a kid during Hurricane Carla in 1961. Since then I have personally been through and seen the aftermath of several hurricanes and tropical storms. Anybody that lives in an area that is below the level of any possible storm surge is a fool to stay. As if they can do anything to stop the inevitable? My house is 50 miles from the coast and 50+ feet above sea level. Getting hit head on by a major hurricane would be survivable at my house. At 2-3 feet above sea level it is suicide to remain. It is unimaginable why anyone would stay on a coastal area when a hurricane is imminent. I just don't get it. What are these people thinking?

[luckytxn 2,265]

My house is about 25 feet above sea level in League city. It had some damage but can be fixed. Luckily the insurance is paid up. I even left and went to a friends house in the Scarsdale area. It took all day for the water to recede there so I can go assess the damage. My future fiancees business was not so successful. The roof was peeled off like a can and to make matters worse the next day a cold front came through and rained heavily. It will be fixed up eventually.

I have also lived in the area all my life and been through a few Canes. Carla ripped our roof off (Actually a tornado in a cane) when I was a lad. I know and never would stay in or on Galveston or coastal area that is so low in sea level. Most people heeded and knew to leave. It amazed me to know that so many were staying. Galveston is pretty much destroyed. Crystal beach where the idiots stayed is totally gone, no more. Bolivar is gone. (My fav fish spot is bolivar pennisula)

I laughed a bit when I heard of his bug and ant bites. After three days of clean up I was chewed up buy skeeters, ants and 3 wasps. Still have scabs from most of them. Darwin or not it seems God looks after fools at times.

[luckytxn 2,265]

Ohand one more thing. If the Cane had come into Freeport like he thought then he would have gotten hit by the NE section of the storm and anyone familar with these storms knows that is usually the worst place to be. The storm surge is just as high also. He was a moron.