Displaced by Hurricane Ike, sisters find refuge in Wisconsin
Reagan Lawhon and Azo Poupore arrived in Madison Tuesday night clutching cigar boxes full of trinkets they've collected on the road since they evacuated their home on Galveston Island, Texas, nearly a week ago.
Refugees from Hurricane Ike, Reagan, 11, and Azo, 4, first stayed with their parents at a friend's apartment in Houston. Worried that the roof would come off the apartment building, they spent Friday and early Saturday morning -- when the storm's center hit -- cooped up in the cool humidor of a nearby cigar shop with about 10 other people, Reagan said. It was a little bit bigger than a walk-in closet, she said.
"I knew the expression 'the wind is howling,' but I never knew it could actually sound like that," Reagan said. "It sounded like a chorus of dogs."
The girls are going to spend time with their aunt, Polly Craig, and her family in Mazomanie, while their parents survey the damage and reassess their lives.
The parents, Nic Poupore and Audra Sewell, are waiting to get back to their home, Craig said.
"They have to decide what to do with their lives. They are either going to repair what they have or look for something different," she said.
Reagan understood the need for the family to split up. "When they go back to Galveston they can go alone. We don't need to see that devastation," she said.
Describing what she saw from the window of the apartment where they stayed after the hurricane, Reagan said there was debris everywhere. "It looked like a giant had taken a house and crushed it like a cracker," she said.
The family lives in an apartment in the historic district of Galveston Island that Nic Poupore, a sculptor, built inside a warehouse, where he keeps his art and equipment.
"But from what we've heard, the art equipment is all under 10 feet of water," Reagan said.
Reagan said she didn't think the hurricane was going to do much damage when they left during the mandatory evacuation last Wednesday. The family packed a basket full of clothes for the four of them. Reagan and her mother brought along their computers.
"I took most of my valuable stuff. I took my MP3 player and cell phone, and I took a box of treasures. Most of my most valuable things," Reagan said.
"The thing that I most worry about is ... my cat, Licorice. I haven't seen her for two months," she said.
In her cigar box, Reagan kept a small stuffed giraffe she got out of a claw machine in a restaurant after evacuating. She named him Ike after the hurricane.
Wearing a heart bracelet and necklace that her mother gave her before she left for Madison, Azo said her mother told her, "My heart will be with you."
Azo said she was scared of the hurricane. "I thought the hurricane was going to hurt us," she said. "I was worried about all the people in Galveston."
Texas officials mounted the largest rescue operation in that state's history on Sunday, taking nearly 2,000 people by boat and helicopter out of flood-ravaged towns on the coast in the aftermath of the hurricane. Millions of others coped without electricity and faced shortages of food, water and gasoline.
Officials in the hardest-hit communities along the coast said that it could be weeks before the estimated 1.2 million residents who fled inland could return home. It is estimated about 140,000 remained behind.
The giant storm has been blamed for at least 51 deaths in the United States. In Galveston, rescue workers have so far discovered five bodies, and that toll might rise.
Though the storm was not as strong as expected, TV cameras have shown scenes of destruction all along the coast. Insurance companies and the state of Texas could be liable for up to $16 billion in damage, some estimate.
Houston, the nation's fourth-largest city and the center of its oil and gas industry, was largely paralyzed by the storm. Most of the city had no power, no water and no functioning sewers.
Pat Poupore, Azo's grandmother, who spends her summers and falls in Michigan and the rest of the year in Texas, was on her way to Mazomanie Tuesday night to help with the girls.
She said that after the hurricane hit, the family stayed in an apartment in 90-degree heat with mosquitoes chewing them up.
"They finally left and have been homeless since," she said. "FEMA doesn't answer the phone. They don't respond to anything you ask. The shelters are full. They will take you for dinner, but they won't let you live there. They have been homeless since then and have absolutely nothing."
Nic Poupore finally decided to send the kids to stay with his sister in Mazomanie. Polly Craig went to Austin, Texas, to pick up the girls and fly with them to Madison.
The parents are staying in their car somewhere between Austin and Houston, waiting to get back onto Galveston Island, said Pat Poupore, who talked to her son Tuesday.
"They have no way to support (the girls). They have no way to eat, no way to live."
Samara Kalk Derby/The Capital Times
Reagan Lawhon (right) and her little sister, Azo Poupore, arrive at Dane County Regional Airport on Tuesday night with their aunt, Polly Craig of Mazomanie.
