Study: Ike gets nearly half of Harris County homes

HOUSTON (AP) - Hurricane Ike damaged nearly half the homes in Harris County and left more than 18,000 uninhabitable, according to a new study.

The small Galveston Bay community of Shoreacres, located about 30 miles southeast of Houston, was hit the hardest. Nearly 60 percent of the homes there were destroyed or suffered greater than 50 percent damage when Ike came ashore near Galveston on Sept. 13.

"It's horrific," Shoreacres resident Nancy Schnell said of the conditions in her town.

Her family has been living in a travel trailer parked on their property while contractors rebuild the house.

The study, done by the Harris County Housing Authority, was based on inspections of 774,000 of the county's 994,000 residential units from Sept. 23 through Nov. 13, the Houston Chronicle reported Wednesday.

A team of 200 inspectors detailed the damage to houses, apartments and mobile homes. Homes determined to have major damage - 51 percent or more of their value - were considered uninhabitable.

According to the study, 48 percent of the county's dwelling units sustained minor damage - 50 percent of value or less. Less than 1 percent sustained major damage.

The value of Shoreacres homes left uninhabitable by Ike was $27 million, the report said.

The total value of residential property damage in Harris County was $8.2 billion. The monetary value of damaged property in Houston - $4.6 billion - was higher than in smaller cities because of higher property values. But smaller communities sustained major damage to more of their homes than Houston did.

El Lago, a southeast Harris County town of about 4,100 people, was second to Shoreacres with 12.6 percent of its homes destroyed or sustaining greater than 50 percent damage. After that was Seabrook at 11.4 percent and Nassau Bay at 10.1 percent.

The study will help officials plan for housing needs in Ike's aftermath, said Guy Rankin, the housing authority's chief executive.