For many Jewish residents of southeast Texas, Hurricane Ike amounted to several heart-pounding hours of blasting 100 mph winds and driving rain in the middle of Shabbos. On Sunday, after the weakened tropical cyclone pushed farther up the Mississippi valley, those same residents were thankful that it hadn’t been any worse.

“People are for the most part doing okay,” reported R’ Eliezer Lazaroff, executive director of the Chabad-Lubavitch center serving the Texas Medical Center in Houston, which runs an apartment complex for patients and their families known as Aishel House and coordinates programming for Jewish students at Rice University, two local medical schools and a law school.

When it made landfall in the predawn hours of Sept. 13, Ike slammed into the barrier island of Galveston, Texas, with 110 mph winds. According to news reports, flooding from the hurricane’s storm surge and a larger-than-usual wind field had already inundated most of the island, which underwent mandatory evacuations on Friday. Casualties remained low, with no fatalities recorded as of Sunday morning. Thousands of people along the Texas coast were stranded, awaiting rescue.

Monetary damage was high, with estimates of losses approaching $8 billion. Omri Shafran, a 32-year-old Israeli resident of Houston with properties throughout the metropolitan area and across Galveston, said that Ike could well end up costing him ‘tens of millions of dollars.’ “I have insurance for all of the buildings, except for one in Galveston,” he said. “In the southwest part of Houston, 18 town-homes were damaged lightly, while all of the windows in one office building in Humble flew away with the wind.”

In Houston’s Uptown section, R’ Chaim Lazaroff said that he spent Friday night and Shabbos morning in a state of disbelief as the winds howled, and his house shook. For the most part, authorities did not order evacuations in Houston, 45 miles inland from Galveston. “It was pretty wild,” detailed R’ Lazaroff, co-director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Uptown and program director of the Chabad-Lubavitch regional headquarters in Houston. “The whole house was vibrating from the winds. When I looked out the window, I saw heavy debris flying, and water was coming in from around the window frame. “When I saw that we were losing the siding on one side, I moved my family to the other side of the house.”

The regional headquarters, which recently underwent a massive expansion project, didn’t fare any better. It’s windows, which were designed specifically to sustain 120 mph winds, were unharmed, but the sun screen of the building’s signature rooftop pavilion was ripped off. A menorah on the building’s roof was similarly torn from its supports, and a perimeter fence costing $10,000 was toppled by the winds.

On Shabbos afternoon, Eliezer Lazaroff “waded through the water” to check in on the frightened guests of the Aishel House, none of whom were used to tropical weather. “I was concerned, because they’re all not from Houston,” said Lazaroff. “During Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, the apartments there were flooded. Some of the people were quite terrified, but thank G-d, we were spared. “Right now, there’s no electricity, so the primary concern is food spoiling in their freezers,” he continued. “We’re still checking in on them periodically and making sure they have plenty to eat.”

(Source: Chabad.org)