The Texas Association of Realtors held their annual convention in Galveston this year. Interestingly enough, the dates coincided with Hurricane Ike’s second anniversary.
Given the destruction caused by Hurricane Ike, I am astonished at the improvement in the City of Galveston. True, a few buildings are still boarded up, and some are gone completely -- but overall, the city looks really great! In fact, if I hadn’t seen the piles of trash and the blue tarps myself, I wouldn’t believe that a major hurricane had scored a direct hit here.
Galveston (and Houston, as well) are to be doubly congratulated. It is easy to forget that we took a one-two punch that week. It was in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike (and over a battery-powered radio to boot!) that I heard of the national subprime mortgage crash. So our region's recovery (both phyically and economically) is twice as impressive.
Roger Martin