Tallying the toll of Hurricane Ike (with new photo gallery)

The homes at Land’s End were just the beginning of Hurricane Ike’s damage to American shoreline properties.

Even before the Category Two storm devastated Galveston and the Texas coast, the massive hurricane was kicking up water that washed through the first floors of about nine homes in Destin Pointe. The waves left behind about two feet of sand piled up on Land’s End Drive.

“We lost our beach club pool, the beach is gone again and a lot of the houses are damaged, too,” said Susan Barnes, property manager at Destin Pointe. “It was nothing completely catastrophic but it caught us by surprise more than anything. Once we saw it was going to Texas we kind of let our guard down — until we saw this big surf coming.”

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For a photo gallery of the damage at Destin Pointe, click here.

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Even if they knew about the estimated 3 to 6 foot surge, the already “critically eroded” property was exposed after a protective berm of sand was all but eaten by Hurricane Gustav a few weeks back.

The one-two punch left parts of Holiday Isle smarting from a storm that was hundreds of miles away.

On Monday, crews were busy digging out Land’s End road in Destin Pointe with earth movers. Marvin Van Tassel, a contract worker, was nearby, hand shoveling sand like snow from a sidewalk.

“All these houses lost the first floor,” he said. “I’d like to say we dodged a bullet, but we paid a pretty good price for what it was. And God help us if another one comes in soon.”

Barnes said that the homes are mainly part-time residences and that most of the owners didn’t have furnishings on the first floor since they recognized that they would be washed out in the event of a surge.

Ike also finished the job on one of the condo’s pools that was damaged by Gustav. Monday morning, water had leaked out of the pool and it was full of sand and storm debris. The condo’s association will meet in November to determine the fate of the pool and poolhouse, which have been rebuilt after being destroyed by previous hurricanes.
Neighboring Jetty East told a similar story.

The storm collapsed a concrete section that used to hold lawn chairs and sunbathing tourists. The pool is still open for business even though Ike stole some of its pavers.

A portion of the gulf-front pavilion was also swept away and the floor “was blasted up.”

“Gustav put a pretty good lick on us, but we could have recovered by ourselves,” said General Manager Jerry Stalnaker. “The emergency berm saved us from Gustav but it was gone once Ike came.”

The condo has requested an emergency permit to make repairs from the Department of Environmental Protection.

“We are probably into a couple of hundred thousand dollars in damage,” Stalnaker said.

But while Jetty East and Destin Pointe suffered, most Holiday Isle properties weathered Ike with only a little erosion and a minor mess.

“It’s so obvious it could have been worse,” Barnes said.