This afternoon, 212th District Court Judge Susan Criss was driving back into Galveston to see what was left of her house. She had a little forewarning of what to expect from a neighbor who had already seen it. Residents of the island are being allowed in to inspect the damage to their property, she says. But Criss was still shocked by what she saw as she drove down the highway to the center of the city, talking to me on her cell phone. “There are appliances and refrigerators and washing machines that went across this highway,” Criss says. “It’s just incredible.” Earlier in the day, Criss met with other Galveston County officials to discuss how to get their government up and running again. She says about 1,000 prisoners in the Galveston County jail could not be evacuated, but they all survived the hurricane. The county is now working to get most of them bonded out of jail. And the county is looking for a building on the mainland to hold court soon, because most people are currently not allowed on the island unless they are residents or relief workers. The county’s justice center is in good condition and has its own generated electricity, Criss says. But the old courthouse, where many government offices are located, got hit hard with “three feet of water with live fish, shrimp, turtles and snakes.” Criss says she already knows that her house was flooded by four feet of water. But, as a neighbors explained to her, “It wasn’t just water that came in; it came in with force.” She says that, in one of her neighbor’s homes, one of the children’s Barbie dolls are stuck into the walls of the house.
— John Council
Prosecutors Stay Put
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| Murray Newman |
When Hurricane Ike hit downtown Houston in the early morning hours Sept. 13, Harris County assistant district attorney Murray Newman was among those watching the storm’s advance from the lobby of the Harris County Criminal Justice Center. “It was like a front-row seat at an IMAX event,” recalls Newman, who worked a 28-hour shift in the DA’s emergency intake division, screening and processing criminal defendants during Ike’s assault on the Houston area. Newman says the approximately 10 ADAs who staffed the intake division chiefly handled family violence offenders before Ike hit and then looters after the storm moved through. But, Newman says, despite being tired, he and the other ADAs watched with fascination as Ike blew through the downtown area. Whipped by the wind, the rain beating against the buildings looked like smoke, Newman says. “You could see all the force of the wind and the rain,” he says. “I was really kind of cool, if it wasn’t so scary.” But those at the criminal justice center also had to contend with problems. After the storm, one of the biggest problems was a sewage backup on the center’s first floor, Newman says. Harris County ADA Donna Hawkins, spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office, says the center remains closed today but that she anticipates it will open Sept. 17. “We’re waiting for approval from the fire marshal and building maintenance to make sure the building is safe,” Hawkins says. While the Harris County criminal courts have been unable to work in the criminal justice center, Hawkins says, the courts have been hearing pleas and conducting probable cause hearings at 49 San Jacinto. Fred King, spokesman for the Harris County district clerk, says civil courts are open today but are operating without juries. King says Harris County has canceled jury service through this week.
— Mary Alice Robbins
Andrews Kurth Update
Andrews Kurth, which leases 10 out of 75 floors in Houston’s JPMorgan Chase Tower, seems to have escaped major damage, says Geoff Dodd, a partner who practices in the firm’s corporate securities and IP groups. “A number of windows were blown out on the east side, but we only had a few offices that were affected. We were very lucky,” Dodd says. He says a few employees of the firm’s office services department toured the building on Monday to assess the damage. “They’re doing some repairs. We’ll probably be out of the office through Wednesday,” Dodd guestimates. Although the offices are closed, Dodd says most lawyers are reporting for duty anyway, just from elsewhere in the city. “Anymore, if you have a laptop and a cell phone and a BlackBerry, you can go — our network is up, and we have connectivity,” he says, noting that the firm’s system does a multi-backup in all offices and that all servers, including Houston’s, are located far from the storm’s path. As for Dodd, he spent part of Monday just “trying to find out where everyone is and checking in on people.” And that’s actually how he ended up with what may be the best — if not the coolest — office space in Houston right now: a conference room with air conditioning. “I called [the client] to find out how he did, and next thing I knew he was offering me a space,” Dodd says. He doesn’t know why the client’s office building has a/c when much of the city does not, but he does know enough to enjoy it while it lasts. Laments Dodd, “I don’t have any at home.”
— Jenny B. Davis
Thompson & Knight Undamaged
Hurricane Ike did not damage the downtown Houston office of Thompson & Knight, says Dallas Parker. He’s managing partner of the firm’s Houston office, which is located in the Allen Center at 333 Clay St. He says the office did not lose electrical power, water, Internet access or sustain any broken windows. “We were very, very fortunate,” Parker says. About a dozen attorneys were working from the firm’s downtown office yesterday, while others worked via BlackBerry and laptop computers, he says. The Dallas-based firm has about 100 attorneys in its Houston office. It has a skeletal support staff working today, Parker says, but he was unable to predict how many lawyers would be in the office today. “The schools haven’t started back up,” Parker says. “People have children and families to take care of. That is our main concern at this point. We do not want to put an undue stress on anyone.” The firm sent an e-mail message on Monday to several thousand clients, he says. “We did get a message out to all of our Houston area clients yesterday, through our database, to let them know that our files and servers are secure and that we are operational and can serve their needs,” he says.
— Jeanne Graham
Surf’s Up
David Bright knows this is going to sound a bit cavalier, but whenever a hurricane heads to the gulf coast of Texas, the first thing he thinks is: The surfing is going to be insane. By day, Bright is a responsible lawyer who’s of counsel in the Corpus Christi office of The Watts Firm. But by morning, Bright is a hard-core surfer, the kind who’s been running out to catch the dawn tide ever since he was in junior high 35 years ago. As soon as the hurricane warnings started last week, Bright and his surfer buddies started scouting waves. “A hurricane starts heading to the gulf, and the jungle drums start. You get e-mails and phone calls,” says Bright, who also surfed waves produced by Hurricanes Gustav and Dolly. “And you can feel the hair on your arms rise. And it’s scary. You go out to the beach . . . it’s irresponsible as hell, but it’s great.” The trick to surfing a hurricane is finding a place to jump into the surf and “and not get killed,” Bright says. Then once in the water, huge surges are the surfer’s next enemy, he says. “If you get separated from your board, you can get sucked out a mile.” On Friday before Ike’s landfall, Bright and his friends found a spot near Port Aransas where they could jump off a pile of rocks into the surf. While waves are normally four-to-five feet high in the gulf, the hurricane made waves 14-to-15 feet high, Bright says. “They were solid, two-story house waves,” Bright says. “You just basically take off and run for your life. It wasn’t fun,” Bright adds. “When you finish, you say, ‘I didn’t die.’ That was thrill of it. It was like somebody chasing you. You’re just glad they didn’t catch you.” — John Council
Houston Bar Association Swings Into Action
As if there is were any worries for a local bar association that’s already dealt with relief efforts for hurricanes twice in the last three years, the Houston Bar Association is all over Hurricane Ike. Much like during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the HBA is setting up legal line program to answer questions for hurricane victims, organizing clinics for victims as soon as they can find a safe location and helping displaced lawyers find office space. Call the HBA office for more info (713) 759-1133 or e-mail [email protected]. HBA President Travis Sales also says the State Bar of Texas has suspended for 90 days the minimum continuing legal education requirements for Texas attorneys in counties declared to be disaster areas.
— John Council
New Associates Make Do
Lindsay Grossman, an associate with Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell’s Houston office, had not yet finished her second week working at the firm when Hurricane Ike turned life topsy-turvy. Grossman and two other newbie Locke Lord associates moved into her parent’s house in The Woodlands for the duration of the weekend storm. Grossman says the three of them are still trying to figure out how to get back to work, a mission made harder by the storm and their newness at Locke Lord. “It was only going to be our second week of work. Most of us don’t even have projects assigned to us yet. We were just finding out where our offices were supposed to be,” says Grossman, whose bar admission is pending. On Monday, via a specially designated emergency telephone line, the firm released the news that the Houston office in the Chase Tower had sustained major damage and was not ready for returnees. Locke Lord’s managing partner Jerry Clements said in an interview yesterday that at least half the firm’s space in Houston would not be inhabitable for the forseeable future. Since the power wasn’t working at Grossman’s parents’ house, by Tuesday the new associate has moved to Dallas to stay with her grandparents and possibly to work in Locke Lord’s Dallas office. Meanwhile, the other two associates, who had been her temporary housemates and who, like Grossman, graduated from Vanderbilt University Law School, traveled to College Station to wait until they can return to work in Houston.
— Miriam Rozen
