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Normangee keeps struggling, but other parts of BV fare better
Grimes County: Residents who are still without power and in need of water and ice should call the sheriff's department at 936-873-2151.
Navasota: City officials will resume normal operations at City Hall on Friday. The water- conservation order and city curfew have been lifted. The September utility bill due date has been extended to Thursday, and late fees will be assessed after that date. School resumes Monday.
Leon County: Ice and water are available on Main Street in Normangee and on the Centerville town square.
Madison County: Meals are being served daily at noon and 6 p.m. at the Madison County Fairgrounds, where ice and water also are available. Meals also are available through the North Zulch Fire Department. A Baptist men's group also is sending meals to Normangee.
By HOLLY HUFFMAN
The line of cars stretched for miles as motorists -- many with kids and pets in tow -- waited to fuel up at the Grimes Exxon in Normangee.
Days after Hurricane Ike roared across the state, many of the cars and trucks were running on fumes. Many drivers had gone hours without a bathroom break. Others were on foot, hoping to fill a gas can to cart back to a stranded vehicle or home to fuel a generator.
Unsure of what to do, some simply cried as they waited outside the rural Leon County gas station about 10 miles west of Interstate 45. The business itself was operating thanks to a borrowed generator.
"We had them lined up here all directions for two days straight. Just today, it finally started leveling off," station owner Larry Grimes said Thursday, noting that most of his recent customers were from Galveston, Lake Jackson and Beaumont. "They headed north until they could get out of the storm."
Residents in Normangee remained without power Thursday, six days after Ike smashed into the Texas coast and moved up through the state, knocking down trees and power lines in its path. Nearly all of Grimes and Madison counties and parts of Leon, Robertson and Milam counties were without power for days. But Wednesday, lights began to flicker back on throughout the region.
By about 6 p.m. Thursday, power had been restored to much of the Brazos Valley. According to the Entergy Web site, about 3,500 customers remained without power in the seven surrounding counties.
Somerville, Caldwell, Gause and Old Washington appeared almost fully restored Thursday afternoon. Electricity also had been turned on for most residents in Grimes, Leon, Madison and Robertson counties. Most of Normangee remained in the dark, as did parts of Iola and most of Bedias, Richards and Shiro in Grimes County.
Grimes County Sheriff Don Sowell said Entergy officials had estimated that power would be fully restored in the county by the end of Thursday. Already, he said, power had returned to Plantersville, Stoneham, Roans Prairie and Anderson, where the sheriff's department and county jail are located. With the power back on, inmates no longer have to use portable toilets rented by Sowell this week to prevent a sewage backup.
"I called them today and told them, 'You can come pick up these yellow outhouses,'" the relieved sheriff said Thursday afternoon. "Time to get back to normal a little bit."
With power restored to Burleson County, Emergency Management Coordinator Brian Prescott said he expected to close the emergency operations center Thursday afternoon. Caldwell students were expected to return to class Friday, and their counterparts in Somerville will head back Monday.
Milam County also was shutting down its emergency operations center after learning that power and phone service had been restored to the small community of Gause, Emergency Management Coordinator Susan Reinder said. The Gause school district -- which had been operating half-days while the power was out -- resumed its regular schedule Thursday.
"We are doing so good," Reinder said gleefully.
Milam County closed its shelters after the 134 remaining evacuees left Thursday, Reinder said. A Milam County sheriff's deputy drove the last evacuee to a longer-term shelter in Austin.
To the east in Madison County, power was restored to most residents Thursday morning, though the electricity had to be turned back off for 672 households after crews discovered more trees on power lines that needed to be cleared, Emergency Management Coordinator Shelly Butts said.
Butts said the estimate for full restoration hadn't changed: 80 percent restored by Monday and 100 percent by Sept. 29.
"We keep hovering around 80 percent," Butts said, adding that the Ferguson Unit state prison was still operating with generator power.
She encouraged residents to register with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. When a disaster recovery center is established in Madisonville, residents will need their FEMA identification numbers. In the meantime, community officials are working to provide food for low-income residents whose perishables spoiled during the outage.
In Leon County, Emergency Management Coordinator Pat Bell said roughly 80 percent to 90 percent of rural residents along the darkened eastern edge of the county had power. Bell said Entergy officials had said 80 percent of the county was expected to have power by Monday and 100 percent by Sept. 29. Normangee, however, remains without power.
Gas station owner Grimes said power went out around 6 a.m. Saturday in Normangee, where he has lived and worked for 25 years. That is just about when the eye of the storm passed over Conroe, where the county's power originates. Grimes said he headed up to his store to ride out the storm and wait for power to be restored. But it wasn't.
For 2 1/2 days, folks hung out around the store, hoping for power, he said. Everyone in town seemed to assume that power would be restored by Monday at the latest. At noon Monday, Grimes finally was able to reopen his doors, but only with the help of a generator that Leon County Commissioner Dean Player helped find.
Grimes since has been using the generator to operate his store. A smaller generator is powering essentials at home, he said.
"Shoot, I tell you, I've been taking cold showers. I haven't watched TV or had a good hot shower since Friday night," Grimes said. But he said that despite the discomforts, he and fellow Normangee residents were thankful that this is the worst of it for them. "You know, everybody has really taken it pretty well. They think about those people in Galveston and Beaumont that lost their homes and their cars, and [there were] even some deaths. When you think about that, we hadn't got it really that bad."
