False story about house left standing in disaster zone after Hurricane Ike resurfaces

False story about house left standing in disaster zone after Hurricane Ike resurfaces

(Reuters) - A striking picture of a house standing in the middle of a residential area devastated by Hurricane Ike in Houston, Texas in 2008 has been used on social networks to bring back an inaccurate story about the property.

Contrary to online claims, an exorcism did not take place in the house 10 years before the natural disaster hit. Although the photo is real, the event could not have taken place because the house was not built until 2005, according to its owners.

"Hurricane  Ike  hit Houston in 2008. This house was left standing while everything else was demolished. This is the same house where an exorcism took place ten years prior", reads a Facebook post with the photograph from Dec. 31 2021 (here).

Similar photographs of the property are visible in Reuters and Associated Press archives (here), (here).

The snapshots were taken on Sept. 14, 2008, in Gilchrist, Texas, after Ike hit the area off the Gulf of Mexico and Cuba (here) (here).

On Sept. 26, just a few days after the impact of the tropical cyclone, the Houston Chronicle released a story about the tragedy with comments from the owners of the house, Pam and Warren Adams, and photographs of the property, located on the so-called Bolivar Peninsula (here).

The paper reported: “Standing tall, as if in defiance of Ike’s windy, watery wrath, is the home of Pam and Warren Adams, who built the place in 2005 after Hurricane Rita destroyed their older home on the same lot.”

Warren Adams told the Chronicle that there was nothing special about the way they built their home but that the elevation may have helped. “The piece of land my house is sitting on was probably one of the highest above sea level in the area, about 8 or 9 feet above sea level before we even started the house,” he said. “I think the house is about 16 inches higher than it needs to be,” he added.

CNN also reported Adams’ story in 2008, saying the couple built their newer home after Hurricane Rita destroyed the older one three years prior (here).

The U.S. National Weather Service website keeps dozens of pictures of the devastation caused by Ike in the Bolivar peninsula, where other buildings escaped destruction due to Ike’s intense winds and heavy rains, but in different areas of that portion of land here .

According to a local news website, Warren Adams, who was a Vietnam war veteran born in 1944, died in 2016.

The same website hosts an article signed by Pam Adams sharing the story of the “Last House Standing,” as it became known when the picture was published.

"After repairing our home, we decided Gilchrist needed a new business, so we purchased the property across from us on the bay side and built FantaSea BBQ and Grill," she said (here).

VERDICT

False. A house that survived the impact of hurricane Ike in Texas in 2008 did not host an exorcism 10 years prior because it had not been built then. According to the owners, the property was built in 2005.