Downtown after Ike

A lot of Houstonist's friends have been asking us if we know anything about the status of downtown Houston post-Ike. We've been downtown three times in the last two days, and here's what we've seen:

• Today, most streets are open. Downtown was closed immediately after the storm for cleanup, but as of this morning, the majority of the streets are open and accessible. Exceptions we saw include Preston Avenue near the Hogg Palace Lofts, which lost several windows; Main between Prairie and Texas, where a building's plywood facade is down; McKinney east of Fannin, which may have something to do with windows blown out in Houston Center; and the streets immediately surrounding Chase Tower, which lost about half the windows on the building's east side (see the photo). The Chase-area street closures include Travis and Milam between Rusk and Prairie and Texas, Capitol and Rusk between Louisiana and Fannin. There's still a lot of broken glass and debris in that area, but the good news is that crews are on the scene cleaning it up.
• There is power downtown. We didn't see any buildings that don't have electricity, though many of the office buildings are still closed today. Traffic signals are working in the area, which is a good thing.
• Most buildings aren't badly damaged. By far the worst damage we saw was at Chase Tower; otherwise, things look pretty good. We did notice windows out in a few skyscrapers, including the Wedge International Tower and 1500 Louisiana, and in the St. Germain Lofts at Main and Capitol. We noticed some other superficial damage, including a missing granite panel on the exterior of the Bank of America Center and a bunch of awnings down, but otherwise things aren't so bad.
• Some businesses are open. Houstonist stopped for lunch at Cafe Express in Chase Center at Main and Capitol, where there was no line (!) and a lot of hot food. We noticed that the Flying Saucer at the same intersection was open, as was Molly's Pub (the former Slainte) at 509 Main. Sambuca in the Rice Lofts is reportedly open, and employees were moving around inside the Chipotle location at the Rice, though we couldn't tell whether the restaurant was open (no one was inside, but that could've been because downtown was fairly deserted).

We tried talking to some folks on the street to see if we could get a handle on when street cleanup might be finished, but no one could give us a definite answer — based on what we saw at Chase Tower, we expect it may be a while before that particular area is all clear.

Know anything else about what's happening downtown? Leave us a comment.