Big Picture: One Year After Hurricane Ike

These pictures are amazing. On most of them you can click the picture to see a before and after shot. Don't miss out on seeing the changes.

One year after Hurricane Ike tore across the gulf coast of Texas, residents paused on Sunday to observe the anniversary of the costliest natural disaster in Texas history. Destroying or damaging many thousands of houses, including 3/4 of all homes in Galveston, Ike's 110 mph winds caused more than $29 billion in damage, and took the lives of at least 72 in the United States. In Galveston one year later, 75% of businesses have reopened, much of the debris has been cleared, and 95% of the population has returned, but much work still remains to be done as residents continue to rebuild and recover. Collected here are a series of before-and-after photographs - which (starting with the second one below) will fade between "before" and "after" when clicked. This effect requires javascript to be enabled. (13 photo pairs total)