What Hurricane?

Less than two weeks after Hurricane Rita struck the Gulf Coast, narrowly missing Galveston, the burgeoning resort island south of Houston, one family was signing closing papers on a 1,800-square-foot four-bedroom vacation home in Pirate's Beach, a swanky west Galveston subdivision, according to a local report. "If you want to have a house down there, it's something you have to live with," said Luis Orosco, a Houstonian. Recent hurricanes and the threat of future ones have not really hurt the Galveston second home market, local agents say.