When Hurricane Ike tore through Galveston in 2008, the island became almost completely unliveable.

"When Hurricane Ike made landfall on Galveston Island, we had a complete failure of our entire water system."

That's Alicia Cahill, the public information officer for the City of Galveston. She says there was no clean water on Galveston for ten days. More than three years later, the city has federal grant money to improve its water system.

Cahill says they'll spend $4 million to build a 20-inch water line from Pelican Island to Galveston Island.

"Pelican Island is located across the Galveston Ship Channel from Galveston Island itself. And this is a very long line and we are having to actually bore underneath the ship channel and bring it back up on Pelican Island side."

Cahill says the water line won't serve the entire island in the event of another Ike scenario. But it will keep the UTMB Medical Center and surrounding neighborhoods functional. It will also provide a backup source of water whenever the city
needs to do maintenance or repairs on the main lines.

The project should be complete in August.