"A year and nine months after Hurricane Ike poured 8 feet of water into the first Catholic cathedral in Texas, repairs have begun on the 162-year-old St. Mary's Cathedral Basilica in Galveston.

Known to Catholics as the mother church of Texas, St. Mary's has sat empty since the storm while the Galveston-Houston Archdiocese gathered the resources to repair more than $1 million in damage."