Rockets Buy Loads Of Supplies For Ike Victims

HOUSTON (AP) - The Houston Rockets purchased four

tractor-trailers full of food, water and toiletries for victims of

Hurricane Ike and players unloaded them at a distribution

center Thursday.

Forward Mike Harris and guards Aaron Brooks and Luther

Head carried boxes of food and orange juice as they

greeted motorists who waited in long lines to get supplies

in the parking lot next to the University of Houston's football

stadium.

Rockets chief executive officer Tad Brown said the team tapped

its relationship with Feed the Children, an international charity,

to bring the trucks to Houston from Oklahoma City. He would

not say how much the loads cost.

The Rockets and Feed the Children worked together three years

ago during hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The charity has also helped

Rockets center Dikembe Mutombo with his foundation that supports

efforts to improve education and quality of life for people of the

Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Rockets owner Leslie Alexander started organizing the shipments

on Monday night and the trucks were on the road by Wednesday

afternoon, Brown said.

"It was an easy decision to do something very quickly," Brown

said. "We had the infrastructure in place to do it."

Brown said the Toyota Center, built to withstand a direct hit

from a Category 5 hurricane, sustained no damage from Ike.

Brooks gathered seven family members, left his house and spent

the night of the storm in a luxury suite.

"It seemed like the safest place to be," Brooks said.

Head, a Chicago native, flew home Sept. 11, two days before

the storm hit, and returned to Houston on Monday. He saw what

the storm had done on his drive home from the airport.

"Trees in highways, houses with windows busted out, rooftops

gone," Head said. "I was just hoping my house wasn't as bad as

the things I was seeing. When I got there, I saw that I didn't have

much damage, just my electricity was off. I felt fortunate, but I

also felt bad for the people who lost more."

Brown said none of the Rockets were permanently displaced,

but more than half of the team's staff still had no power at

their homes Thursday. Power was restored at Head's house

Wednesday night.  "The one thing about a hurricane or a disaster

like this, it doesn't matter how much you make, it doesn't

matter what professionyou have, it doesn't matter if you're a

pro athlete or an account executive, we're all going through

 the same things," Brown said.

By CHRIS DUNCAN - AP Sports Writer

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)