Posted on 09/08/2014 6:08:29 AM PDT by eastforker
The 1915 Galveston storm showed the effectiveness of that effort alone. If as many people were there as before, there would still have been a huge fatality and destruction impact if not for that bit of change. There wasn’t, and many people don’t even mention it. (Proves my point - depends on the culture that is struck.)
This must be fake like the moon landings.
Stuff like this and the blizzard of 78 didn’t happen because it was before global warming.....
Very few stories have shaken me to my core as did the story of the St. Mary’s Orphanage.
The destruction was because the city was built on a very low island. My grandfather survived because the wood frame structure that he was in survived. He was a carpenter and with his tools he drilled holes in the ground level floor. As the tide rose it did not push the building over and destroy it. He said the water was almost 2 feet deep in the 2nd floor of the building. He (and the others with him) saved dozens of people by pulling there inside as they floated past the windows on wreckage of other buildings. The last time I was in Galveston, about 10 years ago, that building was still there.
I already addressed that surge issue. I’m trying to be brief.
As to a structure surviving, not sure the point. There are always survivors. What about your pictures? Vast numbers of buildings were destroyed, by the surge that could reach the buildings that were too weak. Today, many houses even survive structurally from massive storm surges, albeit completely flooded and thus totaled due to mildew that will commence, etc. at least they do not kill people from collapse.
Yes, that is very sad!
Today on the west end of Galveston Island (unprotected by the seawall) the same wood frame houses are built on stilts, between 12 and 16 feet off the ground. Most of them survived the last hurricane.
This type of house is built all along the Texas Gulf Coast on low land that floods.
Yes, on stilts. They would largely be destroyed with a direct hit from the water.
No they aren’t, they are above the storm surge. Often times a tornado will accompany a hurricane and the tornado will take them out. Our house on Galveston Bay survived several direct hits.
? Yes, they are above the surge because they are on stilts.
If they were not on stilts they would be smashed to bits. That is what I meant exactly.
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