1990 - Hurricane Ann Richards - Millions in damage. Fatal to the Texas Democrat Party.
If I was George Bush here is what I would do
I would order a mandatory evac for the gulf coast
I would order all poor to evacuate to hi ground
I would personally take a bus and have Condoleeza Rice drive one, and Rumsfeld drive one and Rove drive one and I would load them up with poor African Americans and drive them out of the area. I would say "No whites allowed"
on a sign on the bus.
The development of Rockport has just been ridiculous. Property values have gone through the roof. That's some exposed coastline, no seawall, no nothing other than the barrier island.
My theory is the barrier islands on the US gulf coast are the effect over time of hurricanes tearing at the mainland. The bays are flooded land that never dried out. Over geological time. A good hint that NO and S Fla might be prone to hurricanes are what I will call a couple of hurricane lakes, Okechobee and Ponchatrain. brackish water is the result of periodic infusions of salt water overland.
When you go to Grand Cayman you will see these "stagnant" ponds in the middle of the island. They will have in them giant 7 foot Tarpon. After last summer and Ivan I understand how the tarpon get there. Ivan put Cayman entirely under water for a short period of time. that's how the tarpon get in the landlocked lakes.
The King ranch needed the rain anyway.
This one killed my great-grandfather. He was the conductor on a train running from Galveston Island to the mainland and they were trying to evacuate the women and children to higher ground around Houston, but they were caught out on the causeway by the storm surge and the train was knocked off the tracks. The other men took off running, but my great-grandfather stayed behind to try and rescue as many women and children as possible. He tied a rope to each of them (there were about twenty passengers on board) and then tied it around his chest and headed toward land. He was around 6' 8" tall and people on shore reported that when they saw him the water was up to his armpits. He collapsed about twenty feet from shore and drowned before anyone could get to him.
This one spawned at least five twisters in the Austin-San Marcos area. One of them came within about a hundred yards of a church that was filled with worshipers at the time (that same twister went on to damage two or three buildings at Austin's Mueller airport). Happily, no deaths.
Just curious. How does a hurricane hit Texas City and not Galveston or Houston?
They used the boy scouts in Corpus Christi to search for bodies after the 1919 hurricane.