[janetjanet998]

i know.. alot of that is becuase the winds push the water towards land on that side and off the land on the other but ...BUT you have Galveston bay on the other side of galveston...and a hit just east of galeveston you would have north winds pushing the water from the bay into the city from the north or backdoor..
the 1900 storm hit just west of the city pushing the surge in from the gulf
they built a sea wall but is the seawall only on the gulf side....

[bwteim]

Fox ReporterDude

Water now coming via industrial canal and flooding parts of 9th ward. But not a breach. Also seepage at 17th canal.

No catastrophic failure yet per corps.

Contractors are on way.
Privately, ReporterDude says officials tell him they don't know how levees will hold up.

[SouthTexas]

This is correct. It just dosen't have the same destructive force as a "head on".

[dirtboy]

they built a sea wall but is the seawall only on the gulf side....

But they also jacked up the existing buildings and pumped a bunch of sand in to raise the elevation of the island, so a bayside surge shouldn't be too bad for that section of the island.

The problem comes with the SW end of the island, after the seawall ends. When I was a kid, we went to west Gavleston and there were just shanties there. Now a bunch of idiots has built million-dollar homes - with no dunes and no significant elevation. The fetch at landfall from Rita will probably blow all the way down Trinity Bay and Galveston Bay and pile up right where the seawall ends - and right through those homes.

And if FEMA gives those idiots one dime to rebuild, I'll scream.