[American Quilter]

As was observed earlier (palmer, and others) the main reason this wasn’t (hopefully) that bad has mostly to do with many people long dead who built the Galveston seawall a century ago. Those Texans should be considered the real heroes of Ike.

I've been thinking the same. What a superb piece of engineering, especially considering it was built 100 years ago. The spirits of all the people involved in that project must be smiling today.

[jeffers]

Not to spoil the fun, the Galveston Seawall IS a magnificent achievement, but it’s done its job maybe too well.

It’s hoarding sand on the beach side.

Built to be 17 feet above sea level, a guy on another site tells me parts of it are now only waist high above the sand during his daily beach runs.

Time to dredge the beach?

[Justa]

Something else to be thankful of: those 1902 Galvestonians also raised the center of the island by 14’ using pump jacks to raise the buildings and filling with sand pumped in from the gulf. True grit.