Bass Edge News

Bass Edge writer weathers direct hit

As a lifelong resident of the Texas Gulf Coast, I’m no stranger to hurricanes and tropical weather systems. However, having spent most of the last 15 years along the rarely hit Lower Texas Coast region, I’ve been able to weather most storm seasons without so much as a scare. This year was different. In fact, with hurricane season set to run through November, it’s not completely out of the question we could still see the worst of this year’s tropical weather, even as we are still cleaning up from our first direct hit in nearly three decades.

On July 24, Hurricane Dolly reminded residents of South Padre Island, Port Isabel and Port Mansfield – three small communities near the Texas/Mexico border – just how dangerous and damaging tropical weather systems can be. Predicted to make landfall as a strong tropical storm and weak Category 1 hurricane, Dolly caused little concern – initially.

I spent the days leading up to the storm like I often do when there’s a low pressure system in the Gulf – bodyboarding with my kids along the beaches of South Padre Island. As an outdoor writer and fishing guide, I have a fairly flexible schedule. With the storm’s path predicted to head right over our Port Isabel home, my schedule was getting more flexible by the day as my fishing clients called one after another to cancel. Accepting the lost business as part of working on the coast, we decided to take advantage of the unexpected days off and the nice waves that always precede a storm system.

Although about two weeks of guiding had been canceled in anticipation of the storm, other tourists weren’t taking the threat quite as seriously. In fact, more and more visitors were pouring onto South Padre Island for summer vacations even as the storm drew closer. Other guides were having the same experience as I – clients canceling in droves. Perhaps because fishermen are more innately in tune with nature, the fishing tourists heeded the warning more prudently than many more casual tourists. As it turned out, they made the right call.

Tuesday afternoon, the day before landfall, my wife, kids and I returned from a quick trip to nearby Harlingen to find only about half the town had actually boarded up. In fact, I was a bit disturbed to see how many folks had even neglected to pick up simple items such as lawn furniture and potted plants from their yards. Having buttoned down our property fairly snug, I actually was starting to feel a bit embarrassed – perhaps I went a little overboard with preparations.

That night, rain began to fall. I headed to the local grocery store to pick up a few cans of Sterno heat, some canned food and extra water. We already had some of each, but I was a bit antsy and wanted to buy a bit more just in case. I anticipated a zoo-like atmosphere at the store, which is usually the case under these circumstances. What I saw was a fairly routine Tuesday night of business. A few folks here and there, but very few buying ‘emergency’ supplies. Again, I started thinking I might be making too much out of such a little storm.

Through the night the winds picked up as the storm moved closer. Simultaneously, the storm strengthened. Eventually, it would become a Category 2 storm before moving ashore. More importantly, however, was the fact its forward motion was slowing to a crawl.

Port Isabel lost power around 8 a.m. Wednesday. The wind was strong, but not dangerously so, out of the northeast. With power down, I wound up our weather radio. Although I missed the comfort of watching the storm’s progress on Doppler radar, I was able to fairly reckon its progress through NOAA reports and tracking the wind shifts.

Things were progressing pretty well for the first few hours. The wind shifted consistently – northeast, north, northwest, west. I knew the hurricane force winds only extended about 25 miles out. As the winds began to come out of the north, the already strong winds became much stronger. The storm was much closer than before.

The house we live in was built in 1938 and sits but a couple blocks from the Laguna Madre bay. Luckily, we are on very high ground, relative to the rest of the area. In fact, the Point Isabel Lighthouse is situated nearby for that very reason. And, this house has weathered every major storm to hit South Texas since it was built. However, we only bought the house three years ago and had yet to sit through any major weather in it.

Knowing the house’s history was some, albeit little, comfort as the winds shifted to the west and began to really howl. With sustained winds climbing over 100 mph, the house did make a few sounds unfamiliar to me. Without the ambient sound of television to drown out the noise, we sat and watched the storm from one unboarded, north facing window. Watching palm and papaya trees bending nearly horizontal was somewhat unsettling. But, since the wind shifts had been frequent, I was sure the storm would pass soon.

Three hours later, the wind was still sustained above 100 mph from the west. The storm had obviously stalled – with us right in one of the worst possible locations. Weeks later, as I reviewed the radar track of the storm, it was easy to see when the storm made its pause before moving slightly to our north and bashing Port Mansfield some 25 miles up the coast.

Finally, the wind began to shift ever so slightly to the southwest. As it did, the velocity fell dramatically. Although wind speeds remained above 50 mph for several more hours, that seemed mild compared to what we had just experienced.

The storm was effectively over, but the recovery had just begun. My neighborhood was without power for right at a week. Others in our immediate area were without power for slightly more or slightly less time depending on their location on the power grid.

My family was incredibly lucky. We lost a few shingles and had a slight leak in one room. We had a lot of limbs and trees to cut and haul off. But, we ‘lost’ very little. In fact, knowing we weathered the storm much better than many of our friends and neighbors made living without electricity much more tolerable.

In the aftermath, many hotels on South Padre Island remain unopened due to damage. The local school district has had to push back the first day of school more than two weeks – to September 8 – in order to repair damage the school buildings sustained during the storm. There are still plenty of blue-tarped roofs and piles of debris to be removed. But, otherwise, life has resumed a somewhat familiar cadence.

As I reflect on the storm, I make notes on what to do differently when the inevitable ‘next time’ comes. However, I am also somewhat dismayed by the number of times I’ve heard individuals, visitors mostly, express sentiments such as, “Wow, I can’t believe there was this much damage – it was just a Category 2. What if a real hurricane hit?”

It is amazing in the post-Katrina age how so many have become to believe anything shy of a Category 5 is not a real hurricane. However, they forget Katrina was a Category 3 at landfall. Before Hurricane Andrew devastated South Florida in the 1992, the United States hadn’t seen a land falling Category 5 storm in over 20 years.

According to the Saffir-Simpson scale, Category 3 or higher is considered a major storm. However, people need to understand any tropical system can be damaging. In fact, according the National Hurricane Center, 16 of the top 30 costliest storms to hit the U.S. were less that Category 3. Five of those weren’t hurricanes at all, but tropical storms. So, it’s easy to see even mild storms can cause plenty of damage.

Our region was as guilty as any when it came to buying into this lackadaisical approach to small storms. The obvious lesson learned was even a small storm, if not properly prepared for, can become a major event. As I look around at the hundreds of condos, homes and business still under repair a month later, I am filled with the sense we’ll all remember this lesson for quite some time.