She huffed and she puffed and she blew our house in.
August 3, 2007 (Friday) – The date today is engraved on my mind, never to be forgotten, the day Celia came to town. Celia was no lady; she was downright rude. Like the big bad wolf, she huffed and she puffed and she blew our house in — our church house, that is. And she blew down quite a few houses between Rockport and Corpus Christi. Here’s a picture of our sanctuary after Celia’s visit.
She came in on the Monday following our week-long youth-led revival meeting. Our custom back then was to have a picnic and a bonfire worship service at the Big Tree on Saturday night during the revival meeting. When we met that Saturday, someone mentioned to me that there was a storm in the Gulf and it appeared to be heading this way. When we were leaving Sunday morning services the next day, we looked over at the big flagpole by the bay and saw the flags that were never removed by men, the hurricane warning flags. There were two flags, each red and black, and when the storms were over, they were gone with the wind. It was Paul Sorenson’s job to hoist the flags. Those flags aren’t displayed anymore; we have better means of communication these days.
We met on the lawn on the first Sunday after the storm. There was no roof on the auditorium and we were not sure the building was still strong. We had a nice service outside. People gave testimonies of their experiences that week, and everyone praised the Lord for His blessings “in the midst of the storm.” Most of the members had sustained some kind of damage to their homes, and were still working on them, but they came to church anyway.
People from everywhere were concerned about us and helped us. We had good insurance, and the rebuilding process was soon under way. Bro. Wilson Dedmon headed the building committee that worked with the general contractor, and was always around to make sure everything was proceding as expected. We put a temporary roof on the building, and the contractor cleaned things up before Sunday each week so that we could use the buildings. By December the rebuilding was complete and we celebrated by having a revival meeting with Dr. Perry Webb, retired pastor of the First Baptist Church of San Antonio, as the preacher. It was a great week, and we really enjoyed being back in good buildings once again.
In these thirty-seven years, not one “August 3” has gone by without thoughts of that day in 1970 when a small, short-lived, but powerful storm by the name of Celia, came to Rockport. I repeat: she was no lady; she was downright rude. She turned off our electricity without even asking, and skipped town leaving us owing billions of dollars because of her expensive tastes. Not a nice girl.
Hurricane info (pdf file) [may load slowly]