Beulah had business all over
September 23, 2008 (Tuesday)
Hurricane Beulah in 1967 came ashore in the Rio Grande Valley, but wrought havoc all over South Texas, turning all the state south of San Antonio into a giant lake, and spawning numerous tornadoes in Texas.
The McNortons from First Baptist Church in Rockport evacuated to Gonzales as the storm threatened the coast. They checked into a motel, and then decided to go to a restaurant for dinner. While at the restaurant, a tornado struck the motel. When they returned to their room, it was in shambles. “Mac” reached over through the splintered timbers into what had been the bathroom, and retrieved his shaving kit. They gathered what they could, got into the car and drove to the First Baptist Church of Gonzales, telling the office staff, “We are hurricane refugees.” The church put them up for the night in their buildings.
As I said in yesterday’s blog, armed troops patrolled our streets in the wake of the destructive tornadoes that hit the area, mainly Fulton. Huge Oak trees, some of them hundreds of years old, were toppled, exposing all their roots. Homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed. The Buddy McLester family lost their home to a tornado, and the Lee Cookston family a block away saw the entire upper half of their concrete block home lift up away from the bottom half and then set back down. There was a very visible line where the separation had occurred.
Huge military aircraft later sprayed the entire area for mosquitoes, and mass typhoid inoculations were administered to all of us in the area.
After the storm blew through, and the bay waters subsided from the businesses on Austin Street, merchants retrieved their goods from higher ground and put them back on the shelves. Then the heavens opened and rain in unbelievable amounts fell, flooding the stores again. Nobody was laughing.
We did have our lighter moments. At the last evening service before the storm came, we sang “Higher Ground” and “Beulah Land.” For years afterwards, we could not sing either song without smiling.