Are you ready?
June 21, 2010 (Monday)
The Corpus Christi Caller-Times has an article today about Hurricane Celia, which hit the Texas coast August 3, 1970, when unofficial reports of wind gusts to 200 mph were reported just north of Aransas Pass. As a gauge of how long ago it was, a ten-year-old child that day is now 50 years old. A small storm in size, but a big storm in terms of wind damage.
As this hurricane season gets under way, everyone is wondering what will happen if a big one crosses the giant oil spill in the Gulf. There are official and unofficial forecasts, but no one really knows because it has never happened before. Of course there are exceptions to that last statement, because I read the other day that there are always spills of some sort going on out there, and every Gulf storm since drilling began in the Gulf has crossed them. In those cases, effects were seemingly non-existent.
One thing that everybody needs to keep in mind is that every storm is unique, and impacts land areas in different ways. I have been through several storms in my lifetime, and every one of them has had its own thing going. No two are exactly alike. I remember one in Houston when I was about nine or ten years old, when we lived in an old house with a leaky roof. The old place made it through, and still sits there on Elysian street today. Must be at least 100 years old by now. Over on Maury street, a few years later, winds and rain in another storm spawned reports of a man downtown, holding onto a pole and waving like a flag in the wind. I was in Dallas when awesome Carla came through, 300 miles from the coast, still a tropical storm with an eye and 50 mph winds.
Upon arrival in Rockport, I heard a lot about the 1919 storm, which killed many people and virtually destroyed the area. We saw Beulah, Celia, Allen, and others. Here in Houston I saw the effects of Allison’s floods a few years before my arrival, and in 2008 I stayed up most of the night with Ike, then power was gone for a long, long time. Each storm had its own way of doing things. The next watch will be issued 48 hours ahead of the storm, and the warning will come at 36 hours. Plenty of time to board up and leave town. Probably a good idea for those on or very near the coast.