I have been blessed with two cheerleaders in my lifetime...so far...My Mama Rush and My Tis, my Mom's older sister. Most everybody in the family called her "Sister." Well, she wasn't my sister and that was a lot to get out so I shortened it to "Tis." Works for me. Selfishly, I call her my Tis but she's also Tis to my sisters and brother and my boys. High school boyfriends, girlfriends, co-workers...well, they all know her as "Tis."
Mama Rush was there on another 9.11.1961 when Hurricane Carla struck Port 'O Connor, TX and Port LaVaca, TX. Hurricane Carla was known as the most intense hurricane aimed at the Texas coast during that time and it came ashore lashing out at Louisiana and Texas with 173 mile-per-hour winds and battering 11 foot tides, even while the center was still miles out at sea. There were more than 400,000 residents who fled the coast in Texas and Louisiana and my family fled and my family lost everything (materially, that is). We didn't lose each other...for that I am thankful. I lost my beloved piano (except that eventually, it was replaced by a beautiful spinet). After that ferocious storm I had to watch my Dad figure out how to get my piano out of our 6-week old living room. We had lived in a little house in Texas City about 15 miles from Galveston and that little house sustained the wind damage of 150 mph winds, plus, with a storm surge of 22 feet. An evacuation journey we took to get away from that monster storm...with lots of little trials and tribulations along the way.
Somebody, I don't know who, probably my Dad, made the executive decision that we were all to leave my hometown of Texas City to get out of the way of the impending Hurricane Carla, except Dad, of course. He wasn't going to leave. My mother didn't want to...I couldn't blame her. Make the decision to make the decision or make the decision to leave. She and Dad (ages 30 and 28 at that time) had finally bought their little dream house 6 weeks before. New furniture, new stove, new television...everything new that I remember. Oh, it was not fancy but it was brick and it was new and sat on the end of a dead end street - sort of like we owned the street. Best part was our neighbors were 3 horses on 5 acres. But about the house...we even had air conditioners but generally slept with the windows open. I can still remember the smell and the sounds of that little house. Most definitely I remember EVERYBODY begging and yelling at me to come out of the little one bathroom that we 5 shared. Even though we were very lucky and had air conditioners, we usually slept with the windows open. Windows open for me was bittersweet...allergies that I'm pretty sure I inherited from my cousin, Norma, but on the other hand, being able to listen to the horses stomping around, looking for grass and probably waiting for me to come out - which I did to my mother's chagrin, many times, late at night.
How fun it was to listen to the horses come up close to my bedroom window and sniff and snort, thinking I might come out to pet them one last time - - they seemed to never sleep, but eat day and night. They were there when I went to sleep and they were there when I woke up. Do you think feeding them apples made them loyal? No wonder I fell in love with horses at a young age.
But back to Hurricane Carla and 9.11.1961. Off in our vehicles we pulled the family together, Mom, Mama Rush, Dadaw, my little sister, Janell, my little brother Dwain and me, in our car and in their car was my mother's brother, wife and their two kids, and off we went with what seemed like a mass exodus driving and driving until we could find a motel. Our landfall was just outside Dallas, Tx., in what would be classified now as, probably, a Motel 8. I'm not talking a Marriott...that's for sure. But we know we were lucky to find rooms, period. Once we found a motel, our first injury of the storm occurred. My mother, who always seemed to fall prey to some mishap, had the car door blow backwards on her while she was fetching stuff out of the car and it knocked her in the forehead...so off we went to find an emergency room to get her cleaned up and stitched up. I was 11 and I had visions of her going brain dead and me having to drive our car home - - my Mama Rush didn't drive, Dadaw had to ride the brakes on the passenger side and be the navigator, and my sister and brother played with little plastic soldiers and funny little cars in the back seat like they didn't have a care in the world. Well, I guess they didn't. They were about 5 and 4...what did they know about hurricanes and having to drive? Nothing... and they probably didn't care who drove.
Mom recovered with a couple of stitches and we stayed couped up for a few days cooking on a little hot plate and sandwiches (I still do not like sandwiches, yuk). I told them straight up: "I could survive on french fries, you know." Nothing doing, it was just like my Mama Rush to try to fix something hot...on a hot plate, no doubt!
But back to the evacuation. My sister and brother played around the motel with their dumb little cars and soldiers and I read. It was nice to not have to babysit since all the adults were there with nothing to do. Janell and Dwain probably don't remember it but they actually got along quite well back then...I was the mean big sister. Didn't want to be bothered...too many books to read!
We had left Dad behind because he worked for the Galveston County Sheriff's Dept. and it was mandatory that he stay. We didn't think too much of it...as far as I was concerned, he was immortal. Nothing could hurt my Dad. 100 mph winds knock over that 130 lb. fellow? I don't think so. Not high winds, water, fast cars, or even a fast lifestyle. Hurricane Carla just about got him though...the flirty, good looking skinny guy, the James Dean look-alike, barely made it out alive when he fell in a man hole in front of Texas City's City Hall.
Dad (in the Bardahl shirt with his racing sponsor "Tater Pete") 1956
My "Father of the Bride, 1969".
It seems like an every day event these days as we watch hurricanes blow in on almost any channel you turn on to watch. Can you even imagine...weather men and women standing out in the 100 mph winds like it is a sport (and it probably is to them) as they all try to imitate the very first live television broadcast of a hurricane by Dan Rather. Yep, Dan Rather was made famous by Hurricane Carla on the seawall of Galveston Island. It's just a guess but I think that is why so many of the weathermen now haunt that same spot...to somehow put their mark on that place in history.
Yes, my little family lost everything to Hurricane Carla and my parents had to start over with the help of the Red Cross. They were so good to us and I still give to the Red Cross when I have a bit to share, knowing they are always helping those whose turn it has come and have disaster pass through their life. My Dad sometimes (many years later) told my mother that we didn't even have "butt prints" on the sofa because she wouldn't let anyone sit on her new sofa. We did after the sofa was replaced. She said she wasn't saving it anymore. I come from a long line of "savers." My grandmother would save everything from a new hair comb for her long silver hair to a salt shaker someone gave her as a gift. When I find myself doing the same thing, particularly about shoes, I pause to remember that saving them today may result in never having the memory for tomorrow. So wear those glitzy shoes, I do.
We returned from that hurricane but couldn't get into our home because it was totally inhabitable. 5 feet of water, 2 feet of mud, everything was gone. We had tried to take a few things but never imagined it would take the toll on our lives such as it did. I still have photos that were wet and yes, I still need to have them restored...it's on the list. The house was standing in one piece, with brick that you could actually shake and rattle, and that's more than I can say for our neighbors home, the Joiner's, across the street. One of the 26 tornadoes that Hurricane Carla spawned touched down right across the street from our house and took the whole house, leaving only a commode on the foundation.
It was 6 weeks before we could go back home. I started school in my grandmother's little town, Arcadia, TX. It seemed like a nightmare, trying to make new friends, all the while knowing they weren't going to be forever friends, just short time friends. I don't remember much about those six weeks except I wore my cousin's clothes and my grandmother just kept washing them over and over. Good for me that my cousin, Christine, and I have always been the same size...runt-size, that's what my Grandmother would say about that! I also remember the phone ringing and noone on the other end. Later found out that it was Dad trying to make contact but all the power and telephone lines were down in Texas City.
When we were finally able to go home, we had a home that resembled what I think a convent would look like. Twin beds, no frills and no carpet. Bare essentials. You know...like how we all dream about "downsizing as we approach retirement?" Yeow, right. No stuff and the stuff we did have was full of mud. I had a stuffed bear...you know one of those big goofy looking things you get at the carnival (except mine came from the stock car races...a blog for another time about my Dad) and one of my Dad's friends had to take a knife to him. He was too heavy to lift. That little house still has its bruises (that I know about) from that storm. There are bruises in my heart from that storm which is what made this September's storm touch a nerve. My youngest son, Sam, was in Houston, Texas, with Hurricane Ike headed his way.
So let's fast forward many hurricane seasons and many, many named hurricanes later, many names which now have been retired and we come to 2008 and Hurricane Ike. But before I give you all the low down on how Hurricane Ike roared into my family's patch of geography, here's a quick run down of Retired Names in Hurricane History - Atlantic Storms: Not all of them, but the ones I remember.
Alicia, Beulah, Camille, Carla (hey...did I tell you I have a sister by that name 15 years younger than me...a little hurricane blowing into our lives like no other [ and now she has her own little hurricane, Taylor] and I wouldn't trade her),
My Little Sister (above) and her little daughter (below) Look-Alikes!
Then there was Hurricanes Celia, Hilda (I remember good old Hilda because it was the next year after Carla and I thought "oh, no here we go again" but turns out Hilda decided to visit Louisiana. Then there was Keith that I remember because I was going to vacation in Belize and we all saw Keith headed that way and quickly got our money back, and on to Hurricane Rita, which was a whole blog in itself and I'll give you my little snippets of info a bit later on about Rita, "hunker down, "Margarita's and Sam's 15 hour drive home, to San Antonio.
People often wonder why names are retired and goof that I am, I looked it up so I would know. Hurricanes that cause a major impact on lives or economy are remembered generations after the devastation... so they go into weather history. When a hurricane has a devastating impact, any country affected can request that the name of the hurricane be "retired" by agreement of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) but it actually means that it just cannot be reused for at least 10 years so as to facilitate historic references, legal actions and insurance claims (lest we not confuse the insurance companies) and it avoids confusion with another storm of the same name.
THEN ALONG CAME IKE ~~~~~~
Now mind you, we were all in Hurricane mode at the clinic I work for in Beeville, TX, because Beeville is only one hour away from Corpus Christi, TX. However, Ike had a mind of his own. He just needed to make up his mind where he was going to go, how fast he was going to go and who or where he was going to reek havoc.
In Galveston, City Manager Steve LeBlanc late on Wednesday issued a mandatory evacuation order for the low lying west end of Galveston Island. Later, the mandatory evacuation order was extended to the entire island of Galveston, as well as low-lying areas around Houston, Tx.On September 11, (HERE WE GO AGAIN WITH MY LEAST FAVORITE NUMBER - 9.11) at 8:19 p.m. the National Weather Service in Galveston had issued a strongly worded bulletin, regarding storm surge along the shoreline of Galveston Bay. The bulletin advised residents living in single-family homes in some parts of coastal Texas they may face "certain death" if they do not heed orders to evacuate. Reports said as many as 40 percent of Galveston's citizens may have not paid attention to the warnings and there was fear of much the same in Port Arthur, Tx.
The prediction was that low-lying areas between Morgan City, LA, and Baffin Bay, TX, east of the projected eye of Hurricane Ike, would experience the greatest damage from storm surges of up to 20 feet. Waves at sea were expected to be higher, up to 70 feet according to computer simulations.
To no one’s surpise, the price of gas increased in the expectation of damage to some of the numerous oil refineries along the South Texas coast, or at least delays in production from the oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
We battened down the hatch in Beeville and late on Thursday, Ike decided he would roar on in to Galveston, Texas, taking his path up IH-45 to Houston. Anyone who lives along the Gulf Coast, or along any coastal town, for that matter, knows the real threat of Septembers and Hurricanes. Houston, however, has only been hit by two Category 3 or stronger storms in the last 50 years---yeppers- Hurricane Carla (later classified as a Category 4 because they didn't categorize them in 1961) and Alicia, who came in roaring like a freight train with a machine gun, on August 18, 1983 blowing out windows in Houston like a war torn ravaged town. Both storms caused enough damage, and wreaked enough havoc, to have their "names" retired from the list at the Natioinal Hurricane Center.
I really wanted Sam to come home (San Antonio, TX has been home for me since 1994) when Ike was threatening with 23 foot storm surges.
Even before Ike made landfall, the rising storm surge began spilling over the Galveston Seawall with 17-ft. breaks. Although Seawall Boulevard is elevated above the shoreline, lots of folks don't realize that many parts of the town slope down, behind the seawall, to the lower elevation of Galveston Island. By 6 p.m. on Friday night, estimates were varying as to how many of the almost 60,000 residents had stayed to ride out the storm. My little sister, Janell, has worked at the University of Texas Medical Branch (though she does not live on the Island), and it had massive flooding, as did the Galveston County Courthouse, with six feet of flooding.
On up the road in Houston, Sam and his neighbors had boarded up the townhouse unit with optimistic caution and all had decided to ride it out. I felt a bit better knowing that Sam's townhouse was in the middle of the complex (1 unit to his left and 2 to his right) so I thought he would be a little more protected. We began text messaging about 8 p.m. and though I didn't tell him, it was the tornadoes I was concerned about. With his optimistic nature, you would have thought he was on an outing of some sort and was going to wake up to the smell of bacon and eggs in the forest the next morning. Of course, I knew better. I feared not only for his safety, but his life. I never even told him (guess he will know now) that I really wanted to drive down there since I felt so "experienced" with these things. That would be me...the goofy Mom going up the highway, the wrong way, headed to the hurricane, not from it.
But, I don't think experience is the word. How about just middle age and having gone through a few storms...of course remembering Hurricane Carla all the time. But, optimistic he is, he stayed through the night text messaging back and forth and convincing me that all was okay. Reports were showing that the eye wall was going to pass directly through Houston and that was the worst part. Fearing he would think "all is well" and relax his guard. I think after he lost power, whatever relax he had...well, it was gone. Same said for his patience. Don't we all take air conditioning for granted and the other little things in life like hot water and ice? Well, I gave in to my tiredness about 2:30 in the morning, hoping and praying for the best but just not able to stay awake. He had been reassuring that all was well so off to bed I went hoping the media was wrong. It was going to take a different path...they can do that, you know. No messages came through during the night but when I woke on Sunday morning, first thing I could think of was to "text Sam." I did, and let me tell you the message I got back was "No power, Mom, when is this thing going to move on?" Even in a text message, I had the sense that there was no more tolerance, no patience but he wasn't leaving his home. I believe, though he's never said it that the wind had been loud and strong and a sense of "doubting about staying" must have set in.
As a historical comparison, I read that the September 8, 1900 Galveston Hurricane landed along a path similar to Ike's bringing with it a storm surge that inundated most of Galveston Island, and at that time, Galveston was Texas' largest city and a major U. S. port. Much of Galveston was destroyed and over 6,000 people were killed. That storm resulted in increasing the elevation of the island by 4 feet and building of the 17 foot seawall to block incoming waves. Guess Global Warming wasn't on the radar screen at that time.
Sam's home weathered it fairly well and he was absorbing it all, trying to get things done in an orderly fashion but I think we all know recovery after a hurricane like Ike is anything but "orderly." The beautiful city of Houston had windows broken all over downtown and the power outages were major...really major. Some parts of Houston are still without power and are not expected to have power for several more weeks. Fortunately, the storm moved quickly (though I doubt Sam would agree with that) so flooding wasn't a major problem for the city, as it normally is as a result of the geography. Ike had made landfall at Galveston, TX on 9.13.2008 at 2:10 a.m., as a Category 2 hurricane with winds of 110 mph. The storm had hurricane force winds extending 275 miles and 120 miles, respectively, from the center.
Ike didn't stop there...he kept on moving...merging with a large cold front moving from west to east across the central United States and became extratropical. There were heavy rains throughout the Midwest.
As for San Antonio, temperatures remained in the 90's with sunshine and no chance of rain in sunny San Antonio, TX where there is, on average, 252 sunshiny days a year. Still no rain. Need to go water, by hand, of course, we are on water rations. A few photos of Ike - http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/09/the_short_but_eventful_life_of.html Babs ~
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