January 2018
We’ve moved up the barrier reef to Port Aransas into an RV park called On The Beach- and it is! We have full hookups and will be here for 5 weeks. And the temps have just gotten even colder! Four mornings of below freezing which is rare here!
The sea turtles can not survive in water temps below 50 on the bayside of the islands; on the gulf side they can swim out to sea and find warmer water. Over 2000 turtles were rescued after getting “stunned”.
SUNSHINE! Finally, January third the sun came out…all day. We almost hit 50 degrees, not exactly beach weather, but getting better. (Blizzard back in Maine…we feel for you!)
It is a cold winter here, even the locals are complaining! However, we are grateful to not be shoveling snow! We walk the beach most every day, sometimes twice, find the sunny side of our camper to sit on. We’ve found a shooting range, Pickleball is here but no one plays- odd, no one is sailing because so many boats were damaged in the hurricane.
I have been thinking about how to write about the devastation from Hurricane Harvey which hit here in early Sept. from Port Aransas, Aransas Pass, Rockport and Fulton so much was destroyed or left needing to be demolished. Some observations from being here 5 months later:
Port Aransas is a barrier reef island 50-60 miles long that is separated from Padre Island by a very narrow inlet. In Port A, the other day, we were at a store that had marked the high water mark- now keep in mind, the tide swing here is only 1/2 to 2 ft. The high water mark was about 2 ft from the floor, the floor was 3ft. above the road and the road is a bout 5 feet above sea level- so the water was above 10 ft. deep!
The bay side from Port A to Corpus Christis has only Aransas Pass – about 1000 ft across and a few other small shallow channels for water to come and go. Once the water got into the bay from the storm and storm surge, it had very few places to go. And it is VERY flat here- for miles and miles. Water came up and over the 10-20 ft. dunes (there are access roads at slightly lower elevations) and rushed across everything into the bay, which then pushed into the shore towns. And then the rain came- this area had a lot of rain, but 200 miles NE, the Houston area, they got 20+ inches of rain in the days after the storm. And the storm surge brought 12 ft of water from the bay back over the island to the Gulf.
We still see many homes and businesses that need to be demolished, others with tarps on their roofs, some that have gotten just a band-aid. Some people are still displaced- 5 months later. Most hotels have not re-opened, as with half the restaurants and other small businesses. County, State and Federal sites have barely been touched.
An example of the ripple effect- we called a dentist to get our teeth cleaned- they got us right in- that was amazing…except for the reason- they were without phone service for SEVEN weeks and even with a cell phone could not contact many of their clients. Those they did reach had no home, no job, no money and/or no energy for their teeth.
Contractors and Power Crews are still working seven days a week here- no holidys for them.
The debris piles get picked up regulary and dumped in common sites to be sorted and separated- people sit in high lifts and watch all the work. In Rockport, the debris pile was put in the median of the highway- about 200ft wide and FIVE miles long. Remember, Harvey hit five months ago.
I (as well as many of you) have been through many a hurricane, ice storm and nor’easter. Two big differences- it looks like our buildings are built sturdier due to winter conditions, and not many of us live along the very flat shore.
Because of the damage, fewer “Winter Texans” showed up this year. Most of the RV Parks are close to full, however many, many hotels and rental units are not open. There is a very strong resilience here, as we have talked to locals—what else can you do? So we are here and spending our money locally.
End of January- we got a few sunny warm days and are back to the wind and overcast. We have done some interior decorating on our camper- to brighten the inside up. And Clare is working on some “energy” jobs- an inverter for DC power for the coffee pot and Magic Bullet and a converter to let the solar panels fully charge the Lithium Batteries.
We move out tomorrow, Feb 7- east along the Gulf Coast and eventually north up the Appalachian Mtns.