What is in store for the Queen of the Gulf...
Galveston was labeled "the Queen of the Gulf" back when it was one of the wealthiest cities in the country. In those days, it looked down on Houston, calling it "Mud City". But these days, the Queen has been down on her luck. The source of her wealth was the port, and the lifeblood of the port was King Cotton. Cotton was typically stored before it was finally shipped out for several weeks. Because of the local humidity, it would gain in weight about 10% to 15%. Because cotton was sold by the pound, the merchants liked it. But the buyers liked it too, it made it a lot easier to spin into thread and the thread was easier to handle. When I became an IBC(Islander By Choice as opposed to a BOI or Born On Island) in the mid-1970's, you still could get stalled in traffic by being trapped behind a cotton train. A cotton train is a tractor pulling a train of cotton bails, each on a pallet with wheels. But no more. With the decline of the textile industry in the US, the last remnants were outsourced to China, the port was in decline for much of the 20th century. It finally died, shut down in the late 1980s. Galveston has primarily been a tourist town for decades. Most of the tourists come from Houston, which is close enough that they typically don't spend much money on the Island. As locals have it, the typical tourist arrives with "a dirty t-shirt and a $5 bill, and doesn't change either one". So a lot of the city is poor with few prospects. Its demographics are similar to what many are striving for in this country, a few very rich families, a small middle/service class and a large number of the poor. But I digress...
So what happens when Rita hits? Right now, it looks as if it will come close to dead centering Galveston. Rita very well may be a Cat. 5 when it hits, something that hasn't happened to Galveston in recorded history. In the wake of the great Storm of 1900, Galveston had to rebuild. They built the Seawall and they had the Grade Raising. They cut canals in many of the streets and they jacked many of the remaining houses and build up, and moved dirt from other parts of the Island and pumped it under the houses. So the area behind the Seawall is significantly higher than sea level. When they built the Seawall, they realized that they couldn't build it high enough to block a worst case storm. Which is why the Seawall isn't a seawall, it is really a sea break. The face is curved so that when it gets overtopped it throws the force of the wave back on itself. And that means when it gets overtopped, like it did during Carla, the water sheets over the top with little wave action. And that minimizes the damage. During the Great Storm of 1900, much of the damage was caused by the waves taking a building apart and then using that debris to pound on other buildings, causing a cascade effect. Still, as close as Rita is supposed to come, there will be a lot of water behind the Seawall, despite the Grade Raising and the Seawall. The flooding will be severe. Still, most buildings and homes should survive. Commercial buildings and those at UTMB often have the first story with little or nothing in it. Older houses tend to sit up on piers, but the storm surge is going to be higher than the 10 to 15 feet that this would have protected them from. So they will be flooded, although the second story might be okay. Newer houses are typically built on slabs and single story, so they will be totally flooded.
The West End, the area past 7 Mile Road which is the end of the Seawall, is a write off. For one, there is an old borrow pit where they got the dirt for the Grade Raising out there. So the Island will likely be severed at that point. In addition, at Jamaica Bay, the developers dug channels so the residents could have waterfront property. So that is another potential wash over point. Besides, the Island starts to get very thin south of the Seawall, sand starvation has caused that part to erode significantly. Rita will only make it worse. There has been significant building out to the very tip of the Island over the past couple of decades, something that no one in their right mind should have done. All of that is likely to be toast.
Bottom line, the area behind the Seawall is likely to be okay, although the newer, slab built houses are likely to be ruined. There are several buildings built out over the Gulf on piers, notably the Flagship hotel and the Balinese Room. The Flagship will be no great loss, but the Balinese will be a great emotional loss. The West End of the Island is likely to become an archipelago, and pretty much all of the construction out there is going to be gone. Tiki Island, a development just across the bridge, is going to be toast also. Texas City will flood, as will all the refineries in the area. Ditto for Pasadena and Deer Park. Even in the best case, starting up a shut down refinery is more than simply flipping some switches. The catalytic reactions run at a high temperature, and that temperature has to be within a small range. So it takes time to heat the cat crack towers up and get them stabilized. And that assumes they have electricity, which between the downed power lines and the flooded generation facilities, might take some tome to restore. It is pretty optimistic to expect the refineries to come back on line next week. It could be considerably longer... |
