A sport fishing boat is embraced by docks in front of condominiums at the Dennis Dryer Municipal Harbor on Sunday, Aug. 27. Hurricane Harvey hit Port Aransas in the dark of night on Friday, Aug. 25, as a category 4 storm. City officials estimate 60 percent of the buildings in town suffered damage.
A major hurricane called Harvey slammed ashore with 132 mph winds and a storm surge that put three feet of water in some houses on Friday night and Saturday morning, Aug. 25 and 26, heavily damaging or destroying many dozens of structures in town.
Port Aransas, a town cherished by thousands of Texans for its quaint coastal beauty, now resembles a war zone.
Houses look like bombs went off in them. Boats in the city harbor were sunk. The hurricane knocked out all electrical, water and sewer service to Port Aransas, and the services aren’t expected to be back for weeks to come, according to city officials.
Preliminary estimates are that Harvey inflicted “significant damage” to at least 60 percent of the structures in town, said Rick Adams, the city’s emergency operations coordinator. Some 20 percent of those buildings received “catastrophic” damage, according to Adams.
Motel rooms behind Balinese Wellness Spa on Cut-off Road between Avenue A to the north and Avenue C to the south were ripped wide open by Hurricane Harvey.
City officials are allowing people back into town to tend to their property and assist in the process of rebuilding, but Port Aransas remains an official disaster area, and a curfew requires folks to leave town by 8 p.m. each night.
Homes on Cut-Off Road Between Gulf and Sixth streets suffered heavy damaged courtesy of Hurricane Harvey on Friday, Aug. 25.
Harvey, the first major hurricane of the 2017 season, took a stealth approach to the Coastal Bend. For a while, it looked almost like it might dissipate without reaching the U.S. coast.
It was only a tropical storm as it moved through the Windward Islands on Aug. 18 and then weakened to become only a tropical wave once positioned north of Colombia.
But the remains continued across the Caribbean Sea and the Yucatan Peninsula, then redeveloped over the Bay of Campeche on Aug. 23.
Top photo: The R.E. Stotzer Jr. lists to port as first responders line up at the ferry landing to make use of the one ferry in use for emergency personnel on Tuesday, Aug. 29. Bottom photo: the marina at Trout Street Bar and Grille, left, sits virtually empty and destroye thanks to Hurricane Harvey. From the restaurant to the right are the Coast House, Back Porch Bar (Port A Outfitters behind that) and Woody’s Sports Center.
Still, even at that point, not many people in the Coastal Bend were extremely concerned about the storm. As late as Wednesday, the National
Weather Service was reporting that Harvey was expected only to be a Category 1 hurricane at landfall, and that was forecast to be anywhere Baffin Bay to San Luis Pass.
A Category 1 hurricane has sustained winds of 74 to 95 mph.
City of Port Aransas Public Works Department employees remove garbage cans from city streets to keep them from falling victim to the winds of approaching Hurricane Harvey. This photo was shot in front of the Family Center IGA.
Housed in decades-old portable buildings, the city’s parks and recreation officeson Avenue A were finished off by Hurricane Harvey.
Then, on Thursday morning, came the ugly shock.
A few dozen city officials were gathered in the Port Aransas City Council Chambers at City Hall for a conference call from the weather service, updating everyone on what Harvey was doing.
AEP crews works to get utility poles back in operation on 11th Street following the path of destruction created by Hurricane Harvey that left Port Aransas without power, water or sewer. It could be weeks before the town is fully operational.
He said it was expected to strike late the next day between Corpus Christi and Port O’Connor, putting Port Aransas smack in the storm’s path.
“Oh!” exclaimed several people in the room, sounding like they’d been punched in the gut.
The meteorologist said Harvey was a “life-threatening” storm carrying the expectation of “devastating” and record-breaking flooding.
Bujan immediately ordered a mandatory evacuation of Port Aransas, setting a goal of having everyone out of town by 9 o’clock that night.
Reaction
Few Port Aransans had their windows boarded up Thursday morning. The pace of shuttering increased after the evacuation announcement, but the windows on many structures remained uncovered all the way until the hurricane struck – a testament to how flat-footed Harvey caught so many people in town.
The city sent the evacuation order out through a variety of communication channels. (The South Jetty posted stories on the newspaper’s website and Facebook page.)
Police drove slowly through neighborhoods, using a loud speaker to warn people that a major hurricane was coming and to evacuate.
Most people obeyed Bujan’s evacuation order, and the process went well, without dangerously long traffic jams developing on State Highway 361 or at the ferry landings, according to City Manager Dave Parsons.
With the hurricane bearing down on the Coastal Bend, resident Shannon Solimine did some online networking and was able to put together a list of more than 60 people who chose to stay behind and ride out the hurricane in Port Aransas.
Billy Gaskins was one of them.
Gaskins stayed in his house on Whispering Sands throughout Harvey’s onslaught.
At the hurricane’s peak, its winds “were roaring like a dragon, like some sort of beast,” Gaskins said.
The house ended up with some roof damage and rain- water inside, but the place remains livable, he said.
Gaskins said he didn’t evacuate for several reasons. Among other things, he wanted to be immediately on hand in the aftermath to look after his property – his house and his boats. Gaskins owns the Mustang and the Island Queen II. The boats help provide his livelihood, taking people out fishing and sightseeing.
“People say, ‘Why risk your life just for property?’ But I didn’t feel unsafe,” Gaskins said. He figured his house was strong and positioned well for the hurricane.
Not everyone had such an easy experience as Gaskins.
Bill Rogers nearly was swept away after getting caught in a storm surge a few feet deep on Oleander Street. He and his wife, Paulette, spent hours trapped overnight in their pickup truck, with water up to the vehicle’s dashboard. (See related story, this edition.)
And yet, no deaths or major injuries were reported from Harvey in Port Aransas.
“I would say that was a major miracle,” considering the fact that dozens stayed, Bujan said. “They lucked out, to be honest with you.”
Only a handful of city and county officials rode out the storm in Port Aransas. They included Adams, Parsons, EMS Director Tim McIntosh and Building Official Abel Carrillo. They hunkered down in a brick building on the campus of the University of Texas Marine Science Institute.
As Harvey closed in, Adams “went from confident … to fearful,” he said.
By about midnight, the roaring wind was making the building tremble.
“I was hearing impact sounds outside that sounded like 50mm machine guns,” Adams said. He later would discover the sound had been made by small rocks being flung against the building’s exterior walls.
But the building held up, and the men emerged, unscathed, in the morning.
Folks in Port Aransas remained able to communicate by phone as the hurricane’s outer bands of wind and rain edged into the Coastal Bend, and folks shot photos with their cell phone cameras and posted them online.
But communication by phone and the internet stopped late Friday night. The hurricane’s eye moved ashore about midway down San Jose Island, and some of the hurricane’s fiercest winds began striking.
Damage
Dawn over Port Aransas on Saturday revealed millions of dollars in damage to homes, businesses and other property.
“Town very smashed up,” Parsons wrote to a South Jetty reporter when he finally was able to get a cell phone signal nearly 24 hours later.
“Waterfront hit hardest as winds were out of the north,” he wrote in the text, which arrived at 2:51 a.m. “My house most likely totaled. Lots of compromised roofs and windows. Very large emergency response. Town is so smashed.”
While a number of boats were damaged or sunk entirely at the city marina, most businesses along the harbor still are standing. Still, at this writing, it was unknown how much flooding damage they may have suffered.
Some waterfront buildings plainly suffered major injury. The vacant building that once housed the Pelican Club restaurant now sags into a large, water-filled hole that the storm surge cut into adjacent pavement.
Roofs were torn away from many structures. A house on Tarrant Avenue. Another one on East Street. A condominium on 11th Street. Plus many more.
Mobile home parks were hit hard. Mobile homes were overturned at Pioneer RV Resort.
Boats ended up at rest in strange places all over town, such as lying on the parking lot of the Stripes convenience store at Alister Street and Avenue G.
Ancel Brundrett Pier, at the northern end of Station Street, was destroyed. Little more than pilings remain.
Power lines were down everywhere. Gas was leaking from many lines.
The complex housing the Port Aransas Police Department, municipal courts and the constable’s office got about three feet of water in it. Across the street, City Hall and the Civic Center weathered the storm well, city officials said.
Some city officials including the mayor stayed in Corpus Christi during the hurricane. When Saturday morning came, they at first couldn’t get to Port Aransas, because State Highway 361 was covered with debris. Heavy equipment was called in to clear a path.
Harvey knocked down power poles throughout the length of Mustang Island, and wires were on the ground all over Port Aransas.
First responders searched every house in town and found no one dead or suffering major injuries, said Scott Burroughs, chief of the Port Aransas Police Department.
A command center was set up at the Civic Center. Crews began clearing debris from streets. Parsons said the crews did a quick and marvelous job of getting the streets clear.
Wanting in
In Facebook posts online, residents and non-resident property owners clamored to be let back in town to check on their property.
Anger further was stoked after Parsons was quoted online by the South Jetty as saying that residents wouldn’t be let back into town any sooner than non-residents who don’t own property in town. Parsons said the same thing to a room full of city staff and some council members during one of the hurricane update conference calls, and no one questioned it at the time.
Adams was quoted in a May 2016 South Jetty story as saying basically the same thing.
But, after Harvey struck and frustration began boiling over in residents’ online posts, Bujan said the plan had to change. City leaders formulated a plan in which only residents would be allowed into town on Monday, Aug. 28. No one would be allowed past a State Highway 361 checkpoint without licenses with Port Aransas addresses. Access to town would be granted only from noon to 6 p.m.
Scores of vehicles lined up to be let in that day, and folks were let in to go back to their homes and businesses.
Jeff and Ginny Moss found their Channel Vista neighborhood home still standing, but the inside was destroyed.
“Water rushed in from the channel side … and the water was sucked from the toilets and then rushed back in exploding sewage from every faucet, tub and toilet,” Ginny wrote in a Facebook post. “It then mixed with the water rushing in from the channel. Needless to say, it reeks. There is not much to salvage, but … we will start trying to clean up. We are working on getting an RV to live in.”
Later that day, Bujan and other city leaders conducted a press conference in which the mayor announced that city leaders judged that the re-entry was going acceptably well and, as a result, they would eliminate the checkpoint and begin allowing residents and non-residents in every day. A curfew would allow people to be in town only from 6:30 a.m. and 8 p.m. each day.
City officials discouraged the idea of people bringing children to town due to dangerous conditions. They also said tourists and “looky-loos” also are discouraged from coming while the town is recovering.
The city issued a statement with a number of rules related to the re-entry plan. (See sidebar, this edition.)
While State Highway 361 has been opened up, ferry service still hadn’t been opened to the public as of the morning of Tuesday, Aug. 29.
Police from a wide variety of agencies including the Port Aransas Police Department are heavily patrolling the town and are on the lookout for the possibility of looters, the police chief said.
Burroughs said he hasn’t gotten reports of any actual looting, but he promised that law enforcement will deal with those kinds of lawbreakers “swiftly and aggressively” if they are caught.
He said he encourages citizens to report it to police if they see anyone suspicious.
Phone service remains a problem in Port Aransas, so calling 911 may not be the best idea if people want to get hold of police, Burroughs said on Monday. The best move is to look for an officer on the street and report it in person, he said.
Burroughs indicated that officers won’t be hard to find. They are common sights in Port Aransas right now, many of them constantly patrolling up and down the town’s streets.
Good news
It is a dark time for Port Aransas. But silver linings and optimism exist.
The historic Port Aransas Museum building appears intact. The building sustained minor damage, and no important historical materials inside were damaged, according to museum director Rick Pratt. Also, the cherished
Community Center also looks fine, at least from the street.
More history: The Little Chapel on the Dunes, an 80-year-old structure that’s beloved by residents and visitors alike, survived the hurricane. Resident Roger Brodnax, who boarded up the building’s windows before the hurricane, said he checked afterward and found that the Biblical paintings on the ceilings appeared undamaged.
Always a tightknit community, Port Aransas residents are bonding together even more strongly, now, loaning out their tools and personal labor to help neighbors in their recovery efforts.
Amidst a stream of statements updating the public on the city’s continuing recovery efforts, Parsons issued a note of encouragement to everyone: “We’ll get through this, working together!”
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