Bolivar Peninsula News Update 3/02/09 - Stingaree Music Festival's MySpace Blog |

CRYSTAL BEACH — Though Hurricane Ike put a damper on most events on Bolivar Peninsula during the past five months, the 19th annual Crystal Beach Mardi Gras parade went on without a hitch.

Hundreds of spectators lined the street as nearly 40 floats paraded down state Highway 87 on Saturday morning.

The number of floats in the parade far exceeded the expectations of parade planner Anne Willis.

“This is the biggest (parade) we’ve ever had,” Willis said. “People who lost their homes even helped built floats for this parade.”

Hurricane Ike slammed the peninsula Sept. 13 with a storm surge as high as 20 feet that wiped out most of the community’s houses and left a debris field stretching into neighboring Chambers County.

Willis said she didn’t begin planning the event until late January, but realized that the community could use the morale boost.

“We really needed to have the parade this year,” Willis said.

While some floats were extravagantly built and decorated, others simply decorated flat-bed trailers, classic cars and even an airplane.

Entries from all across the area participated in the parade, including some from Galveston and Houston. Those in attendance left with high spirits and more than a handful of beads.

Sunshine sparkled off the calm waters of the Gulf of Mexico during my drive along Seawall Boulevard in October.

As I drove, I tried to imagine what it was like out here during Hurricane Ike. But I failed.

So like many others, I looked at what Hurricane Ike left behind. I began in mid-October and looked a day here and there until mid-January. In all, I viewed the entire beach front from Surfside Beach to High Island, a distance of 75 miles.

Like every other beach, Surfside Beach lost extensive areas of beach and dunes. Hurricane Ike pushed sand landward where it covered roadways and other areas north of the beach. And like every other beach, efforts here are now focused on recovering lost sand, trapping windblown sand and importing new sand.

Sand loss at Surfside Beach caused some beach-front homes to tilt or lean at odd angles on their pilings. In some cases, piling support was lost and houses collapsed.

From Surfside Beach to San Luis Pass, Gulf water is nearer than ever to the Bluewater Highway. Calling it a highway now is perhaps a stretch, since many pieces of the roadway are missing. One entire section several miles long was entirely gone. Here, I had to drive down toward the water and drive along the sand. Since driving this road could be described as an adventure, perhaps it should now be called the Not for Faint-Hearted Highway.

West End

While traveling the western end of Galveston Island, I had to wonder how many homeowners still thought it was a good idea to own a house seaward of FM 3005, since some homes were now literally on the edge of the Gulf of Mexico. It seems some of these structures are fighting a battle they will eventually lose.

At Galveston Island State Park, the beach side is now virtually gone. Once extending in excess of 300 feet south of Park Headquarters, the beach now lies just a few feet away.

Just east of the state park, giant sand socks in front of Pirates’ Beach West must have helped some, since there is comparatively little damage behind them. But socks are now sunken and ripped. These and others I saw will have to be replaced.

While traveling the western end of the seawall, I noticed that brown pelicans, cormorants and laughing gulls have taken up residence on the 89th Street fishing pier. Perhaps Hurricane Ike was good news to them, because they now have a new place to roost.

I also noticed the waves were breaking much closer to the seawall, but the ongoing beach reconstruction project along the beach front should help. Like others, I wonder if our beaches will be fixed well enough to still attract nesting sea turtles in the spring.

Big Reef

At the eastern end of the island, Big Reef Park along Boddeker Drive had the largest amount of debris of all the places I visited. Every bit of shore was covered by debris several feet thick.

Among the pieces of lumber, stairs, swings, outdoor chairs and trash containers, were items indicating a breech of living space: TVs, DVDs, a safe and a computer monitor. Also among the debris were carcasses of a horse, two cows and a pig.

Bolivar Peninsula was the only place I could think of that might have contributed this combination of household and animal remains. And it was the only place left to look.

To Rollover Pass

My wife, Pam, and I caught the ferry in mid-January. The plan was to stop and look at Rollover Pass and High Island on the way over and look at other places on the way back.

Pam drove and I looked. As we traveled, I saw much of what I had seen before: empty and broken pilings, collapsed houses, eroded beaches and dunes, and sand moved north into pastures and roadways.

I was surprised to see some areas where there still were a number of houses standing. Most appeared to be newer homes, left standing perhaps because they were built to withstand hurricane forces.

At Rollover Pass, we parked on the beach side, got out and immediately noticed the “last house standing.” There it was, intact, sitting all by itself with no other structures in sight.

We walked over to the bay side and while standing on the shore, I looked out over the debris-littered mud flat in the distance. To my right, the trailers and motor homes I remembered were all gone, except for a few overturned, their wheels and chassis pointing skyward.

I walked eastward past these overturned vehicles and looked out into the distance. I saw only empty pilings and the ghostly remains of a partial house.

A Time To Remember

It was time to push on, but instead of leaving, I felt the need to stay. I walked a bit more eastward and then down an empty street toward the bay. While walking back, I looked eastward once more at the barren landscape that once was the town of Gilchrist.

It was then I remembered her. I read about her in the newspaper. She had lived down there only a few blocks away. Initially, she had decided to stay. When she finally agreed to leave, it was too late. Several feet of water covered Highway 87, her only way out. Now trapped, she waited.

During the storm, her home was washed away by a 14-foot storm surge and 20-foot waves. Some six weeks later, her body was found by a hunter in a debris field 12 miles northwest of her home. When found, she was wearing only a T-shirt and boxer shorts.

I remembered her because of her clothes. Her clothes suggest she had dressed for bed, perhaps was even asleep when her house gave way beneath her. Asleep or not, her last moments must have been filled with unimaginable terror as she dropped into the water and darkness below.

I remembered her; she had lived down there. She was one of those who were washed away during Hurricane Ike. Remembering her, I lowered my head.

That was the saddest moment in all my days of looking.

Steve Alexander, a retired marine scientist, lives in Bayou Vista.