First things first – Happy Birthday to Tinka’s sister Jenelle!!! We know her birthday was Sunday, and we called her but didn’t get it into a blog. She is thrilled to be another year older.
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Between 1900 and 1996 there have been 36 hurricane strikes along the Texas coastline. Only 15 of those have been major storms, category 3 or greater. These strikes have been divided with 17 storms along the upper coast, 13 in the southern section and only 6 in the mid-Texas coast where we are located.
Averages would say that we might expect a hurricane to strike the Texas coast about once every three years. Well, we hit the jackpot this year with three already.
Hurricane Dolly
Our first encounter was with Hurricane Dolly that arrived in Texas near South Padre Island. We had left there and moved to near Corpus Christi. Most people think that hurricanes damage the shoreline. In this case, the reverse is true. The Padre Island National Seashore was impacted by the north side of Dolly.
We spend quite a bit of time in the park at a place called Little Shell Beach, located about 20 miles south of the park headquarters.
This was the width of the beach prior to Dolly.
You can see by the following picture that new beach has been deposited on top of the older one. (Click Photo for Larger View)
This is how Shell Beach gets its name – click to enlarge.
So no, hurricanes don’t always damage the beaches.
Hurricane Edouard
When we were in Galveston, we were inconvenienced again and our travels were chronicled on a recent blog.
Hurricane IKE
Now we’re tested once again. We are currently threatened by our latest adversary, Ike. As it leaves Cuba and heads toward the Texas coast, we’re not getting a very clear picture of the proposed path. Best guess sends it directly at us just north of Corpus Christi. Timing will be a little easier to gauge, late Friday or early Saturday and probably a category 3.
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Hence, WE’RE OUTTA HERE!!! Tomorrow morning we’re packing up and heading west to Lake Casa Blanca State Park at Laredo, TX. (Laredo is located about 175 miles west of the coast on the Mexican border.) When we checked on availability at the park we found that there were no vacancies unless we were evacuees from the storm. Since we are, we were able to get in, and here’s the best part, free.
We’ll keep you posted on our movements.
Hope you are safe. You have had a great many adventures during this year in the R-V. and probably more to come.
BTW, I am only a day older.
Comment 2: That beach is like the one where you collected those shells you gave me. Maybe I shouldn’t say that, because, maybe, it is illegal to collect shells.