A year ago my family and I were scrambling to get our belongings together that we wanted to take with us to Houston. Hurricane Ike was bearing down on the upper Texas coast and Texas City looked to be in its direct path. That prediction turned out to be true.
I look back at the last year and many thoughts come to mind. Every time a hurricane gets close to our shore, I think of Hurricane Carla that almost wiped our home off its slab in 1961. We ended up with almost five feet of water and mud in our home and my folks endured financial hardships for many years after. I wondered if Hurricane Ike was going to do the same to my home some forty-seven years later.
For three days we were cleaning up our daughter’s home. Many trees were down in the Houston neighborhoods blocking the streets. We were finally able to make our way down to Texas City to survey the damage there. We were truly blessed. The seawall that was built shortly after Hurricane Carla protected Texas City from flooding by rising tides. Our home sustained wind damage, but no flooding occurred. Thousands of folks in the surrounding area were not so fortunate. We are all aware of the terrible destruction that resulted from the Texas hurricane of ’08.
I’ll never forget the sight as we crested Skyline Drive from the dike entrance road. Everything was gone as far as businesses. All of the bait camps were totally destroyed and only pilings remained on a few spots where fishing camps and piers once stood. I never dreamed that the dike would suffer so much.
A year later, the dike is still silent. No fishing, boating, or the sounds of diesel engines whining from shrimp boats dragging their nets for the day’s catch. Hurricane Ike came with a vengeance, but left almost total silence on the six mile strip of land and granite rocks that we fisherman called home. And a year later, we still wonder.
Last week, a Houston television photojournalist contacted me via email asking me to help him with a story about the dike. I jumped at the chance. I also asked him if we could include Boyd’s One Stop bait camp in the story. I met him at Boyd’s last Friday morning along with Jason Cogburn, the owner. It ended up being only a couple of minutes of footage, but Jason got some good exposure on his business and we were able to tell a little about the hardship that Ike put on fishing and the related businesses.
I really think the dike will reopen to the public. It looks like next summer if all goes well. Another hurricane will change those plans, of course. But hopefully the sounds of people fishing on the dike will return and we will look back on this as a reminder that we have no control on the weather.
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