So what happens now? Ike has come and gone and the wake of destruction left behind is unbelievable.
I was just in Hooters which was in a pier, off the sea wall, out over the Gulf a few weeks ago. I had a great Tuna sandwich on the back deck, sitting on top of and looking out over the water. It was peaceful, it was relaxing, it was there, something that can no longer be said. Concrete and pillars remain as a shadow of what used to be.
My favorite souvenir shop where I bought my kids sea shells & t-shirts is also a faded memory, nothing but sticks on the beach and in the water.
The Lone Star Rally is one of my favorite events, something I look forward to every year. A little Bourbon Street madness on the Strand, all kinds of vendors and events galore. The great weather, the biker community celebrities and the awesome new biker stuff.
Moody Gardens was suppose to host the Beach Boys but now they have to remove the beach which crawled it's way into the lobby and probably a couple of floors above. Hotels which would have been full in another 6 weeks will probably still be replacing walls and hoping for a working sewer system.
I live north of Houston & let me tell you Ike was one sneaky SOB. The beginning of the storm up until the eye wall was just what you would expect. Some rain, some wind, a bit gusty at times and the ensuing blackout. No big deal, been there done that, got the t-shirt to prove it!
The back end of that storm was un-freekin-believable, killer winds and torrential downpours of rain. Trees falling over, roots & all, fences down, glass rattling so hard, you're waiting for the implosion. Ike did more damage in the last hour than he had in the previous 5.
Yes I did say he, that was one thinking storm. How do you get your self graded as a force 2 and do more damage than a force 4 or 5. You've got to be one thinking, deceptive entity!
We hadn't had much rain for quite a while so there was no way that rock hard, dried out ground could soften up enough in a few hours to have trees falling over, or so we thought! In the beginning Ikey rained & blew just enough to soften the ground and weaken the root systems of the trees. Then, like a great fighter with a one two knock out punch, he came back around and ripped the trees right out of the ground, throwing them through buildings, fences and cars.
Here's a little history straight from Milton Elford's account which appears in: Halstead, Murat, Galveston: the Horrors of a Stricken City (1900) "When they awoke on the morning of September 8, 1900, the 38,000 residents of Galveston, Texas were unaware that this day would be their city's last. They had no idea that before the day was done, 8,000 of their fellow citizens would perish with the city. The culprit was a hurricane. The storm swept in off the Gulf of Mexico packing winds up to 135 mph - a category 4 storm in modern terminology. The storm propelled a fifteen-foot surge of water before it; easily swamping the 8.7-foot-high island that Galveston called home. Together, the wind and the water destroyed everything in their path and created the worst natural disaster in America's history."
See any similarities? If you continue to investigate, you'll notice a lot of similarities. The one thing that is totally dissimilar (thank God for the forced evacuation) was the death toll.
I sure do hope the Rally is postponed and not canceled. I'm hoping for a somewhat speedy recovery so the island will be capable of hosting it. The title surge knocked around everything but that Texan breed Galvestonian spirit.
The Lone Star Rally merchants look forward to the crazy bikers streaming in with their attitude of fun and their willingness to drop a little coin. The bikers look forward to the events, checking out the new stuff and enjoying a little hair down letting.
This time of the year is beautiful in Texas and I sure will miss visiting my favorite restaurants and bars when I ride down that way. As it appears now, they are no longer there.
I hope they rebuilt it soon. The island has come a long way since I started going in the 80's and I've enjoyed seeing it come of age. It is truly one of my favorite places. Knowing many people from there, I know they have that "6 Million Dollar Man" attitude. We can rebuild it, We can make it better!
Has Ike decimated the Lone Star Rally? The answer is NO! The Rally is still on and Galveston is dedicated to making it what it always has been, One Great Time! I just hope that everyone that was going is still going and even more show up in support of this beaten but not knocked out community.
"Long Live Galveston and Long Live The Lone Star Rally! |
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