| “Ike drove home the need for us to be better prepared.” | |
Jim Weatherford, Texas General Land Office |
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Hurricane Ike hit Galveston, Texas, on September 13, 2008, becoming the third most destructive hurricane ever to make landfall in the U.S. Programs and projects implemented by Texas coastal resource managers are helping shoreline communities not only recover from the impacts of Ike but become more resilient to future storms and the effects of climate change, such as sea level rise.
“Hurricane Ike will likely go down in history as the most costly and destructive storm ever to hit Texas,” says Jim Weatherford, senior administrator for the Hazard Mitigation Program at the Texas General Land Office (GLO). “We really didn’t have a solid plan of attack to deal with a storm like Ike. . . We learned that planning is extremely important, especially now with the upcoming issue of sea level rise.”
As soon as staff members from the Texas GLO—which also is the lead agency for the Texas Coastal Management Program—could get access to the beach after Ike, work began to re-establish the landward boundary of the public beach, clean up debris on the beach and in state-owned waters, and help communities identify potential hazard mitigation projects, including the buyout of more than 800 homes destroyed or damaged during the storm.
Longer-term efforts to make the coast more resilient include instigating the biggest coastal protection effort in the state’s history and assisting coastal communities with updating their local and regional hazard mitigation action plans.
GLO staff members have also developed websites to help coastal property owners and communities with recovery and hazard mitigation efforts and are working with regional partners to share adaptation strategies and lessons learned.
“The time to start planning for something like sea level rise is now,” Weatherford advises. “Don’t wait until you are seeing water coming up to the houses.”
History Repeating
It had been more than 100 years since Texas experienced a hurricane the magnitude of Ike. “The last time something like this happened was in 1900,” Weatherford says. “Ironically, Ike took the same path as that storm, came in at the same time, and had almost the exact same storm surge. It was like a repeat of history.”
Hurricane Ike roared across Galveston Island and Bolivar Peninsula and into eastern Texas between 2 and 3 a.m. with sustained winds of 110 mph, a storm surge of about 20 feet, and widespread coastal flooding. It left behind more than $29 billion in damages.
Weatherford was representing GLO in the state emergency operations center when the storm hit. “Bolivar received the worst damage,” he recalls. “They were hit by the northeast quadrant of the storm, which is historically where you find the maximum storm surge. Bolivar was completely underwater. In the small community of Gilchrist, there was one structure left standing.”
Altering the Landscape
After the storm, it took several weeks for GLO staff members to get to the beaches because all the access roads and a ferry landing were washed away. “The storm took out houses, infrastructure, and septic systems,” Weatherford says. “It removed the dunes, vegetation, and the root systems for the vegetation. It completely altered the landscape.”
Before the storm, the natural line of vegetation determined the landward boundary of the public beach, which is specified in the Texas Open Beaches Act. With so much of the natural vegetation destroyed, the GLO and local governments couldn’t make decisions about permitting or determining the extent of the public beach easement.
Speeding Assistance
To speed reconstruction, Jerry Patterson, commissioner of the Texas GLO, established a line at 4.5 feet above sea level as a temporary permitting line for local governments and the GLO to use for emergency permitting and rebuilding. Additionally, this 4.5-foot line was used as a guide for debris cleanup for the beach system and state waters.
“There was an extensive amount of debris in Galveston Bay,” Weatherford says. “There was debris out as far as you could see—cars, boats, everything was in the bay. It took almost a year to clean that up.”
The 4.5-foot line was used as the public beach boundary until August 2009 when the GLO completed an extensive shoreline assessment to re-establish the boundary line. The new boundary is 200 feet from mean low water.
Maps showing the new boundary were made available to the public online at TexasBeachAccess.org.
More Resilient
Efforts to make the coast more resilient to future storms include removing more than 800 homes that were destroyed or damaged during the storm from the Texas coast using about $130 million awarded to the state by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. According to FEMA, the buyout is the single largest mitigation project ever funded for this region.
With GLO staff support and $10 million in state matching funds, local governments are purchasing the properties at pre-storm fair market value from willing homeowners. The properties will be converted to open space in perpetuity, ensuring that homes are not rebuilt in high-hazard areas.
Another agency initiative is undertaking the biggest coastal protection effort in the state’s history, which consists of beach nourishment projects, dune rebuilding and restoration, estuarine habitat restoration, revetment repair and construction, and updating critical erosion rates. GLO staff members are also helping communities amend and update their local and regional hazard mitigation action plans to meet the goals under the Texas Coastal Management Program.
Weatherford is also working with regional partners in the Gulf of Mexico Alliance to share adaptation ideas and information. The idea to create a website to serve as a clearinghouse for all five Gulf states became part of the StormSmart Coasts network, which can be viewed at http://stormsmartcoasts.org.
“Ike drove home the need for us to be better prepared,” Weatherford says. “I wish we’d started sooner.”
For more information about the Texas coastline after Ike, go to TexasBeachAccess.org. For more information on Texas’ hazard mitigation efforts, go to www.glo.state.tx.us/coastal/hazmit/ or contact Jim Weatherford at (512) 463-2572, or Jim.Weatherford@glo.state.tx.us. To view the Texas StormSmart Coasts website, go to http://tx.stormsmartcoasts.org.
