Galveston Bay Case Study

On Friday evening, September 7, 1900, many of the 37,000 residents of Galveston, Texas, were settling down to dinner, few if any of them concerned about the steady 15 mph northerly wind rattling their windows. Within 48 hours, at least 8,000 of the townspeople would be dead, victims of the single worst natural disaster in U.S. history. Relatively few people are aware that the deadliest natural disaster in the United States was the hurricane that struck Galveston Island on September 8, 1900. One of the best resources that can be found to help fully understand the significance of this storm is Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson.

A little further along the Gulf Coast lies the port city of Mobile. Visitors can explore some of the city's unique attractions, museums, and downtown Mobile’s historical section. Be sure to sample the seafood that the city is known for.

The resorts had proved resilient and survived a major hurricane, and this encouraged investing in the area. All the resorts were quickly rebuilt and even more resorts and buildings were built due to the new found confidence of the investors. The damage they couldn’t fix was the beaches. The resorts brought some of the sand that had moved farther inland back to the beaches, but their wasn’t enough sand to fix everything. There is now a limited number of nice flat beaches in the peninsula that tourists love. The fact that it takes several years or even decades for the beach to fully recover from a Hurricane is mind

It is a fair comparison as both cities were left devastated and many people were left wondering how each city would recover and what the future would hold for each city. One major difference between the two in regards to how the government responded to the disasters is that in 2005 when Katrina hit there were federal disaster relief agencies in place to help with just that type of natural disaster where as in Galveston in 1900 there was pretty much no help from the federal government and everything was being coordinated at a local level. But perhaps the biggest difference between the two is that during Hurricane Katrina it was known well ahead of time that the storm was coming and roughly where it was going to hit the hardest, in Galveston one of the major failings was no one knew exactly what was going to happen and it was at one point predicted that the storm would not even hit Galveston and that they should only be prepared for high winds and some rain(3)(2), because of this New Orleans during Katrina had the advantage of being prepared for disaster while Galveston was struck by surprise. The initial efforts made to clean up each city differed in that Galveston put a lot more of its focus toward preparing defenses against future storms by attempting to raise the city above sea level as much as it could as well as building a wall to keep water out of the city where as New

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Economic Impact Industries were forced to move to Houston (“Martinez”). This caused a loss on huge sources of money for Galveston that otherwise would have been able to give Galveston a little bit of recovery. Individual losses plus public property losses such as paving, water works, schools, hospitals, and churches totaled to around, if not over, 30 million (“Resources”). Most of these losses would have had to been rebuilt immediately to keep the future of the younger people in the correct road to success. Because of all of the losses in the hurricane, Galveston never recovered economically (“Martinez”). Galveston is still at a large loss of money that it will probably never recover in our lifetimes. “The Texas Legislature agreed to a tax and sale of bonds to pay for raising the elevation of the city” (“Martinez”). Using the money raised from this tax, a 3 mile long seawall was built to protect the city from future floods

In the turn of the new century, the people of Galveston were faced with a grim reminder. The event that destroyed the small island of Galveston, the Galveston Hurricane, had many social, political, and economic impacts that made this storm life-changing. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 improved Texas for the better and helped Galveston grow stronger as a city.

On the coast of Texas just outside of Houston is a county called Galveston County. People like to vacation here throughout the year even if it is just the Houstonians getting away from the city. There is plenty for people to do here from walking the beaches of Galveston, enjoying the recently built Pleasure Pier on the seawall, or the Boardwalk Plaza located in the town of Kemah to name a few of the most popular. These are the things people who visit enjoy yet the people who live here for the most part either work there or rarely visit the “Attractions”. The people that make up this county are not rich and for the most part barely get by. It is an

Every summer I look forward to sitting on a large, warm cabana under the Texas sun. My feet buried in the sand as I welcome the lukewarm waves against my legs. Being a beach bum in South Padre Island, Texas is a great way to bring on the summer. This island isn’t short of attractions, from the beautiful ocean, to tasty restaurants, to fireworks over the ocean you will never get bored on your vacation! Last summer I was joined by a few of my closest friends. We made so many memories as we all went parasailing for the first time. Our relationship grew stronger as we were able to share a new experience together. Spending a few weeks in South Padre Island with family and close friends is a great way to make memories that will last a lifetime.

Galveston, Texas is located 50 miles southeast of Houston. It is known as a barrier island on the Texas Gulf Coast of the United States. The city Galveston, Texas was the home of around 37,000 residents in the early 1900’s. This island grew from being a small settlement into one of the wealthiest cities in the country. It was normal for people to visit Galveston, Texas for it was known as a "tourist attraction". There was always the idea of building a seawall to protect Galveston from future hurricanes but it was never built. Although many hurricanes had hit the city several times in the past (before 1900) no one would have thought that a hurricane that would

More people were murdered in this solitary storm than the total of those killed in all the tropical cyclones that have struck the United States since. This count is greater than 300 cyclones, as of 2009. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 remains the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history. In less than 24 hours the city was efficiently obliterated.

The first mini project I began to work on was taking pictures of Galveston and agricultural areas of Texas and learning about the history of both. While researching about Galveston I learned that the Karankawa Indians used Galveston for hunting and fishing. Jose de Evia charted the Texas coast in 1785 and named Galveston Bay in honor of Bernando di Galvez, the viceroy of Mexico. In 1816 Louis Aury established a naval base at the harbor to support the revolution in Mexico. Up until the Civil War the port in Galveston was used for the Texas navy. In 1860 a bridge was built to the island resulting in strengthening Houston and Galveston together. Galveston had the first structure, the Galveston Pavilion, to have

Not only was was the grade of the entire city raised, but a 50 ft. seawall was built to protect it. Within a decade, five hundred city blocks had been raised with sand from the Galveston ship channel. These new improvements later proved to be up to standard in 1915 when a Category three hurricane made landfall in Galveston. This Hurricane had winds up to 193 mph, making it a repeat of the Hurricane of 1900, although with new city improvements, it passed without devastation. But what effects did this hurricane have on the residents in 1900, and today's current residents?

As we can see from the graph above the amount of tourist visiting the Galveston islands has been on a constant increase except for year 2009, which was a result of Hurricane Ike in 2008. When people are on vacation they tend to spend a lot, one of the reasons is because they have budgeted for that vacation and their mentality is to spend the money regardless, In 2015 the amount of money that cruise passengers spent on the island totaled to $59 million. (Rice,2016). As a result of the cruise industry that draws a large number of tourists to the island, employment in the industry is outpacing job growth in all other sectors on the island. “Although the health industry, dominated by the University of Texas Medical Branch, continues to contribute

Many have described the post-spill Gulf as a gigantic chemical experiment, with as yet unknown effect on its delicate ecosystem. By July 2010, one third of the Gulf’s fishing area—more than 80,000 square miles—had been closed, affecting the livelihood of thousands in coastal Louisiana and Mississippi.