Surviving Hurricanes in Southeast Texas
Well, I have now survived two hurricanes and one tropical storm to strike the Southeast Texas area.
Bonnie, a category one hurricane, struck Southeast Texas on June 26, 1984 with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph and a minimum pressure of 992 mb. It struck just South of Port Arthur killing three people and causing 1.7 million in damages. The winds downed trees and thousands of us lost power for days.
Tropical storm Allison struck the upper Texas coast where it stalled out and caused catastrophic flooding in the Southeast Texas and Houston area. It closed many major highways in the area and caused $5 billion in damages making it one of the Top Ten most costly storms in U.S. history. I was living in Atascocita at the time and evacuated the Houston area, where most of the flooding occurred, to the Beaumont area where my parents live.
Rita, a category three hurricane, struck the Southeast Texas area on September 23, 2005 coming ashore around Sabine Pass. Rita had maximum sustained winds of 180 mph and a minimum pressure of 897 mb. A mandatory evacuation stranded thousands of us, along with millions of our Houstonian neighbors, on the highway in one of the largest traffic jams I have ever witnessed. She killed seven people and damaged thousands of homes and businesses racking up $5 billion in damages making her the seventh most costly storm in U.S. history and the most destructive in Texas history. Rita gained little attention from the media due to Hurricane Katrina that struck New Orleans a month earlier. It was extremely hard to get information on what was happening during and after the storm due to the media's inability to simply report the news that is relevant.
