best texas beach/es to visit and possible place to live on the gulf coast

[jackalope48]

Originally Posted by BobTex

Quick story relayed to me about a friend of a friend who had decided to stay on the Bolivar Peninsula during Ike. He started out on the second row of houses from the beach but early on the storm surge started breaking the house apart so grabbed an ice chest and floated to a row 3 house that soon also started deteriorating due to hydraulic wave actions so a repeat of the earlier retreat from the Gulf ensued landing him on a row 4 house which was pretty near State Hwy 87. Alas because of the minimal rise in land elevation the incessant ocean current/wave situation he was virtually in the same precarious refuge predicament. With no nearby structures he managed to lash several ABS ice chests together into a crude raft and entered the water . Storm surge and wind carried him north (away from the Gulf) and he traveled about 10 miles through the night, crossing East Galveston Bay. As day light came and the winds subsided he found himself offshore of Smith Point (Anahuac) dodging floating pods of fire ants while sharing the water with numerous snakes and alligators. He propelled himself to a huge pile of debris and managed to get up onto semi dry land (storm surge had not totally receded yet). Later in the afternoon he was rescued suffering from hundreds of fire ant bites and pretty serious dehydration.

Note to self ... 100 miles inland is not enough for strong hurricanes.

Corpus takes it pretty seriously in terms of evacuation. 75% left for Ike including high area residents before it turned. First thing is shutting off all the water and power in low lying areas. Old story from Celia was that they went to the last batch of holdouts with tags and asked them to secure them to their body so it would be easier to id them when the washed up. Any low lying coastal area from Brownsville to New York City has the possibility so it's important for people to realize where they are and that they need to leave when told to do so. Now it's typical that more people die in San Antonio and Austin in storm caused flash flooding than along the coast. That being said there are still complete idiots who wont leave and vigilance tends to decrease over time.

The best one I ever heard was in the late 1800s the rancher on North Padre got caught on the island in a storm and ended up tying himself to an oak tree on the highest hill and spent the night surrounded by every rattlesnake and coyote on the island bunched around the base and tree itself. I always tell people living out there not to have more precious valuables than can fit in their and be loaded by them personally in an hour or two.

[TamaraSavannah]

Just came across this on a friends page on FB:
Port Aransas to limit Spring Break beach drinking hours - KRISTV.com | Continuous News Coverage | Corpus Christi

To me, when one starts seeing things like this, even if it is only temporary, it's another sign of the end of the sleepy little town.