Hurricane Dolly

It has been 10 years since this house had its roof ripped off in Hurricane Dolly.

10 Years Later

By Dina Arévalo of the Port Isabel-South Padre Press

Monday, July 23 will mark the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Dolly, which made landfall north of the City of South Padre Island at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, July 23, 2008. It was the first hurricane to make a direct hit on the Rio Grande Valley in many years. 

It took Dolly only three days to form from the time meteorologists put out the first advisories on July 20 to the time it made landfall on the Island, said Jason Straub, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Brownsville. “The track pretty much followed right up the Rio Grande. It slowed down as it went across Deep South Texas here,” Straub said. 

Ultimately, the storm continued north-westward until it reached the deserts of west Texas and New Mexico — an odd track for a storm, Straub noted, saying that tropical weather systems typically head the opposite direction, north east. 

But where Dolly ended up mattered little to the residents of the Laguna Madre communities, and the Rio Grande Valley as a whole. For residents of South Padre Island, Port Isabel and Laguna Vista, what mattered was the havoc Hurricane Dolly wrought here, locally. 

Joe E. Vega had just been elected as mayor of Port Isabel two months before Dolly formed. In a phone interview Wednesday, the former mayor quipped that one of the first things he did as mayor was pray to God to keep the Gulf waters calm. “The only thing I asked is that you (God) don’t send any hurricanes my way,” Vega said he asked in his prayer. “And guess what, I was blessed by fire,” he said. 

Dolly had strengthened into a Category 2 hurricane before making landfall, with the highest reported wind gusts at 100 mph, according to information released by the NASA Earth Observatory. It had weakened to a Category 1 by the time its winds and rains lashed the beaches of South Padre Island, but its effects were enough to knock out power to the entire area. Some 200,000 customers overall lost power, Straub said. 

The PRESS reported at the time that the power outages lasted as long as seven days in some places. 

“We were without power here at City Hall for a week and this was our EOC (Emergency Operations Center),” said Alma Deckard, city secretary for the Town of Laguna Vista. The extended power outage was all the more frustrating to Town officials because local businesses just across the street from Laguna Vista Town Hall saw their power restored after only three days, she said. 

Bob Pinkerton, who was mayor of South Padre Island at the time, said the power outages were of concern in his city, as well. He spoke with leaders at CP&L to find out when power would be restored. “I spoke to the head of CP&L and I said take a look at your system and give me a for real date,” Pinkerton said he told the electric company. “Don’t give me any BS,” he said. 

The company gave him a timeline and lived up to their word, he said. 

Damage throughout the region was extensive. The storm’s winds pulled roofs off houses and businesses. Even Sea Turtle Inc. wasn’t immune. “A third of the roof was blown off and ended up on the beach,” said Jeff George, director of Sea Turtle Inc. (STI). 

Dolly occurred in the midst of Kemp’s ridley nesting season, as well, forcing STI staff to evacuate the eggs still incubating in the nests they had been watching over in a protected beachside corral. “The hatchery on the beach was gone, there was nothing left,” George said. 

The winds and strong rains knocked other things askew, too. Tree branches and downed power lines littered the roads. Sea walls protecting waterfront homes buckled from the onslaught. Many people were displaced, Vega said. 

He and interim City Manager Ed Meza began the task of trying to help their community, Vega said. They worked closely with the governor’s office, and the Salvation Army. The State of Texas Emergency Division deployed a convoy of supplies to the area, Vega said. 

“And I remember I was standing there in that parking lot looking west on Highway 100 and I saw the state troopers escorting the convoy,” Vega said. “I had tears in my eyes and they set up the point of distribution there where we got City employees involved and other volunteers involved to help the National Guard that were out there distributing ice and food items to the people,” he said. 

For days, Vega, Meza and other City employees worked on little sleep — two hours a night, Vega estimated. The same held true in Laguna Vista as town staff mobilized to address flooding and other damage caused by the storm. “We were working 12 hour shifts during that whole time,” Deckard said. 

For Mayor Pinkerton — who served two lengthy stints on the South Padre Island council, first in the 1980s, and then again starting in 2002 — Dolly surprised local residents. But it wasn’t because Valley locals aren’t used to severe tropical weather, it was because of the strangeness of the storm itself. “No. 1, nobody realized it was going to last as long as it did and that it was going to switch around from the west,” Pinkerton said. 

And secondly, nobody expected a Category 1 storm to inflict as much damage as it did. 

As it continued inland, the storm’s forward progress slowed, giving the swirling bands of rain clouds more time to dump water over northern Cameron County and parts of Hidalgo County. Some areas, such as rural Santa Rosa, saw flooding that persisted for weeks. 

Dolly’s impact could be felt long after the water had dried and the debris had been cleaned up. Mayor Vega said its timing couldn’t have been worse since it made landfall at the peak of the summer tourist season. “I remember that prior to Hurricane Dolly we had a lot of people visiting our area, and it looked like it was going to be a great summer,” Vega said. 

“It put the Island out of business for 2-3 months overall,” Mayor Pinkerton added. 

The Point Isabel Independent School District even delayed the start of fall classes as the community struggled to recover. 

But, some good came from the storm, as well. Vega said the storm showed Port Isabel officials where they needed to improve in their preparation and planning procedures, including setting up “pre-position contracts” prior to hurricane season that secure debris removal services for the city. 

Another lesson included maintaining lines of communication with Long Island Village (LIV). “Before that there was no communication between Long Island and Port Isabel at that time, so that opened up our eyes,” Vega said. 

City and LIV leaders learned the hard way how much that communication had been lacking when Dolly damaged the swing bridge that connects LIV to Port Isabel, stranding some 80 residents in the resort community with no access to food, water or supplies. 

Thanks to the help of a local boat captain, Vega and LIV officials were able to work together to reconnect the center span of the bridge to allow residents to cross. 

Laguna Vista used the storm as a learning opportunity, as well, Deckard said. Afterwards, the Town invested in the improvement of its box culverts and other infrastructure, she said. 

And the storm had one other positive impact, Deckard said. It cemented the family-like bonds among Laguna Vista town staff and first responders. “It was a rough time, but I think the employees we’re kind of a family because of what we went through together,” she said.