Copyright by Jerry Joseph Lord, Jr. 2011
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Copyright By Jerry Joseph Lord, Jr. 2011 The Dissertation Committee for Jerry Joseph Lord, Jr. certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: The Charging of the Flood: A Cultural Analysis of the Impact and Recovery from Hurricane Ike in Galveston, Texas Committee: ____________________________________ John Hartigan, Supervisor ____________________________________ Kathleen Stewart ____________________________________ Mariah Wade ____________________________________ Craig Campbell ____________________________________ Amelia Rosenberg Weinreb ____________________________________ Laura Lein The Charging of the Flood: A Cultural Analysis of the Impact and Recovery from Hurricane Ike in Galveston, Texas By: Jerry Joseph Lord, Jr., B.A. M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2011 This dissertation is dedicated to my mother and father, Carol Getek Lord and Jerry Lord, Sr. The completion of this project would not have been possible without them. Acknowledgements This dissertation was a much different learning experience than what I had intended for my fieldwork prior to September 12, 2008. I would like to thank the following people who helped me in a myriad of ways, personal and practical. My thanks to the Mod folks: Angela and Craig Brown, Ara 13, Carrie Daniels, Dan Woolsey, (Local Writer) Joe Murphy, Dr. John Gorman, John McDermott, Ken & Holly McManus, Dr. Malcolm Broderick, Nina Faulk, Robert Taylor, Tim Thompson, and Vanessa Zimmer. I appreciate all the talks about Galveston and all our conversations about topics big and small. Life in Galveston after Ike was much better when Mod Coffeehouse came back. Angela, Ken, and Holly deserve a special note of thanks for bringing the shop back after we thought it was lost. My sincere appreciation to the housing group of the Long Term Recovery Committee and all the Galvestonians who “stayed in the round” after Ike to offer visions of a stronger island: Mary Beth Trevino, Laura Murrell, Chula Ross Sanchez, Garry Hoffman, Patricia Toliver, Lillian McGrew, David Miller, Jim Sweeney, Serena Cochrane, Shane McDermott, Amin Abdul, Rita Beafneaux, Raymond Lewis, Betty Massey, Elizabeth Beeton, Cornelia Harris-Banks, Leon Phillips, Joe Compian, Joe Higgs, Barbara Crews, Ru Camp, Herbert Turner, and Tara Gass. This is a woefully incomplete list of all the many hands and minds that contributed to Galveston’s recovery. Dr. Priscilla Weeks and Dr. Steve Jacob graciously allowed me use of data I collected during the summer of 2008 under their IRB study, SU08BS001, “Social Indicators of Sustainable Coastal Development.” I’m thankful for the use of these data and for their introduction to the use of vulnerability and resilience as social analytics. Moreover, Dr. Weeks’ generosity of intellect and kindness was unfailing before and after the storm. Thank you to Casey Greene at the Texas History Center at Rosenberg Library. His knowledge of Galveston history was tremendously helpful, as was his assistance to me as I conducted archival research. Thank you also to Alecya Gallaway at the University of Houston-Clear Lake for a series of enlightening and enjoyable conversations about the social and environmental histories of Galveston Bay as well as access to her historical archives. Thank you to the members of my dissertation committee: Drs. John Hartigan, Kathleen Stewart, Maria Wade, Amelia Weinreb, Craig Campbell, and Laura Lein for their insights and support of this project. I extend a note of grateful recognition to Dr. Ward Keeler for his helpful contributions as well. I am grateful for the financial support of the Hogg Foundation of the University of Texas at Austin through the Harry Estill Moore Disaster Studies Dissertation Fellowship. To that end, I owe special recognition to Dr. Martha Norkunas for first introducing me to the Moore archives at the UT Center for American History immediately after the storm. Dr. Ken Macleish, Rachel Pomerantz-Macleish, and Charles “Willy” Nicholson put me up for two weeks after I evacuated to Austin with no questions asked. Their graciousness and generosity were utterly humbling, in part because it was so urgently needed, yet so casually bestowed. Thank you! My love and eternal gratitude goes to Lora Kahn for picking me up when I was down, and for supporting me unfailingly ever since. Too often I haven’t deserved it. I offer sincere thanks to Barry & Tammie Kahn as well for their myriad generosities, imparted wisdom, and for raising brilliant and lovely daughters. Thank you all! v TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One: The Gathering Tides: an introduction to Hurricane Ike & Galveston Island............................1 Chapter Two: A Peculiar Backsurge: vulnerability, resilience, and Galvestonian disaster culture...............37 Chapter Three: Sustainable Futures: the cultural politics of advocacy and long-term redevelopment............99 Chapter Four: Rebuilding Public Housing: a localized American cultural dialogue about place and race...166 Conclusion: On Dreamworlds, Catastrophe, and the Limits of Transcendental Revitalization.................,207 Works Cited:................................................................................................................................ 236 vi Chapter One: The Gathering Tides: an introduction to Hurricane Ike & Galveston Island “All neighborhoods and possibly entire coastal communities will be inundated during the period of peak storm tide. Persons not heeding evacuation orders in single-family one or two-story homes may face certain death.” –National Weather Service, 9/11/08 “You’re not coming in today.”—Carrie. She didn’t have to tell me. I heard the night before that the mayor would make the formal announcement in the morning. I was fortunate for that head start to begin packing the more valued contents of my spartan, one-story apartment near the eastern tip of Galveston Island for an unexpected and indefinite return to Austin. As I hustled through my belongings, family members called on the telephone and friends texted with unanimity of message: get out. A dissertation study regarding coastal real estate development and the cultural parameters of risk assessment due to natural disaster was about to change dramatically into a far more educational experience of risk and disaster. Even if I hadn’t heard by that Thursday morning, I could tell by the look in Carrie’s eyes—innerved but composed, scared and sincere—that Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas had just ordered the mandatory evacuation most Galvestonians hoped to avoid. After Hurricane Ike had incubated for several days in the bath-warm, late-summer waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the National Weather Service forecasted that the storm’s most likely path led it directly to Galveston. Meteorological authorities were now indicating with increasing assurance that Ike would track north of Freeport, where they had thought it would go earlier in the week, and directly towards Galveston Island. They also forewarned of a particularly ominous storm due to the sheer size that belied the moderate intensity of its winds. As it churned 1 in the gulf, Hurricane Ike spanned 700 miles with a 115-mile bandwidth of hurricane- force winds spreading out from the eye1. Ike literally filled the Gulf of Mexico after it passed just north of Haiti—killing scores—and thrashed directly across Cuba. On September 4, the storm registered as a Category-4 storm2 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, before weakening to a strong Category-2 at landfall with wind gusts of 110mph. The size of the storm combined with the shallow, gentle continental shelf below the water caused this Category-2 windstorm to produce a nearly Category-5 storm surge of floodwaters. It would also spawn a local back-talking t-shirt: “Category-2, my hiney!” Hurricane Ike was a very peculiar storm. And it was about to smash into a very idiosyncratic place that has bore the brunt of tropical destruction man times over. This was the second mandatory evacuation in three years that Mayor Thomas ordered for the approximately 57,000 residents of this barrier island forty miles south of Houston. More people heeded the evacuation order for Rita, for better and for worse. The circumstances were much different last time. Three weeks after Hurricane Katrina drowned New Orleans, Galveston had expected to take a direct hit from Hurricane Rita. The storm eventually made landfall as a Category-3 windstorm after it had charged erratically through the gulf as a “Cat-5” leviathan. Instead of hitting the island, Rita weakened as it turned east to strike the Beaumont-Port Arthur industrial metroplex along the Texas-Louisiana border. While Galveston received ancillary weather damage from Rita’s wind and heavy rain, the evacuation off of the island was much more horrendous. City officials and the Galveston County Daily News corroborated an estimate that 90% of Galveston’s residents complied with the order; a rather staggering proportion given the 1 Upon landfall, the diameter of Hurricane Katrina measured approximately 415m, although packing much stronger sustained winds. 2 Ike’s sustained winds peaked at approximately 145mph on September 4th. 2 city’s hurricane past and the stubborn disposition with which than many of the residents—particularly the BOIs3—engage with such storms. The prospect of another mass evacuation passing through the fourth-largest