The strongest storm since the Great Galveston storm of 1900 struck south of the Corpus Christi area. The hurricane, due to its fast movement and fortuitous landfall position, took relatively few lives and caused little damage. This storm, however, added to the conventional wisdom of the time that Corpus Christi is safe from dangerous hurricanes.
If one article can perhaps show the lack of concern of people in Corpus Christi towards hurricanes, it would be this excerpt taken after the storm describing the reactions of about 1,000 people as they took shelter in the Nueces Hotel.
This quote was taken from an Sept. 7, 1969 article refering to the 1916 hurricane.
"When the storm was blowing the worst the orchestra played its merriest, the vocalists sang their most encouraging numbers and waiters buzzed. There was little confusion. The hotel was as firm as a mountain. Men, women, and children, bound by a common cause, chatted and things lively, oblivious to the rage of the elements."
The following report was issued by W. F. Lehman, MIC of the Weather Bureau Office in Corpus Christi.
Note: This is taken from the original statement -- I made no effort to correct either the spelling or lauguage of the time --JMC
The first indications of the approach of the tropical cyclone that visited the western Texas coast region on August 18, 1916, were observed at Corpus Christi on the night of the 17th. The barograph recorded a wavering line, scarcely differing more than one-hundredth from a straight line, from 7 p.m. till 12 midnight. Instead of showing the usual rise of about six-hundredths of an inch between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. The wind, which had been light to gentle easterly during the day, shifted to the northeast about 10 p.m. and to the north at 11 p.m. A clear sky with a few strato-cumulus clouds had prevailed since 5 p.m. and was still clear at midnight. Cirrus and cirro-cumulus clouds from the east had been observed during the day, but their prevailing direction had been easterly since the middle of July.
In the early morning of the 18th the barometer began to fall slowly, and the wind, still from the north, increased from light at 1 a.m. to 22 miles at 7 a.m. Cloudiness also increased. Coming from the east, a layer of dense alto-stratus gradually advanced with a well-defined west front. At 5 a.m. about four tenths of clear sky could still be observed. The clouds soon assumed the shape and density of strato-cumulus, and at that time of the morning observation covered eight-tenths of the sky, with a sharply defined area of clear sky to the west.
The first light shower occurred at 7:45 a.m. and a thunderstorm, coming from the northeast and attended by moderate rainfall, passed over the city between 9:40 and 10:35 a.m. The wind, which had reached a velocity of 40 miles at 9:35 a.m., changed to light and moderate northeast during the passage of the thunderstorm, but resumed its north direction and squall character.
The barometer, after registering the usual thunderstorm nose, fell rapidly, and the wind increased in intensity, attended from 11:55 a.m. on by a steady rain which did not end until late at night. At 1:53 p.m. a maximum velocity of 64 miles was recorded with an extreme of 70 miles. The direction of the wind soon after changed to northeast and its velocity decreased to the force of a strong gale from 3 to 5:30 p.m.
The first squall of hurricane force occurred at 5:45 p.m. It was the beginning of straight east winds, veering occasionally between east-northeast and east by south. The barometer reached its lowest point, 29.05 inches - 29.07 reduced to sea level - at 6:15 p.m., but the wind attained its highest velocities during the subsequent two hours and a half. Estimated maximum velocities of 90 miles were reached at 6:50, 7:18, 8:15, and from 8:40 to 8:50 p.m., the barometer rising rapidly after 6:45 p.m.
From 6:30 p.m. on all the meteorological notes except the barograph curve had to be recorded by eye observation or estimation, since the wind instruments were wrecked and the window panes in the instrument room were shattered, burying the mechanism of the automatically registering instrument under glass splinters. The barometer box was fixed solid to the wall , and as there was no safer place to take the barometers to - it was not thought that the windows in the other office rooms would hold out much longer - they were well protected and the room was closed up.
After 9 p.m. the wind subsided, and at 11:30 p.m. it shifted to a southerly direction. The wind continued to blow in gusts till late in the forenoon of the 19th and became light after 7 p.m. A period of unusually light winds and calms, lasting five days, followed the storm.
The total rainfall for the day amounted to 1.58 inches, but this record is unreliable, as much of the rain was blown straight across the roof of the building, and such quantities as fell into the rain gage were mingled with salt-water particles from the bay, only a block distant from the office. The water drawn from the rain gauge had a decidedly brackish taste.
From reports of reliable observers, gathered at this office, the storm center passed inland a little south of Riviera, situated 45 miles south of Corpus Christi. At this place the wind blew from the north until about 8 p.m. and after a half hour's easterly direction came straight from the south. At the office of the Santa Gertrudis ranch, at Kingsville, 14 miles north of Riviera, the aneroid barometer was carefully watched by Mr. J. B. Wright, the manager of the ranch, and he took the lowest reading of 27.70 inches at 8:15 p.m. This instrument showed, on comparison, that it registered three-tenths too low, and it was sent to this office for adjustment. After being adjusted two day's observations and comparisons failed to show any difference in readings between our station barometer and this aneroid.
Hurricane warnings were received and sent out early in the forenoon. Considering local weather conditions and the 7 a.m. barometer readings of regular Weather Bureau stations on the Texas coast, there could be doubt about the course of the storm. It was also expected that telegraph wires would go down early and that the storm, which few, if any, had apprehended only 12 hours before, would reach its fullest strength on the coast about sunset. The coast places were warned first. Some fishermen had already ventured out at dawn in the bay and the lagunes; of these two were drowned. Then warnings that a hurricane was approaching the Texas Coast between Corpus Christi and Brownsville and that its full force might be expected sometime at night were sent out for dissemination to all places from Calhoun to Cameron Counties that could be reached by telegraph or telephone. Even as early as 10 a.m. about 20 of the addresses to be advised by telegraph could not be reached on account of wire trouble and had to be sent by telephone.
At 1 p.m. it was thought expedient to warn the city authorities that the worst might be expected between sunset and midnight and that people living in light frame houses should seek shelter in substantial brick buildings for the night. A volunteer brigade of about 100 automobiles was organized, and these were busy from 1 till 5 p.m. in bringing women and children from the outskirts of the city to the safer buildings of the business section. This work was greatly aided by the decrease in winds velocities between 3 and 5:30 p.m. City Hall, hotels, banks, and school houses were filled with refugees, which, while not comfortable, felt at least safe and at ease.
Of the people that thronged the local office of the Weather Bureau during the day a surprisingly large percentage were visitors who had spent their last summer's vacation at Galveston and had come to Corpus Christi this year in order to escape another hurricane. It was the settled conviction of even the oldest inhabitants that Corpus Christi lay outside of the path of destructive storms. Thus many did not trouble themselves with the protecting such property as could have been saved, and afterwards were glad that they and their families escaped with their bare lives.
Of the death toll exacted by the storm: six of the crew of the steamboat Pilot Bay, coming from Galveston, forewarned, perished when the boat was wrecked in the entrance of Port Aransas Harbor. The two fishermen mentioned before and a boy aged 14 complete the list of those drowned. Three unidentified Mexicans were killed in Willacy County, and an aged Mexican and his wife were found dead in their demolished home 7 miles southeast of Alice, Jim Wells County. Three warnings had been sent to Alice and were acknowledged with thanks. The death of an unidentified Mexican woman was reported from San Diego, Duval County.
The property loss in the entire hurricane affected district is estimated at $1,600,000, the cities of Bishop, Kingsville, and Corpus Christi being the largest sufferers. In Corpus Christi it was the water front that sustained the heaviest damage. All the wharves and most of the buildings on the wharves were destroyed, even the solid timber head of the municipal wharf was unfloored, taking down the storm-warning display tower. Hardly a property in Corpus Christi escaped without damage of some kind, and vegetation where not destroyed suffered heavily. Many of the picturesque salt cedars, the pride of Corpus Christi, were blown down.
There can be no question but that the storm was a fully developed hurricane with a central pressure at least 1 inch lower than that observed at Corpus Christi. The relatively low property losses along the coast must be ascribed to the rapidity with which the storm advanced and passed. Because of this rapidity of movement its chance of creating a big tidal wave were greatly diminished. Also it must be borne in mind that the whole length of the Texas coast is protected by sand islands stretching from the mouth of the Rio Grande to Galveston, with few inlets and sparsely settled.
-W. F. Lehman
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