Hurricane Beulah, September 1967

Hurricane Beulah was one of five severe hurricanes to affect the Texas middle coast in this century. Previous severe hurricanes in this area were those of Sept. 14, 1919; Aug. 26, 1945; Hurricane Carla (Sept. 11, 1961) and Hurricane Celia (Aug. 3, 1970). Hurricane Beulah's effects on the Texas middle coast were comparable in many respects to those of Hurricane Carla, with major exceptions in comparatively light flooding of the offshore islands, a very high number of tornadoes, and severe flooding after landfall. The storm began in the extreme eastern Caribbean near the island of Martinique on Sept. 7 and intensified to hurricane force on Sept. 8. Moving generally west-northwestward, Hurricane Beulah touched land in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and the northern Yucatan Peninsula before reaching the southwestern Gulf and heading for the Texas coast. Beulah weakened temporarily to only tropical storm intensity on September 12 and 13 as it crossed the central Caribbean and weakened slightly again as it moved over the land of the Yucatan Peninsula on Sept. 17, but regained strength rapidly in the southwestern Gulf and became a great hurricane as it approached the lower Texas coast on September 19. Like Carla, Beulah moved in a cycloidal path across the Gulf.

Beginning on the afternoon of Sept. 17, persons were advised to remain off the Gulf beaches of Padre, Mustang, and St. Joseph Islands. Immediate evacuation of Port Aransas and Mustang, Padre, and St. Joseph Islands was advised on the morning of Sept. 19. Most of the residents and others on the islands evacuated, including the personnel of Padre Island National Seashore. About 40 persons remained on the islands, including about 20 at Port Aransas. Immediate evacuation of Rockport and Live Oak and Lamar Peninsulas was advised in the evenimg of September 19. These areas and the towns of Ingleside and Aransas Pass were nearly completely evacuated. About 50 persons remained in Rockport. The evacuation of the University of Corpus Christi was advised on the morning of Sept. 20, and Corpus Christi Beach and parts of Flour Bluff were also evacuated. During the storm there were 30,000 people in shelters in Nueces and San Patricio Counties, including 6,000 in Corpus Christi.

After the landfall of Beulah near the mouth of the Rio Grande about 7 AM on Sept. 20, the highest winds diminished sharply, but the remaining storm was very persistent. It moved northward, carrying hurricane winds to south of Alice, stalled there and weakened during the night of Sept. 20, then moved west-southwest passing south of Laredo on the night of September 21, moved southwestward to near Monterrey on Sept. 22, and broke up in the mountains of northern Mexico. The remnant of the center moved southeastward over Mexico and reached the southwestern Gulf area again on Sept. 25.

As with Hurricane Carla, the Corpus Christi area was spared the major violence of the storm. At landfall winds near the center were about 136 miles an hour, and the central pressure, which had been as low as 27.26 inches (937 mb), was 28.07 inches, or 951 mb at Brownsville, which gave the storm a tide producing potential of about 15 feet. The highest winds and tides were expended against the coast about 20 miles north of Port Isabel. As the storm center moved over land southwest of Corpus Christi, generally higher winds occured in inland areas of the Coastal Bend than in coastal areas (See chart at bottom). Gale winds began at Corpus Christi International Airport at 10:30 AM on Sept. 20 and continued until 2 AM on Sept. 21, a duration of 15.5 hours, and hurricane winds occured in gusts between 5:57 PM and 8:40 PM on the 20th.

Tornadoes were extremely numerous with Beulah; a total of 95 have been estimated. Many of the funnel clouds were as small as 20 to 40 feet in diameter where they touched the ground, and they made only brief contact of a few seconds to less than a minute. They travelled generally from east to west or east-southeast to west-northwest, at times as fast as 60 miles per hour. In the Coastal Bend area there were fairly firm indications of about 40 tornadoes. Five were detected near the intense part of the storm on Sept. 20, three on radar as the storm approached in the morning, and two by observations and damaging effects in the evening at Ingleside and Fulton. On Sept. 22, far behind the storm center, a total of about 35 tornado indications were detected on radar within a radius of about 50 miles of Corpus Christi, and about 20 sightings were reported.

Damage from winds and tides was heavy on Corpus Christi Beach and in the Aransas Pass and Rockport-Fulton areas. The Fulton Tornado of Sept. 20 destroyed or badly damaged 20 to 25 buildings and caused three minor injuries. In contrast to the tornadoes reported later, this one and others in advance of the storm center evidenced the usual severely violent tornado characteristics. North of the Coastal Bend other violent tornadoes in advance of the storm killed three persons at Palacios on Sept. 20 and one at Louise and caused numerous injuries and considerable property damage. Electric service was cut off to 8000 customers in Corpus Christi. Two of three TV stations were off the air, one briefly. Salt water was moved up Nueces Bay at Calallen and forced shudaown of the Corpus Christi city water plants. Flooding from salt water along the bays was added to by the very heavy rainfall and runoff from the rainfall over land. The water level in the bays was slow to fall because of the copious runoff from the rains inland, even though Corpus Christi Pass and two other new channels were opened between the bays and the Gulf by the storm. At one time the water level in the bays was about two feet higher than that in the Gulf, and the outflow through channels was very heavy. Many persons living in low areas were homeless for the several days of persistent high water. Wind damage, other than from torndoes, was widespread but mostly not severe to trees, shrubs, telephone and power lines, signs, windows, trailers, boats, beach cottages, and piers and other beach installations. Damage to industries was minor; most of their loss was in shut-down and start-up coasts and in lost production. The damage directly attributable to the storm in the Coastal Bend, not counting the subsequent flooding, was of the order of $20,000,000. There were no fatalities in the Coastal Bend area.

Most of the damage from Beulah was from the floods following the storm's extremely heavy rains. Rainfall attributable to the storm totalled 10 to 20 inches over a widespread area of southern Texas, and amounts ranged up to nearly 30 inches. Adding also to the flooding potential of these rains was the near saturation of the ground over wide areas resulting from earlier rains in August and September. All-time record floods occurred on all Gulf drainage streams and the Nueces and Frio watersheds except for the extreme upper portions. Major flood warning were issued on Sept. 19 and continued through Sept. 25. The stage on the Nueces River 2 miles south of Three Rivers reached an all-time high of 49.20 feet of Sept. 23. The previos highest stage was 46.0 feet, which occurred on September 18, 1919 and was also in a flood following a severe hurricane. An all-time highest flood also occurred below Wesley Seale Dam to Nueces Bay and was nearly 3 feet higher than the previous highest flood. Many town, especially Three Rivers, Sinton, and Falfurrias, were severely flooded. Water remained for months on poorly drained areas of the Coastal Plains south of Corpus Christi. The total dollar damage from the floods is estimated more than $100,000,000.

Statistical Summary