DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells the story, and I'm just Duane — here to pass it along the way it deserves to be told. Picture the Gulf of Mexico in early September of 1919. A hurricane is out there, somewhere past the horizon, gathering strength.
It's been building for two weeks. Two weeks. And on the weekend of September thirteenth and fourteenth, the North Beach area near Corpus Christi is packed — crowds of vacationers soaking up the last weekend of summer, the way folks do when they can't quite let the season go.
The warnings came. Police officers, firefighters, soldiers from Fort Brown — they were out there, telling people to move, to get to higher ground. Most folks kept right on ignoring them.
Then the water started rising. And it rose fast enough that it cut off the escape routes. There was no getting out.
What people did next — well, it stays with you. They climbed to their rooftops. And they tied ropes to themselves and to their children.
So that if the worst came, they might not be lost. Think about that for a moment. A parent, in the dark, in the wind, tying a rope around their child.
In the early morning hours of Sunday, September 14th, the hurricane made landfall at Corpus Christi. And then came the wave. Not just water — a giant wall of water carrying oil from ruptured tanks on Harbor Island, timber from Port Aransas, cotton bales from a dock in Corpus Christi.
That wave crashed down on North Beach and swept its victims into the black waters of Nueces Bay. When the sun came up Monday morning, it rose on a scene of terrible destruction. The official death toll was two hundred and eighty-four.
But estimates — accounting for those lost at sea — place the actual number at one thousand. The survivors, in the days that followed, worked together. Rebuilt their homes.
Rescued the injured. And buried their dead in mass graves, some holding more than fifty bodies, using farm implements as their undertaking tools. Right here at Indian Point, about a hundred yards east of where this marker stands.
A month later, those bodies were removed to Rose Hill Cemetery in Corpus Christi and to other sites, as requested by friends and family. Property damage and crop losses were estimated at twenty million dollars. The great storm of 1919.
The worst disaster to hit Corpus Christi in the twentieth century — measured in money, in property, in crops. And in one thousand souls who went to the beach on the last weekend of summer and never came home. The ropes didn't save everyone.
But somebody remembered to tie them. And somebody remembered to put up this marker. That's the least the living can do.
What the marker says
In the early morning hours of Sunday, September 14, 1919, a hurricane made landfall in Corpus Christi after gathering strength in the Gulf of Mexico for two weeks. Crowds packed the North Beach area for their last weekend of the summer season, most continuing to ignore the last-minute evacuation warnings of police officers, firefighters and soldiers from Fort Brown. The rapidly rising water blocked vacationers from escaping to higher ground. As the water rose, people climbed to their rooftops and tied ropes to themselves and their children so that they might not be lost. A giant wave of water carrying oil from ruptured tanks on Harbor Island, timber from Port Aransas and cotton bales from a dock in Corpus Christi crashed down on North Beach, sweeping its victims into the black waters of Nueces Bay. On Monday morning the sun rose on a scene of terrible destruction. Though the official death toll was 284, estimates place the actual number, including those lost at sea, at one thousand. In the ensuing days, the survivors worked together to rebuild their homes, rescue the injured and bury the dead in mass graves, some containing more than fifty bodies, using farm implements as undertaking tools. A month later the bodies were removed to Rose Hill Cemetery in Corpus Christi and other sites as requested by friends and family members. Property damage and crop losses were estimated at twenty million dollars. The great storm of 1919 was the worst disaster to hit Corpus Christi in the twentieth Century. The mass graves at Indian Point were about one hundred yards east of this site. (2000)