Posts Tagged Crystal Beach
Galveston After Ike
Posted by ALICE MELOTT in The Storm on July 6, 2012
This blog began by text on the front porch of an historic home on the East End of Galveston a few nights after Hurricane Ike devastated the island on September 13, 2008, and a few minutes after I was confronted by a baby-faced National Guardsman with a submachine gun pointed between my eyes. My essays were picked up by the NBC Houston affiliate KPRC-TV, who published them as the Galveston After Ike blog until 2012. If you’re here to learn what it’s like to go through a storm, please read from the bottom up.
I received the note below nearly four years after the storm. It is why I wrote about it. But I’ve moved away now, and am no longer the best spokesperson for that place with more hues than the sea. These essays may serve as an archive of remembrances of a brief time we shared, what we loved, lost, and yes, what we wore.
Happy Sails!
Hi,
I just stumbled across your post Ike essays, and I just have to say “thank you,” because for the first time, I feel like someone really understood me, and understood what I went through. Please don’t misunderstand me, I am very sorry for all of your losses, but I had a very similar story, and it just felt really nice to read your misfortune, and understand that finally, someone else understood.
I, also, didn’t get a dollar from my insurance, nor did I get a dollar from FEMA. I used my savings to fix my house, and then got all of my credit cut because I, too, was self employed in a disaster area. I could go on and on, but suffice to say, our stories matched on so many different levels.
The thing I hated the most was when my friends from out of state or out of area, would “comfort” me by saying “I know exactly how you feel, our car broke down yesterday, and it is a big bummer.” If I had a dollar for everyone that told me that “God had a plan for me,” or “that which does not kill you makes you stronger,” I would be a millionaire.
I still have not dug myself out of my financial black hole, but I do have faith and hope that it will happen one day soon. Thank you for your beautiful essays, and thank you for finally making me feel understood.”
— Andrea T.
A visit to Smith Point
Posted by ALICE MELOTT in Bolivar, The Storm on January 12, 2009
Windchimes peel at Smith Point
Gail Nash wrote me tonight, saying:
“You asked in your blog about Bolivar, “where did everything go?” Well, for starters, I think a whole lot of it went to Smith Point, including one of the 2 people who escaped Bolivar at the last minute. My brother-in-law and the sheriff found him alive and took care of him! The Nashes have 2 family homes in Smith Point. My sisters-in-law had a permanent home, and the other one is more a fishing place. There were roofs from at least 3 houses in the yard. And Shannon, my brother in law, is using wood that floated on to the property to try to rebuild the house. It was a one story house on blocks that has been there since the 1930’s!
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Here are the rest of Gail’s pictures. They are an unembellished reminder of that which we believed we would not, could not forget… It ain’t over.
http://picasaweb.google.com/millyuns/SmithPointIke?authkey=FUPDwrgk8Mo
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Copyright © 2009 Alice Melott
Essays by this author can also be read by joining http://www.facebook.com/alicethewriter.
Paper or plastic?
Posted by ALICE MELOTT in Bolivar, The Storm on December 23, 2008
I need to talk about plastic bags.
True confession: About twice a week I take the 16 plastic bags (usually doubled) that they give me at the store to carry home my dozen or so items — and I use them to pick up dog poop and line wastepaper baskets and whatnot — and then I throw them away, feeling pretty righteous that I reused them, if I think about it at all.
As I drove off the Bolivar Ferry on Sunday, I was immediately struck by the cotton field to my left — a vast expanse of stick-like shrubbery with balls of white on thousands and thousands of its tips.
Bolivar revisited
Posted by ALICE MELOTT in Bolivar, The Storm on December 22, 2008
I finally went to Bolivar yesterday.
I hadn’t planned it. I went out for coffee and wound up on the ferry. There was no wait, and schools of dolphins met the ferry coming and going. It was magical in its way — cool, gray, serious, but surprisingly beautiful — like a Eugene O’Neill play.
I’ll leave you to ponder the pictures yourselves. We’ll talk tomorrow after it’s set in. Here’s my image gallery…
Galveston After Ike 