GALVESTON, Texas (AP) — Vacuums sucked water out of the seaside inn Nick Gaido’s family has run in Galveston since 1911 as power remained spotty nearly a week after Hurricane Beryl returned to Texas. A blue tarp covered much of the torn-off roof. Gaido scheduled cleanup crews for hotel and restaurant staff who couldn’t afford to lose work hours because of the persistent outages.
The Fourth of July weekend was supposed to mark the start of a lucrative tourist season for the popular destination’s hospitality industry. But a week later, only a few dozen tourists dotted the usually crowded beaches. Gaido felt an urgent need to get the message out that Galveston, Texas, is open again.
“We’ve had storms in late August or September before,” Gaido said. “But when you have a storm in early July, it’s different.”
Galveston, about 50 miles southeast of Houston, has certainly seen its share of natural disasters. The fury of a 1900 hurricane that killed thousands just as the island was becoming a crown jewel of the state is etched in its collective memory. More recently, the wrath of Hurricane Ike in 2008 inundated its historic downtown with a storm surge reaching 20 feet and causing more than $29 billion in damage.
But Houston’s storm-worn neighbors were caught off guard by Beryl’s sudden arrival. Coming unusually early in the calendar, the Category 1 hurricane crippled the island’s tourism economy at a time when local restaurants rely on the influx of beachgoers to boost revenue. Despite the widespread power outage, businesses and residents are stepping up.
In the hardest-hit western part of Jamaica Beach, Way West Grill and Pizzeria was still without power Saturday afternoon. Owner Jake Vincent felt stuck in limbo: He’d heard the power would come back on July 19, but he was hoping it would be sooner.
The loss ruined his entire inventory. He said he wasted enough mozzarella cheese to fill the back of his truck. An 8-foot trunk full of French fries and about 3,000 pounds of pepperoni were also ruined.
Vincent doesn’t expect much from a year he said would finally bring “daylight” to his family-run restaurant, which he founded in 2018. He said most of their annual sales come during the three summer months and “that tourist season is probably over.”
“It complicates things,” he explained. “You save all your summer money to get through the winter.”
Downed cables and orange construction cones were found along the road that connects the seafood shacks on the tourist beach to the colorful short-term rentals on the West End. Crews from CenterPoint, a Houston-area utility company, stood atop elevators, sweating as they restored line after line.
Still no electricity Saturday morning, Greg Alexander He raked debris to the curb in his Jamaica Beach neighborhood. Although he slept in a balcony-level room in a house already elevated off the ground, he said water leaked in through the windows. Beryl’s horizontal winds blew rain directly onto his bed.
For Alexander, it’s just part of life here. His family moved to Galveston full-time in 2017 after Hurricane Harvey dumped 38 inches of water on their Lake City (mainland?) home, he said. Without electricity, they “appreciated the air conditioning in our car more than ever.”
He has no plans to leave. He said the trials only strengthen the community.
“People in the West End are not like everyone else,” he said.
Steve Broom and Debra Pease still didn’t have power Saturday, but they were able to rest elsewhere, despite the heat. Broom said they had already booked a hotel in Houston this week so his daughter could use the Galveston beach house where they’ve lived full time for about five years. They spent only the first night in Galveston and chose to sleep the rest of the week in their nonrefundable room.
Steve Broom, 72, said he had never seen a hurricane arrive as early or intensify as quickly as Beryl. Still, he joked that one factor could force him to leave the island where he grew up.
“If they destroy all these houses, then we will be in the front row and our property value will probably double or triple,” he said, before clarifying: “No, I hope that doesn’t happen.”
Anne Beem and her husband come from San Antonio every July to celebrate their anniversary. For her, the aftermath was far worse than the hurricane itself.
They enjoyed a nice breeze with the windows open after the storm passed through Monday. But she said Tuesday night was “mosquito night.” Hundreds of the bugs filled the house, so they slept in their car with the air conditioning on full blast.
She said they also bought a kiddie pool to cool off in before the power came back on Thursday night.
“We just tried to look at it as an adventure,” she said. “Every day was a new hell.”
