GALVESTON, Texas — The plaque on the wall outside Trey Click’s office marks it as a “survivor.” The squat, orange building withstood the ravages of the 1900 hurricane, which nearly flattened this barrier island city and still stands as the nation’s deadliest natural disaster.
More than a week ago, thousands stayed behind as Hurricane Ike battered the city with 110-mph winds and a 12-foot storm surge, chewing up landmarks and leaving hundreds homeless.
Ike was another tragedy for a place that has had more than its share. But to Click, who publishes a monthly entertainment paper called “The Parrot,” the Category 2 storm is just another hiccup in his city’s long, slow rebirth.
“Galveston’s going to survive because it’s an island and it’s on the water, and people want to be on the water,” Click said as he aired out his muddy office. “It’s going to be a different Galveston at the other side of this, whenever that is.”
Galveston, population 57,000, has always wanted to be a glamorous beach resort but somehow never quite made it. In the early 19th century, the island was headquarters for the pirate Jean Lafitte, who had been expelled from New Orleans despite his role in winning the War of 1812. A cannon on the upper story of his mansion, Maison Rouge, gave him command of Galveston Bay.
As the 20th century dawned, Galveston’s future looked boundless.
Blessed with the natural harbor of Galveston Bay, the island became one of the nation’s largest cotton ports, rivaling New Orleans. It was a popular bathing spot and boasted more than a dozen newspapers. And with 37,000 residents, it was Texas’ largest city.
That changed Sept. 8, 1900.
Early that morning, winds gusting at an estimated 125 mph pushed a wall of water 15 feet high across the city. More than 6,000 people died — at least twice as many as those who died during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Between 1902 and 1904, a 17-foot- high seawall rose along the gulf. When another catastrophic storm hit the city in 1915, fewer than a dozen people died.
The city rebuilt behind its protective armor. But Galveston never regained its former prominence, its reputation that of a kind of low-rent Riviera.
A couple of years ago, the city hired a marketing firm to help improve Galveston’s image. In interviews, tourists and even locals had cited “dirty beaches” and the town’s “unclean feel.”
The firm’s report advised: “Flaunt the uniqueness of your island. Your beaches and island are not dirty — they are colored with stories, history and culture.”
Ann Leocadi has fond memories of coming to Galveston as a child from Houston and staying at the old Jack Tar Motel, a working-class getaway on Seawall Boulevard, where her family enjoyed the swimming pool and beach, then ate at Gaido’s, a popular seafood restaurant.
“Growing up, that’s what I liked,” said Leocadi, a prison social worker who now lives within sight of her old playground.
In March, the 15-story tower Emerald by the Sea — with green-tinted windows and unit prices ranging from $375,000 to $1.5 million — opened where Jack Tar once stood. It survived Ike almost unscathed.
Galveston was slow to follow its Gulf Coast neighbors in embracing the high-rise luxury condominium boom, but it’s making up for lost time.
“It’s inevitable,” Jim Gaines, research economist for the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University, told the local newspaper. “You can see it coming.”
Poverty and luxury
The well-off and the poor coexist in Galveston, which has a poverty rate of 22 percent, just behind New Orleans’.
Last week on The Strand, a trendy boulevard of shops and restaurants, Isaac Bennett, an arthritic 69-year-old, cycled past the brick and wrought-iron facades. He was towing a wagon crammed with a crushed aluminum tub and twisted aluminum chair frames.
“I do it every time they have a storm,” he said, flashing a nearly toothless grin. He’d sell the load, he said, figuring it would fetch $18, maybe $20.
Shotgun shacks and million-dollar beach homes felt Ike’s wrath.
Residents have been told that it might be months before power and other services are restored, and Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas has asked those who stayed behind to leave the city. But she is eager for the world to know that Galveston’s future is secure.
“The city of Galveston is not in ruins,” she said. “It is recovering according to a well-established plan.”
After the 1900 storm, wealthy families such as the Moody mercantile clan poured large sums into rebuilding the city. Leocadi expects the same to happen this time.
“There’s money here — moneyed people enough,” she said. “They’ll make it come back.”
Newcomers, too, will help keep the city alive.
Sitting in line at a mobile Federal Emergency Management Agency aid station, Melinda Frazee savored her first cigarette in days. The 51-year-old maintenance engineer grew up in western Kansas, where she says “nothing ever happened.”
It had been a lifelong dream to live near a beach. A year and a half ago, she and her son rolled into Galveston and drove to the seawall. They got out and took a walk on the dunes.
“My son looked at me and he said, ‘I’ve never seen you smile so big in your life, Mama,’ ” she recalled as she sat with a dirty rag around her neck. “He said, ‘Is this it? Is this where we’re going to stay?’ I said, ‘This is it! This is the place.’ . . .
“Nasty, filthy, trashy little tourist town. And I love it.”
