Corpus Christi's 1919 hurricane brought destruction, but reshaped the city for the future

Sometimes it takes a hurricane to blow the winds of change into a city.

Such was the case in Corpus Christi, where the seawall, Shoreline Boulevard and even the Port of Corpus Christi owe their existence to the devastating storm that smashed into the city Sunday, Sept. 14, 1919. 

The hurricane made landfall 25 miles south of Corpus Christi, packing 115 mph winds and a storm surge that reached up to 16 feet. It decimated the business district and North Beach.

“Urban destruction is a catalyst for cities,” Dr. Alan Lessoff, an urban history specialist and author of “Corpus Christi: Where Texas Meets the Sea,” shared in a recent lecture at the Art Museum of South Texas. 

The 1919 storm proved that. 

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A Category 3 hurricane made landfall near Corpus Christi on Sept. 14, 1919. The city’s downtown and North Beach were decimated. Allison Ehrlich, Corpus Christi Caller-Times

Ominous signs

The horrific storm that eventually hit Corpus Christi was the only hurricane of 1919. It formed on Aug. 31, 1919, east of the Windward Islands and slowly moved west, gathering strength from the warm waters as it moved. Ten ships were sunk in its path before it struck Key West on Sept. 10, then moved farther into the Gulf of Mexico.

That’s where forecasters lost the storm.

More: Growing port city Indianola all but destroyed by two hurricanes

Hurricane forecasting was still a rudimentary science. Tropical cyclone paths were tracked over water by compiling weather data supplied by ships. The regional weather center in New Orleans over the next four days attempted to pinpoint the storm’s position using what few barometer readings they obtained. They thought maybe landfall would be in Louisiana.

By Saturday, the swells rolling into Port Aransas and Corpus Christi should have served as a warning. The Corpus Christi Weather Bureau received a message from a Port Aransas engineer: water was coming into his office, located on pilings 15 feet above mean low tide.

Another ominous sign was the large schools of fish in the bay. Eyewitness accounts reported excellent fishing conditions.

“There were so many flounders to be seen right up against the shore,” 10-year-old North Beach resident Theodore Fuller later shared in his memoirs. “Novices with no knowledge of gigging were spearing them with cooking forks.”

Landfall

On Sunday morning rain was falling. Winds were up to 40 miles per hour at 8 a.m. By 9 a.m. the bay was creeping onto Water Street: recall that Shoreline Boulevard didn’t exist yet. Residents there and on North Beach began to get concerned.

More: THROWBACK: Survivor of Corpus Christi’s 1919 hurricane created Saffir-Simpson scale

Some sought higher ground in houses on the bluff above downtown. Others made their way to taller, sturdier structures: The Army Hospital No. 15 on North Beach (a former hotel), the Nueces Hotel between Chaparral and Water streets at Peoples Street, the 4-year-old Nueces County Courthouse. 

At 1 p.m. the water was 18 inches deep at Chaparral Street; it was 5 feet deep before 2 p.m. By 3 p.m. the full extent of the 16-foot storm surge was rolling into downtown as the eye made landfall 25 miles south. North Beach was submerged; Nueces and Corpus Christi bays became one huge body of water. 

Devastation

People were trapped in homes and other buildings as the waves lashed at the walls. The water was filled with debris: lumber from destroyed houses, telephone poles, oil from ruptured tanks, water-soaked cotton bales. As buildings came apart, people trapped inside grabbed hold of whatever they could as improvised rafts.

More: Nueces Hotel built in 1913, torn down in 1971

Ted Fuller was trapped in a collapsing home with his aunt and 18-year-old sister, Esther. They clung to a floating chunk of roof as they watched their aunt drown. The roof came apart so they grabbed onto a passing floor. The two rode that raft — Esther holding her brother’s head above water as he drifted in and out of consciousness — all the way to the mouth of the Nueces River.

Eulalio Vela lived on North Beach, and watched his house wash away along with his family. He clung first to a telephone pole, then a bridge piling before being knocked off and trapped under a pile of lumber. He was certain he was drowning.

“I put my hands on the lumber over my head and starting pushing out from underneath it … my lungs and belly filled with water,” he recounted. “And then my head came up … I felt a piece of wood hit my arm and I grabbed it. It was a door with a hole in it. I put my head and shoulders through the hole and rested.”

Aftermath

Like the Fullers and Vela, many of the survivors, but also the victims, were swept across the bay and landed on the back side of Nueces Bay near Portland and White Point. Chris Rachal, 15, lived at White Point and he and his brother went out on Monday morning to see if the previous night’s storm had brought any skiffs or treasures.

Instead they found bodies: a woman hanging from a mesquite tree by her hair and her feet a yard above the ground; a drowned cow with a bridle and rope, a dead woman attached to the other end of the rope.

Bodies of the victims were bloated and covered in oil. Entire families had been wiped out; survivors in both Corpus Christi and Portland struggled to identify their neighbors, friends, schoolmates. Mass graves were dug at White Point, then later moved to Rose Hill Cemetery and marked with a large stone and plaque.

Recovery and opening of the port

The city reeled, but came back fighting. Former mayor Roy Miller, who lost his own home to the storm but sheltered his family at the Nueces Hotel, was appointed head of a relief committee by his political rival and current mayor Gordon Boone. As soon as relief efforts were begun, he began lobbying for a deepwater port in Corpus Christi.

“Roy Miller had been lobbying the feds for a deepwater port in Corpus Christi long before the hurricane hit and definitely afterwards,” historian and author of “Storm over the Bay: The People of Corpus Christi and their Port” Mary Jo O’Rear said. “But it was the plan he and the supporters of the port made that really convinced the Army Corps [of Engineers].”

More: When Corpus Christi lost Nueces Bay causeway

O’Rear explained that other entities were vying to be the location of a port: a company that controlled Harbor Island Basin, and the towns of Rockport and Aransas Pass. Despite the destruction from the 1919 hurricane to Corpus Christi, the Corpus Christi plan was deemed the most protected.

“Corpus Christi’s plan was more complicated and more expensive — extending the ship channel across the bay from Aransas Pass, cutting a channel through Hall’s Bayou, and digging the port inland next to Nueces Bay, but apart from it and secured by a levee to the north and a wall to the south.”

Corpus Christi won. A breakwater was built, a requirement by the corps, and dredging began. The Port of Corpus Christi — now a huge economic engine for the Coastal Bend — opened to great fanfare on Sept. 14, 1926, seven years to the date of the storm.

Reshaping the city with a seawall

Initially the breakwater was thought to be enough for future storm surge protection. But a seawall had been dreamed of since at least 1890, when the Caller pushed for one that extended 500 feet into the bay. After the 1919 storm the city asked Congress for help, but was denied. The Texas Legislature was amenable though, and approved an ad valorem tax for seven South Texas counties to help fill a storm protection fund. In 1938, voters passed a $650,000 bond issue by a wide majority, then another bond for $1.1 million to fund the seawall.

More: #TBT: Corpus Christi’s iconic seawall was completed in 1941 to protect downtown

Construction began in 1939. A new shoreline was created when about 12,000-feet of concrete steps were built out in the bay. The area between the steps and the original shoreline at Water Street was backfilled with dredge from the bay and created a new bayfront and street 16 feet above sea level. When work was completed in 1941, downtown looked completely different.

It’s estimated up to 800 people died in Corpus Christi during the 1919 storm. Losses totaled about $20 million — nearly $300 million adjusted to today’s dollars. But it cemented the city’s need for hurricane protection, and changed the shape of downtown and the the city’s economic future.

Allison Ehrlich writes about things to do in South Texas and has a weekly Throwback Thursday column on local history. Help support local journalism with a subscription to the Caller-Times.

Sources: Caller-Times archives; “1919: The Storm – A Narrative and Photographic History” by Murphy Givens and Jim Moloney; “Storm over the Bay: The People of Corpus Christi and their Port” by Mary Jo O’Rear; Corpus Christi National Weather Service.

Buy the book

“1919: The Storm – A Narrative and Photographic History” by Murphy Givens and Jim Moloney. The book details the storm’s path and landfall in Corpus Christi, and includes more than 100 photos along with two complete firsthand accounts of the storm by survivors Theodore Fuller, a Corpus Christi resident who was 10 at the time of the storm, and vacationing school teacher Lucy Caldwell. Available for purchase at http://www.nuecespress.com/ and at the Sept. 14 event at the science and history museum.

Events

A panel discussion and presentation on the 1919 Hurricane will begin at 1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 13 in the Special Collections and Archives at A&M-CC’s Mary and Jeff Bell Library, 6300 Ocean Drive. Local historian Mary Jo O’Rear will present “100 Years After the Storm.” Cost: Free. Information: specialcollections@tamucc.edu or https://www.facebook.com/TAMUCCspecoll/.

A remembrance ceremony in memory of the 1919 hurricane victims begins at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 14 at Rose Hill Memorial Park, 2731 Comanche St. Many of the dead, both named and unnamed, were interred in the cemetery. The service will feature the West Oso High School JRROTC Color Guard, guest speaker Jim Moloney and more. Cost: Free. Information: 361-882-5497.

The Corpus Christi Museum of Science and History presents “In Remembrance of the 1919 Hurricane” from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 14 at 1900 N. Chaparral St. Learn about the hurricane that destroyed the city 100 years ago at this reduced admission day with historical speakers, live period actors, hurricane experience room, photo room and theater and activities for the whole family. Cost: $5 per person, members free. Information: 361-826-4667 or https://www.ccmuseum.com/.

The Aransas County Historical Society presents “The Worst Hurricane in History” at 11 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 14 at the Texas Maritime Museum, 1202 Navigation Circle, Rockport. Local historian Bobby Jackson and others will relate the story of the 1919 hurricane with reenactment and historical photographs. Cost: Free. Information: https://www.facebook.com/AransasCountyHistoricalSociety/

The Nueces County Historical Commission and other historical groups will open an exhibit on the 1919 hurricane at 10 a.m. Monday, Sept. 16 at the Nueces County Courthouse, 901 Leopard St. (Leopard Street side of the building). The exhibit will be on display several months. Information: info@nueceshistory.com or https://www.facebook.com/nuecescountyhistoricalcommission/.

The Nueces County Historical Society will host a presentation on the effects of the 1919 Hurricane by Jim Moloney at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 1 at First Presbyterian Church, 430 S. Carancahua St. Cost: Free. Information: 361-241-7097 or https://www.facebook.com/TheNuecesCountyHistoricalSociety.org/