Summer Track A2
Beach Life A2, A11, A23
Fara's Fishing A7
Fishing the Weed A6
Canadian Rockies A18
Live Music A24
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We Survived Bridgegate 2014
The Island Moon
Issue 533
July 3, 2014 Around The Island By Dale Rankin editor@islandmoon.com By Dale Rankin As we enter the sweet spot of the summer season the high tides last weekend drove beachgoers duneward and pushed water up to the dune line on many area beaches. The crowds on Kleberg Beaches were as large as ever just packed into a much smaller space.
Further north, in front of the seawall the high tides inundated the traffic lanes pushing pedestrians and vehicles onto the narrow beach with the result shown in the photograph you see on this page. Once the high tide subsided it left a wide and smooth beach behind with good driving all the way from the Packery south to PINS for the first time in a long time. But in the interim it was some skinny cruising on our beaches. The SoPac beach just south of the Packery Jetty is pretty much deserted these days due to the gnarly and odiferous patch of Sargassum weed that has taken up residence there for the past few weeks. The beach-going public doesn’t want to have to wade through the stuff to get to the water and after a few days of cooking in the South Texas sun the smell is enough to knock a buzzard off a gutwagon. Even the Beach Bums have recamped on the NoPac side until literally the coast is clear.
The voice of The Island since 1996
Boat Parade and Fireworks This Friday Fire in the Sky on the 4th of July!
Weekly
Weekend Road Work Creates Massive SPID Traffic Snarl Saturday traffic backed up to Flour Bluff
The 15 Annual 4th of July Watercraft Parade will launch from the canal near the Padre Island Yacht Club at 7 p.m. on Friday, July 4, and the second annual Island Blast! Boats can begin forming for the parade at 6 p.m. in the Main Canal near the Yacht Club. Just across the canal in the on the combined decks of the homes between 13758 and 13764 Three Fathoms Bank, where parade judges will be located, the Stateboro Review band will play a free concert for the open to the public which can be heard either from the party or from boats on the south side of the canal. Just follow the music. The music will kick off when the parade begins at 7 p.m. and end at 9 p.m. with the fireworks set to go off at 9:15. No advance registration is required for the parade. “The only requirement for being in the parade is you have to show up,” Harald says. “If you show up you’re in.” The fireworks show will be launched from the vacant lot next to the Yacht Club and can be viewed from just about anywhere on The Island. Boaters can anchor up in the canal adjacent to the Yacht Club. It’s time for some Fire in the Sky on the 4th of July Island style.
By Dale Rankin
(With apologies to Alfred Lord Tennyson) It started innocently enough. A few lines on a press release from the Texas Department of Transportation put out at 5:24 p.m. on Friday. LANE, SHOULDER CLOSURE SET FOR PARK ROAD 22 THIS SATURDAY
(June 28) to allow crews to complete shoulder work on the resurfacing project.
Someone had blunder'd:
The single lane / shoulder closures will begin in the morning on eastbound PR 22 and occur between the JFK Causeway and SH 361. The work and temporary closures will switch to westbound PR 22 in the afternoon.
Theirs not to reason why,
Work will be in eastbound direction in morning, switching to westbound in afternoon.
Motorists are urged to slow down, to watch for work crews, to expect delays and to follow all traffic control devices.
CORPUS CHRISTI – There will be temporary, single lane and shoulder closures on Park Road 22 on Saturday
Immediately the words of Alfred Lord Tennyson sprung to mind:
Theirs not to make reply, Theirs but to do and die: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. But it wasn’t the Charge of the Light Brigade and it wasn’t the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War and it wasn’t six hundred. No, it was the JFK Causeway heading to The Island Saturday afternoon and it was well more than six hundred souls, mostly
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Seawall Beach Traffic Getting More Dangerous as Pedestrians and Drivers Compete for Space
Look out Captain Chester
- Google Maps
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=corpus+christi+tx&oe=utf-8&client=fi... Photos by Mary Craft
So last weekend our old Address friend Captain Chester from up Port A way was anchored up off the back of St. Jo Island when another boat smashed into his catamaran the Stray Cat. The driver of the other boat apparently just didn’t see him and wham! You got yourself a collision. No one was hurt. The Stray Cat had some damage, but as Chester says, “You should have seen the other guy.”
Corpus Christi, TX
A little Island history
Last Sunday at the Seawall By Dale Rankin Mother Nature weighed in on driving along the seawall beach last weekend as high tides pushed drivers and pedestrians onto a narrowed beach forcing them to compete for space in a potentially deadly waltz on the
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sand as volleyball players and drivers shared the same space. The music has yet to stop as a solution to the decadeold problem becomes more and more complicated.
Notable Storms That Hit the Gulf Coast in June and July
In recent months property owners along the Michael J. Ellis Seawall
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Off du limit rin s f g fi or rew boa ork ts s
Island Blast 4th of July Viewing Areas
Site of Fireworks Launch
Allison 2001
2 5
3
Editor’s note: Hurricane Season 2014 has thankfully come in with a whimper and not a bang. Historically the most powerful hurricanes that menace the Gulf Coast of Texas come late in the season. But there are some exceptions. Here’s a partial list of storms that have come our way early in the season and one that found its way to the door of the Father of Our Country.
Off dur limits ing f fire or boa wo rks ts
1 1 4 1. Ski Basin / Main canal - good place to watch by boat 2. Good viewing from boats 3. Good viewing from street. Park on shoulder, do not block traffic. Constable will patrol, no public restrooms 4. Billish Park - public viewing
5. The Bonasse canal will be a front row seat Other places to watch: Marker 37 - Snoopy’s Pier, Doc’s Any Boat ramp with west facing view Tune to Jake FM 107.4 for patriotic music during the show.
Hurricane Audrey 1957 Audrey was first detected over the southwestern Gulf of Mexico on June 24. It moved slowly northward as it became a tropical storm and a hurricane the next day. A faster northward motion brought the center to the coast near the Texas-Louisiana border on the 27th. Rapid strengthening in the last six hours before landfall meant Audrey made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane. The cyclone
turned northeastward after landfall, becoming extratropical over northern Mississippi on June 28 and merging with another low over the Great Lakes the next day. The combined system was responsible for strong winds and heavy rains over portions of the eastern United States and Canada. No reliable wind or pressure measurements are available from Audrey's core at landfall. The main impact was from 8 to 12 ft storm surges that penetrated as far inland as 25 miles over portions of lowlying southwestern Louisiana. These surges were responsible for the vast majority of the 390 deaths from Audrey. Damage in the United States was estimated at $150 million.
Hurricane Agnes 1972 The
large
disturbance
that
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