In beachy Galveston, locals buckle down without power after Beryl’s blow during peak tourist season

GALVESTON, Texas — Vacuum cleaners sucked water out of the Galveston seaside inn run by Nick Gaido’s family since 1911 as power was cut off for nearly a week after a Hurricane Beryl’s resurgence tore through Texas. Blue tarp covered much of the torn-off roof. Gaido scheduled cleaning services for hotel and restaurant staff who could not afford to lose services due to the ongoing power outages.

The Fourth of July weekend was supposed to kick off a lucrative tourism season for the popular destination’s hospitality industry. But a week later, only dozens were on the usually crowded beaches. Gaido felt an urgent need to send the message that Galveston, Texas, is open again.

“We’ve had storms in late August or September,” Gaido said. “But when you have a storm that hits in early July, it’s different.”

Galveston — about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of Houston — has certainly weathered its share of natural disasters. Etched in the collective memory is the wrath of a 1900 hurricane that killed thousands as the island emerged as a crown jewel for the state. More recently, Hurricane Ike’s 2008 anger caused a storm surge of up to 6 meters high in the historic city center, causing more than $29 billion in damage.

But even Houston’s storm-hardened neighbors were caught off guard by Beryl’s sudden arrival. The Category 1 hurricane, which struck unusually early in the calendar year, brought the island’s tourism-based economy to a standstill at a time when local restaurants rely on an influx of beachgoers to boost their revenue. Despite widespread power outages, businesses and residents are bracing themselves.

On the hardest-hit west side of Jamaica Beach, Way West Grill and Pizzeria was still without power Saturday afternoon. Owner Jake Vincent was in limbo: He had heard power would be restored on July 19, but he was hopeful it would happen sooner.

The loss destroyed his entire inventory. He said there was enough mozzarella cheese to fill the back of his truck. Also ruined was an 8-foot-long crate of French fries and an estimated 3,000 pounds of pepperoni.

Vincent isn’t expecting much more from a year he had expected would finally bring “daylight” to his family restaurant, which opened in 2018. He said most of the annual sales occur during the three summer months and that “this tourist season is probably over.”

“It complicates things,” he said. “You save all your summer money to get through the winter.”

Downed cables and orange construction cones dotted the road that connected the tourist beach’s seafood restaurants to the colorful short-term rentals on the west side. Crews from Houston utility CenterPoint sweated atop the lifts as they repaired line after line.

Still without power Saturday morning, Greg Alexander raked debris to the curb in his Jamaica Beach neighborhood. Despite sleeping in a balcony-level room in a house that was already high off the ground, water was pouring through the windows, he said. Beryl’s horizontal winds blew rain directly onto his bed.

It’s just part of life here for Alexander. His family moved to Galveston full-time in 2017 after he said Hurricane Harvey dumped 38 inches of water on their Lake City (mainland?) home. Without power, he said, “they were more grateful than ever for the air conditioning in our car.”

He has no plans to leave, saying trials only make the community stronger.

“People in the West End are not like the rest,” he said.

Steve Broom and Debra Pease still had no power Saturday, but they had braved the heat elsewhere. Broom said they had already booked a hotel in Houston this week so his daughter could use the beach house in Galveston, where they have lived full-time for about five years. They spent only the first night in Galveston, opting to stay in their nonrefundable room the rest of the week.

Steve Broom, 72, said he had never seen a hurricane come so early or intensify as quickly as Beryl. Yet he joked that only one factor could force him to move from the island where he grew up.

“If they wipe out all these houses, we’ll be on the front line and our property values ​​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 birthdays. For her, the aftermath is much worse than the hurricane itself.

They enjoyed a nice breeze with the windows open after the storm passed Monday. But she said Tuesday night brought “mosquito-geddon.” Hundreds of insects 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 see it as an adventure,” she said. “Every day was a new hell.”