#TBT: Hurricane of 1933 knocked out two Corpus Christi causeways

Not to tempt fate, but 1933 may have been one of the busiest hurricane seasons for the Coastal Bend when it felt the effects of four storms that year. In fact, the 1933 Atlantic hurricane season made records at the time, with 20 named storms — 11 of those hurricanes and six of those major hurricanes.

Three of the storms came close to the Texas coast in July and August that year, causing some minor flooding around Corpus Christi. But it was a September storm that brought the most damage to the city.

The storm made landfall near Brownsville and South Padre Island on Sept. 5, 1933, the day after Labor Day, with 90 mph winds and gusts up to 125 mph. The Saffir-Simpson scale wasn’t invented yet (history and weather buffs know that meteorologist Robert Simpson of the eponymous hurricane rating system survived Corpus Christi’s 1919 hurricane as a 6-year-old, sheltering in the 1914 Nueces County Courthouse with his family), but this storm would have been a Category 3 storm.

The national weather bureau issued hurricane warnings for the Texas coast from Brownsville to Freeport, estimating the hurricane would hit near or north of Corpus Christi. Evacuations of coastal areas were issued. But the storm turned, hitting farther south. No lives were lost in the Coastal Bend, despite the amount of flooding and damage. The same storm had hit Cuba just days earlier, causing widespread damage and killing more than 70 people.

More:#TBT: Nueces Bay Causeway provided easier link between Corpus Christi and San Pat County

High tide came as far as Mesquite Street (recall this was before the seawall was completed in 1941), and a number of the city’s waterfront structures were lost, including the Pleasure Pier at Peoples Street, the Palace Bath House and the Bayside Pavilion on North Beach and Remington Lodge in Flour Bluff. Water Street had damage from Starr to Palo Alto, with chunks of broken asphalt strewn about the beaches.

The wooden Nueces Bay Causeway also sustained damage. The previous concrete causeway opened in 1912 but was swept away by the 1919 hurricane, so a temporary wooden causeway was built to replace it. After the 1933 damage, drivers used a ferry for several years to cross Nueces Bay before repairs were completed to the “temporary” causeway, which lasted until 1950.

But the big blow was the loss of the Don Patricio Causeway connecting Flour Bluff and Padre Island. Built in 1927 by Col. Sam A. Robertson, the causeway was the first permanent and fairly easy route that didn’t require a boat or ferry ride. The storm also wiped out Robertson’s Twenty-Five Mile Hotel farther south on Padre Island.

North Beach suffered the most, with officials estimating as much as $75,000 worth of damage. Water covered the whole of the area, with only the Southern Pacific railroad tracks remaining above the surge. In addition to the loss of the Palace and Bayside, many of the cottages dotting the beach washed away. North Beach residents industriously sold off the lumber that remained of the destroyed buildings.

More:#TBT: Don Patricio Causeway was first path from Flour Bluff to Padre Island

One popular eatery, Pier Café owned by John Govatos, survived the storm. The restaurant was in a building at the foot of the Pleasure Pier. The Sept. 6, 1933, Caller described the quick action taken by several men, including Congressman Robert M. Kleberg, in chopping through the joists connecting the restaurant’s main building and balcony. The water deposited so much dirt and sand underneath the balcony that it was lifting the restaurant from its foundations. The city restored the Pleasure Pier, but both pier and café were removed when the seawall was built.

Overall, the 1933 hurricanes weren’t close to the devastation of the 1919 hurricane that decimated downtown Corpus Christi, or 1970’s Hurricane Celia that locals still cite as one of the worst storms weathered by the city. But it was one in a long line of storms that have rearranged the city’s waterfronts for years.

Allison Ehrlich writes about things to do in South Texas and has a weekly Throwback Thursday column on local history. 

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