Thursday, August 3, 2017

Celia 1970

Today is the actual anniversary of Hurricane Celia's 1970 landfall in Corpus Christi, and I've been talking about Hurricane Celia here on my blog for over a week now.  It's time to wrap it up and move on.
Just a few more memories:
  • On the morning of August 3rd, frantic shoppers emptied the shelves of the local grocery stores.  There were several reports of folks actually stealing stuff from another shopper's grocery cart.
  • A few days later, those same folks were emptying their freezers and hosting neighborhood barbecues to eat the food before it spoiled.
  • I'll never forget the ungodly smell from our freezer when I opened it a day or two too late.  Hours of nausea and gallons of Clorox later, I finally got it usable again, but when it got warm months later during our move back to Houston, I realized the smell would never go away.
  • And I'll never forget the taste of the first cold beer after the storm.  We had heard a rumor, so several coworkers and I went to Nolan's Steakhouse for lunch, and sure enough, they had icy mugs of cold draft beer. I don't think any beer before or since has tasted that good.
  • I can't close this out without mentioning that Honey was right there beside me during those 19 days of sweltering heat and low supplies - and she did it while pregnant! She did make a trip to Houston, but after she was sure her dad was OK, she turned around and came back to Corpus.
A few months after the storm, when everything was more-or-less back to normal, I received an award from the City of Corpus Christi for my work in getting the news out before, during and after the storm.  I was very proud of that - included it in my resume - though I suspect the same Certificate of Appreciation was handed out to dozens of folks, probably just about anyone connected to a local radio or TV station.

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