In beachy Galveston, locals buckle down without power after Beryl’s blow during peak tourist season – 2024


The loss ruined his entire inventory. He said enough mozzarella cheese to fill the back of his truck had gone to waste. Also spoiled was an 8-foot chest full of fries and an estimated 3,000 pounds of pepperonis.

Vincent no longer expects much from a year he had anticipated would finally bring “daylight” for his family-run restaurant founded in 2018. He said most of their annual sales come during the three summer months and that “this tourism season is probably done for.”

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

Downed cables and orange construction cones could be found along the road linking the touristy strand’s seafood shacks to the west end’s colorful short-term rentals. Crews from Houston-area utility CenterPoint stood atop lifts, sweating as they restored line after line.

Still without power Saturday morning, Greg Alexander raked debris to the edge of the street in his Jamaica Beach neighborhood. Despite sleeping in a balcony-level room in a house already raised high off the ground, he said water poured into the windows. Beryl’s horizontal winds blew rain right onto his bed.

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

He doesn’t plan to leave. He said trials only strengthen the community.

“People on the west end aren’t like everybody else,” he said.

Steve Broom and Debra Pease still lacked power on Saturday but had been beating the heat elsewhere. Broom said they’d already booked a hotel in Houston this week so his daughter could use the Galveston beach house where they’ve lived full-time for about five years. They spent only the first night in Galveston and opted to sleep the rest of the week in their nonrefundable room.

Steve Broom, 72, said he had never seen a hurricane come as early or increase as quickly as Beryl. Still, he joked that just one factor could force him to move off the island where he grew up.

“If they wipe out all these houses, then we’ll be front row and our property value will probably double or triple,” he said, before clarifying: “No, I hope that doesn’t happen.”

Anne Beem and her husband come every July from San Antonio to celebrate their birthdays. For her, the aftermath has been far 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 bugs filled the house so they slept in their car with the air conditioning blasting.

She said they also bought a kiddie pool to cool off before the power came back Thursday night.

“We just tried to look at it as an adventure,” she said. “Each day was some fresh hell.”



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