The 1900 hurricane destroyed Galveston, which until then was the big port of the Gulf of Mexico. The storm surge flooded the entire island to a depth of several feet and Galveston was a part of the ocean for a few hours until the water went down. After that, New Orleans became the #1 port and never let it go. Galveston actually has a super interesting history which nobody has ever heard of.
After the 1900 hurricane, Texans swore "never again". In a giant middle finger to Nature, they built a massive seawall to stop the next one. But you'd figure the island would still flood. So they raised the ENTIRE ISLAND 19 feet to match the seawall. Yes, really, you can look at old-timey photos of houses on jacked up on stilts as they filled in the land with material dredged from the ocean floor.
The next hurricane came in 1919. The devastating storm surge was stopped cold by the seawall.
a huge proportion of the atlantic/gulf coast has lovely barrier islands like galveston but god knows we'll capitulate that to save a buck instead of doing what some texan town could do a century ago
20 years
Not gonna happen. Even when all the refineries and million dollars beach front homes are under water, will they continue to do nothing.
