1919 Hurricane
It started on a Saturday night - the wind began
picking up to gale force, and then on Sunday
Morning, September 14, 1919, a Category 4 Hurricane with a 16 foot Storm Surge (This was before
they started naming Hurricanes.) plowed down on
Rockport, Fulton, Copano & Lamar (And all the
nearby towns - the eye of the storm making landfall 25 miles south of Corpus Christi at a little past
noon.), and as it has been often said, Rockport was
nearly obliterated. The weather equipment at Corpus Christi broke after winds reached 110 mph.
At least four hundred lives were lost not counting
those at sea.
Windmill Caught in Tree
Behind Fulton Mansion
A block behind of the Fulton Mansion,
there’s a Windmill in a Live Oak Tree
from the 1919 Hurricane.
LORE: The Ol’ Timers always said that even
in the worst Hurricanes, it never flooded past the
Railroad Track. The old track ran North & South
and crossed Market Street right beside the VFW
Hall.
LORE: Around Rockport, we remember the Big
3 Hurricanes that hit our area: Carla (Sept. 10,
1961) with its high winds, Beulah (Sept. 20, 1967)
brought flooding, and then there was Celia (Aug.
3, 1970) that was the worst since the 1919 Hurricane.
“The eye of Celia came right over Rockport, and
when it passed, sheet metal from imploded trailer houses was caught in the high line wires and
was blowing like tissue paper in the wind.”, says
Rockport Ol’ Timer.
93
LORE: Hurricane Rita hit the Gulf
Coast on Sept. 23, 2005 as a Category
3. It had previously been a Category 5.
{Photo Courtesy of NOAA}
Hurricane
Warning Flags.