Surfer: Causeway collapse turned SPI into a family

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND — It’s hard to believe that it has been 10 years since the night that South Padre Island's Queen Isabella Causeway collapsed.

For some reason I have been thinking a lot about that night and the months afterward recently. It was a unique time to be living on South Padre Island and a time when an entire community came together to help each other out. Here are my memories and my tribute. Some sad, some funny, but all very special.

TRAGEDY

September 2001 was a great time to be living on South Padre Island. We were all in our 20s, and we really had no more worries than which bar we were going to meet up at and where we would go after they closed. In the early morning hours of Sept. 15, 2001, we found ourselves on one of my best friend's sailboat named "High Times" in the Sea Ranch Marina drinking beers. The name of the boat really could have been the title for that summer — spending our days surfing and sailing and our nights drinking. Of course we were very aware and very angry of the events of 9/11 and that, of course, was the center of most of our conversation. But still, that was far away from us. After all, we were on an island in South Texas. We were in paradise!

Some time around 3 a.m. we began to get calls on the radio and on phones that the Queen Isabella Causeway had collapsed. At first we brushed it off as a bad Island rumor, but the reports kept coming and we eventually realized that it was the real thing.

We had gotten word that a friend of ours was getting his boat ready to head out to the causeway and offer help to the rescue and recovery effort. We all packed up and headed out with him to help, very nervous and not knowing what to expect when we got there. When we came upon the bridge, lights were beamed up to the gap in the top span with water gushing from a ruptured water pipe, there were barges adrift, and there were cars in the water.

There were two things that I saw that I will never forget. There was a windshield wedged onto one of the pilings about 60 feet up with a crumpled car sitting on the pier below and a red pickup floating with it's back window and tailgate out of the water. On that back window was a fireman's hat sticker and I knew that that was Port Isabel fire Chief Bob Harris' truck. We had said goodbye to Bob a few hours earlier as we left Louie's Backyard, where he moonlighted as a doorman at the local bar.

The event had just become very real, even though now it seems like a bad dream. Our boat was turned away by the Coast Guard and we begrudgingly headed back to the docks and had no choice but to head home in shock.

It turned out that a barge had struck the causeway, causing a supporting pier to shift, and an 80-foot section of road at the top collapsed into the water, cutting power and knocking out the lights. Without the lights and the location of the collapse, it was almost impossible for a driver to see the gap before it was too late.

We would later find out that eight people had died and three had survived. Among the lost were Bob Harris, Hector Martinez, local surf legend "Harpoon" Barry Welch and his new wife, Chealsa, who left behind their new son, William. I knew them and still feel the loss every time I enter Louie's or a big swell hits Dolphin Cove. I can still see Bob smiling and waving as I entered the door at Louie's, and I can hear Hector screaming my name as I entered the bar.

I can also still see 'Poon standing up from his Suburban, screaming and honking his horn when a big set started to show on the horizon in the Brazos Santiago Pass. Chealsa was so kind, and she was so excited to be a mother. …

The next morning, after not sleeping and being generally nervous and depressed, we all went and camped out in front of the Blue Marlin, our local grocery store, to get water and food because we were not sure what to really expect as far as when these things would be available again. I remember a television news reporter coming up to our group sitting there in the parking lot and asking for our reaction. This friend of mine immediately told her to go away because we didn't want to talk to anyone about our lost friends. She didn't intend for it to be mean, it was just how she felt and, to tell you the truth, that is how we all felt at that moment.

CITIZEN FERRIES

The following days, weeks and months were really a testament to the quality of individuals who lived on SPI at the time. The Island was cut off and there was no way for people to move back and forth, for vending trucks to get to grocery stores or restaurants or ambulances to get on or off the island.

Without any prompting, local charter outfits like Captain Murphy's, American Diving, the Danny B and more immediately started a ferry service to help people and supplies get back and forth between the mainland and the Island. Actually, anyone with a boat stepped up and offered it to people in need of getting to work or to visitors who had to get back home. They all did it without asking for a dime in return.

In the beginning, the locally run "ferries" also provided entertainment for some of us. We would hop on board with a small ice chest and just ride the route two or three times in a night. Once the Texas Department of Transportation took over the operation of the boats, this, of course, stopped. TxDOT taking over was a good thing, though, as the captains who had been running the services for free and out of their own pockets were now getting reimbursed.

There were laughs to be had, though. One interview that a local TV news outfit did, I will never forget as long as I live. They were asking local students what they thought about the collapse and one student answered, "I thought it was the Jerusalems!" Given what had happened in New York and Washington, D.C., four days earlier, the uninformed reply is understandable, but the line still made us laugh and still does to this very day.

Pretty soon, the town of South Padre Island had arranged for a small car ferry (six cars) from Port Aransas to come down and start getting cars off the Island with priority being given to the non-locals who had had to leave their cars behind when heading home. Leading up to this, specially called aldermen meetings had been contentious, with frustrated tourists and property owners who did not live here full time wanting to get their vehicles off the island, but the town handled it well and in stride. The lines were hours-long, but some of the locals did get their cars off the Island, as well.

Once again, this is where the true character of the Islanders came out. Everyone needed transportation once they took the pedestrian ferries to Port Isabel, and the small car ferries took too long.

Thus the informal community car lot was established at South Point Marina. Need a car to go to school or head up the Valley for supplies or just get off the Island? You found a friend or, in many cases someone you may have only met on a few occasions, and they would without question hand over their keys with the only requests being that you fill up their tank and let them know where you parked it. It was pretty cool.

As for me and my job, well this is one of those funny things that I still laugh about. Our boss, who lives in Brownsville, brought over a really tiny aluminum boat with a 10-horsepower motor on it that sat so low in the water with two people in it, it would take on water if there was even a slight chop on the bay. If we needed supplies, he would go get them and we would carry that motor over to the boat, mount it and slowly make the 2-mile journey across the bay to the dock and meet him there. This took about 30 minutes each way, and no one in the boat dared to move or sneeze the entire time!

FORGING CONNECTIONS

Eventually, there was a permanent ferry dock constructed at Isla Blanca Park that is still there to this day, and larger car ferries were brought down and traffic began to flow more and more regularly.

Then on Nov. 27, the day before Thanksgiving, TxDOT's construction crews gave everyone something to be thankful for: They opened the newly repaired causeway months ahead of schedule. I got in my truck on that morning and headed across it destined to be with my family on Thanksgiving Day in San Antonio. I felt a cold chill as I passed over the new section of bridge and thought of those who did not make it across that night just three months earlier.

The Queen Isabella Causeway Collapse brought this community together like no other time I have ever known since I moved here in 1994. We have seen other disasters here, like Hurricane Dolly, but this was different. South Padre Island was just that, an island cut off from the mainland that had no backup plan in case the bridge was ever compromised. Despite that, the locals banded together overnight and came up with one. It was a tragically special time on the island.

I will never forget the four friends I lost that night. I know they are all in a better place looking down on us. Bob is probably helping St. Peter greet people at the Pearly Gates. Hector is belly-up-to-the-bar, ordering rounds for all the angels. 'Poon has his leg back and is riding perfect waves at his own personal Point Break, while Chealsa looks on, lounging on the beach sipping boat drinks. As for their son, he is growing up here on South Padre Island and becoming a fine child, taken care of by his tender, loving grandmother Jacky and her circle of friends.

On Sept. 15, 2001, South Padre Island transcended being a community and became a family. That is the ultimate memory I will always take with me and cherish.

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Rob Nixon has lived, worked and played in the Lower Laguna Madre area since 1994. He is the chairman of the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of our oceans, waves and beaches by all people. This memoir of the causeway collapse originally appeared on his blog “Waiting for the Next Swell” at robnixon.blogspot.com. He can be reached at (956) 433-1472 or robaroo2000@gmail.com.

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IF YOU GO

WHAT: 10th anniversary memorial service for the victims of the 2001 Queen Isabella Causeway collapse

WHEN: Thursday, 10 a.m.

WHERE: the Memorial on South Padre Island

Click here for more info