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GALVESTON – The majority of Galveston Island could have power by tomorrow, Mayor Craig Brown said Tuesday during a press conference. But as the city pushes toward recovery, officials are asking tourists to hold off on their travels to the island.
“This hurricane in many aspects caught us by surprise,” Brown said.
Although the city had been following weather reports, the winds were higher than what was forecasted, he said. The island saw wind gusts as fast as 78 mph, according to the National Weather Service.
Brown said that the changing trajectory of the storm also played a role. Initial reports predicted the storm would hit the Corpus Christi area. But at the last minute, the trajectory shifted north to Matagorda Bay.
The mayor said that the city has had “extensive” damage on the island. On the west side, which is not protected by the seawall, the storm surge caused flooding that prevented some residents from getting in and out of their homes.
Brown issued a voluntary evacuation order for the west side of the island July 6 to give residents and people who may have been on the island for vacation a chance to leave before the storm made impact in the low-lying area.
The storm approached one of the busiest weekends on the island with around 300,000 extra people there to celebrate the Fourth of July, Brown said.
Power, phone service to be restored soon
As of Monday around noon, Brown was told that about 70 percent of the island was without power. CenterPoint informed the mayor that its goal was to have most of the power on the island restored by Wednesday.
Currently, there are hundreds of CenterPoint workers on the island working to restore power. CenterPoint told Brown that it plans to have thousands of workers there by Tuesday night.
Brown said that the phone systems for the city, county and the University of Texas Medical Branch are down. This is because the company that manages the phone systems for these three entities went down during the storm in Houston. Brown said they are working closely with the organization to get systems back up and running.
911 has not been impacted and is operational for residents who need to call in the event of an emergency.
As the city begins its restoration efforts, Brown is asking tourists to hold off on travel to the Island.
“We are in a situation where we are trying to get up and running and get our residents back to a normal way of life as quickly as possible,” Brown said. “Once we get to that point, we are very welcome to get visitors back. But until we get to that point, and hopefully that won’t be too far off in the future, we are not really set up to handle visitors at this point.”
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