A Texas Hurricane Tragedy

PlummMeanGreen · September 24, 2005

Through the hole in the ceiling in the attic of his house with hurricane waters rising fast, he reached down for his youngest sister....

As I was watching CNN's Larry King interview Dan Rather the other night about Hurricane Rita and her potential to destroy billions of dollars of Texas property but more important, its potential to take Texan's lives, Mr. Rather started talking about a 1961 hurricane whose name was Carla. Rather was a young TV reporter for Houston's CBS affiliate KHOU, Channel 11 back in 1961 and little did he know back then how it would be that hurricane (and later an assassination in Dallas) that would soon elevate him to national media prominence at CBS News.

In September of 1961 on the gulf coast of Texas, life was good for many of us baby boomers. World War II and the Korean War were all but distant memories for many of our parents. Many of us baby boomer's fathers were hard workers with many of that group not having too much of an education background.

As it was, many of our fathers back in the day grew up in the the Depression and had to work on their family farms rather than having an opportunity to attend a Texas public school as to get much higher than an 8'th grade education. Yet, this was during the pre-World War II era when things were beginning to boom as to turn that part of Texas into what many began to call the golden Gulf Coast. Many of our dads (HS diplomas or not) could still get on with one of numerous petroleum/chemical plants rising on the salt grass prairies of Texas near the Gulf and for my late father, that would be the Texas Division of Dow Chemical Company, Freeport, Texas, where he worked for 37 years.

One of my fellow Brazoria County-ites (near Galveston/Freeport) I had met as a youngster was the boyfriend of a young girl whose parents were Sunday afternoon "coffee, pie and 42" friends of my parents. That teenage boy's name was Jimmy Dunn...

The Dunn family (all 10 of them) lived right off Bastrop Bayou, near Freeport and about 10 miles from Surfside Beach off the Gulf of Mexico. The Dunn's pier beam frame house was located just off that bayou and in September of 1961 when (as Dan Rather described on Larry King the other night) we had a hurricane with such an expanse that it would literally fill the entire Gulf of Mexcio on the map.

Many of us kids living off the coast of Texas all grew up hearing very old, old timers tell the story of the Great Galveston Storm at the turn of the century that killed anywere from 8-12,000 Galvestonians; and in 1961 to many of our families living within 15-20 or so miles from the coastline, Hurricane Carla seemed that she might turn out to be such a storm as the one that wiped out an entire Texas island city in the early 1900's.

So then most of our families (even without today's present satellite technology of tracking hurricane's movements) used good judgement and tens upon tens of thousands of families evacuated the Texas gulf coast all the way from the Texas Golden Triangle area of Beamont/Port Arthur/Orange all the way down to the southernmost tip of Texas, ie, Brownsville.

But back to Jimmy Dunn, who was a family acquaintance and boyfriend of my parent's friend's daughter; anyway, young Jimmy's father told his wife, his oldest son and his 7 youngest siblings that they would not be going anywhere during this hurricane but would hunker down, get some six packs and the adults would just have a good old fashioned hurricane party. After my dad helped close down the plant in Freeport, our family headed toward Mexia/Groesbeck to stay with relatives just like many of Hurricane Rita's evacuees are doing the same as I post and as you read this post.

So a hurricane party it would be in the Dunn household... As the winds of Hurricane Carla howled outside, Jimmy Dunn's mom and dad were drinking (probably) a bit more than they should have, and maybe even that because they very well could have began to think that they may have made a wrong decision to not evacuate their pier beam frame house off the shores of Bastrop Bayou.

So as the Dunn family hunkered down with the adults partying, it was getting dark outside as the brunt of Hurricane Carla started her landfall onto the Freeport/ Surfside Beach area of Texas and the tides of Bastrop Bayou began rising dramatically fast, almost to the point that Jimmy Dunn later said he thought a tidal wave had come through the bayou because...

...the salt water started rushing onto the Dunn household's wooden floor. Mr and Mrs. Dunn instructed their 8 kids to immediately start stacking furniture so it would not get wet, but about that time the the water started rising even more quickly and to the extent that it was up to the Mr. and Mrs. Dunn's and young teen Jimmy's wastelines. Jimmy saw his family was in deep trouble, so he got on top the kitchen table and with a small hatchet immediately knocked a hole into the ceiling of the Dunn househould leading to the attic. He related later that his mother and dad were so inebbriated that they were almost becoming a liability as not only be able to save them but his younger brothers and sisters as well.

So after the young teenage boy and oldest of the Dunn family finally knocked a hole though the ceiling and one large enough for his family to crawl up to he then jumped up into the attic.

About the time he made his way into the attic and got situated as to start his rescue, what he would later describe as another tidal wave came thru Bastrop Bayou and very quickly filling his family's living room with water now about 6 feet deep inside the house. In fact, one more surge of the rising water caused it to be almost near ceiling height. So through the hole in the ceiling in the attic with hurricane waters rising fast, he reached down for his youngest sister, but a suction created by the fast rising water and a suction that might be compared to the kind created by a sinking ship caused his entire family to be pulled down into the water to each of their watery graves.

Jimmy didn't have time to mourn his most traumatic and enormous loss because the water kept on rising and into the attic where he originally thought he would be able to save his family and himself. With his small hatchet, he chopped yet another hole, but this time it was through the roof much like many of us all saw recently with those who had similar experiences in the Big Easy just 3 weeks ago. After finally chopping his way through the roof, he was finally able to get on top his family's home's roof to find himself right in the middle of a high category hurricane whose name was Carla.

Jimmy Dunn told friends that while on that roof right in the middle of Hurricane Carla, it was pitch black, raining hard with winds that almost swept him off the roof of the house where he grew up. Later that night, Jimmy related how the house started floating off into what he thought was a trip into the Gulf of Mexico. A few hours later, though, he would look north and see the red blinking lights of a very tall radio tower near Angleton, Texas. The next morning, the Texas Coast Guard would pick up Jimmy Dunn and those sailers would later hear one of the most horrific hurricane stories they would probably ever hear in their lifetimes.

Life has many strange turns and detours for many, and I guess you'd have to say the same for Jimmy Dunn, just one of the local boys from Brazoria County. As I posted earlier, Jimmy had dated my parent's friends daugher whose name was Patricia Greener. Last time I saw the 2 of them was one Sunday night when my parents and I went to a Dairy Queen. They really seemed like a young boyfriend/girfriend who anyone would have thought had such bright futures ahead of them.

6 years after Hurricane Carla when Jimmy had lost his entire family, he enlisted in the U.S Army and after all this young man had gone through in his young life especially during a 1961 Texas hurricane, he lost his own life fighting for our country in Viet Nam and that (again) 6 years after he lost his entire family.

My parent's friend's daughter and Jimmy Dunn's girlfriend, Patricia, was tragically killed about one year after Jimmy lost his life in a a senseless automobile accident caused by a drunk driver.

So 2 nights ago when Dan Rather was on CNN's Larry King Show and began talking about his experience as a TV reporter in a 1961 Texas-sized storm called Hurricane Carla, there is always one other story that comes to my mind that took place in 1961 on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

Edited September 25, 2005 by PlummMeanGreen

untangel4 · September 25, 2005

Thanks for sharing that with everyone, Plumm...

PlummMeanGreen · September 25, 2005

Thanks for sharing that with everyone, Plumm...
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Your welcome, untangel4...

There is also a moral to this real life tragedy that people really do need to leave when one of these hurricanes are coming towards our shores and when they are told in advance by our goverment officials to get out of harm's way.

I wish more New Orleans citizens would have listened to their fine mayor when he said well in advance of Katrina: "People, this is the one we've been dreading all our lives."

Edited September 25, 2005 by PlummMeanGreen