HURRICANE IKE - ONE YEAR LATER: DAMAGE TO THE COASTAL SYSTEM ON SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, TEXAS

On September 13, 2008 the storm surge from Hurricane Ike reached the gulf side of the Town of South Padre Island, Texas. The Town of South Padre Island is located on the southmost tip of Padre Island, a barrier island located between the Gulf of Mexico and Laguna Madre. Hurricane Ike made landfall nearly 400 miles away from South Padre Island. Waves from the surge worked their way through beach access footpaths, then reflected off of hard surfaces such as buildings and undercut many of the sand dunes by washing away the back of the dunes.

We conducted beach profile surveys immediately before and after Hurricane Ike on vegetated, unvegetated, and revegetated dunes. The vegetated dunes were located in Isla Blanca Park and Edwin King Park, the revegetated dunes were at Florence and Padre Grand Condominiums, the unvegetated sand berms were located at Bahia Mar Resort and Tiki Condominiums.

During the storm surge of Hurricane Ike, the unvegetated sand berms and recently revegetated sand dunes suffered more damage than the established vegetated dunes. The sand berms were completely washed away, while revegetated sand dunes withstood wave action for a longer period of time in this dynamic environment. The established vegetated dunes experienced scower at the toe of the dunes.

Since Hurricane Ike, the Town of South Padre Island has focused its efforts towards reestablishing a continuous vegetated duneline throughout the town limits. The town has raked Sargassum into the low spots along the duneline to serve as nutrient and moisture rich fertilizer for native vegetation. Additionally, the town has propagated native plants and has hosted six community events where approximately 20,000 native plants were transplanted into the dune system. Three of our sample locations, Florence Condominiums, Bahia Mar Resort, and Tiki Condominiums, had vegetation transplanted during at least one of these events. Comparison of our three sets of dune profiles show the recovery of the continuous duneline system. The long term goal of these efforts is reestablish revegetated dunes to mimic natural established dunes, which will minimize the damage to the Town of South Padre Island caused by hurricanes in the future.