Some Artistic Gulf Coast Resilience

David J. Phillip / AP

In September of 2008, Hurricane Ike made landfall in Galveston, Texas with a Category 5 equivalent storm surge and winds up to 120 mph at its center.  Originating off the coast of Africa, Ike was responsible for at least 195 deaths:

Of these, 74 were in Haiti, which was already trying to recover from the impact of three storms earlier that year…  In the United States, 112 people were killed, and 23 are still missing. Due to its immense size, Ike caused devastation from the Louisiana coastline all the way to the Kenedy County, Texas region near Corpus Christi, Texas. In addition, Ike caused flooding and significant damage along the Mississippi coastline and the Florida Panhandle^. Damages from Ike in U.S. coastal and inland areas are estimated at $29.6 billion (2008 USD), with additional damage of $7.3 billion in Cuba (the costliest storm ever in that country), $200 million in the Bahamas, and $500 million in the Turks and Caicos, amounting to a total of at least $37.6 billion in damage…  The hurricane also resulted in the largest evacuation of Texans in that state’s history. It also became the largest search-and-rescue operation in U.S. history.

Besides the devastation to homes and infrastructure, loss of life, billions of dollars needed for repairs and damage to Galveston’s tourism, it was also an ecological disaster.  As Swamplot noted in November 2008 (bold casing from original article):

 

A Hero For The 40-and-Over Set

 

A hat tip to my pal Gifted Typist, who wrote about this incredible inspiration to us all. Dara Torres is a 41-year-old competitive swimmer and just qualified for the Olympics after coming out of retirement to raise her daughter. I loved how she couldn’t see the scoreboard after she’d won due to her aging eyes and wasn’t sure she was first in the 100-metre freestyle.

Given one of my big sports fantasies is to beat some young hottie at Wimbledon or win the Tour de France — both at the age I am at right now — this story really moved me.

And it’s about time we made household name heroes out of FEMALE athletes, no? Because if this was a guy, he’d be on the cover of magazines in the coming weeks.