Nick Jimenez

Sunday, August 6, 2000

Celia sowed terror, built solidarity

A friend of mine says there are two kinds of Corpus Christians: those who were here during Celia and those who came after.
   Her point is that Hurricane Celia was such a defining event in the city's history that only those who experienced the devastation of Aug. 3, 1970, can understand what being in a hurricane means. Those who were here during that Monday afternoon will never forget the sheer terror of being caught in a huge force with the power to rip houses to shreds, toss ships about like toy boats and blow with such ferocity that the city marina emptied.
   I, like thousands of others, wondered if I would live to see the next day.
   And though each year we mark Aug. 3 as another year since Celia - this past Thursday was 30 years - the defining event may not have been the day of the hurricane but the days that followed.
   Corpus Christi was a much different city than it is today. It was smaller and more compact; the city's push south had not yet blossomed to a great extent beyond South Padre Island Drive. Downtown still meant the heart of the city. Its residents, except for the vein of military folk and the occasional corporate type, were well acquainted with each other; just about any two people running into each other were likely to have been born, gone to high school, married and raised a family all within Corpus Christi.
   Yet for all its coziness, Corpus Christi's lines that separated it from itself were as hard and as firmly drawn as anywhere in South Texas. Don't think that it's happenstance that two of the most prominent Hispanic civil rights organizations, the American GI Forum and LULAC, were created in Corpus Christi.
   And like any city, we knew each other but we didn't know each other. The suburban family in the new developments south, the poor on the Westside, the wealthy along Ocean Drive, the blue collar worker in the inner city, the shrimper in Flour Bluff were all in the city limits, but - and this is not just a Corpus Christi situation - they may as well have been living on islands alone.
   And then there were the usual political hijinks: the insufferable lack of action and interminable studies, the suspicion of personal motives, the posturing and ego bruising.
   And then Celia blew in.
   After the terror there was nothing. No electricity, no phones, no fuel, no access. When the wind finally died, night swiftly fell and there was only a city that was all but blacked out. There was no whir of air conditioning compressors, no roar of traffic, no phones ringing and no television. And no light to switch on.
   The next day we began to discover how hard we had been hit and just how much we all needed each other.
   There were no more fences between neighbors and no windows shut to keep in the cool air. There was simply no way to cope with the debris, with the damage, no way to begin to put life together except with help. And there was no one to call on for help except your neighbor. And everybody in the city was your neighbor.
   Corpus Christi was as united as it has ever been and, some believe, ever has been since. We were all just victims, struggling to keep, or put, a roof over our heads, find a place to get gas, or simply get a shower. In the stifling heat of August, with air conditioning now vanished and many without bathrooms, there was a common denominator: We all stank to high heaven.
   There are always those who don't get with the program: They were arrested for looting.
   Government was simply overwhelmed. But it was not, with exceptions, every man for himself. Anywhere in Corpus Christi you had a friend.
   There was one government act that remains in the memory of all Celia survivors. Needing no authorization except his own sense that it was the right thing to do, Mayor Jack Blackmon simply seized a truckload of ice which was being sold at scandalous prices. Talk about your trust in City Hall.
   We mark the anniversary that Celia hit. We ought also to mark the days that in our misery we realized how much that stands between us is irrelevant and how much we are linked by our humanity.
   (Nick Jimenez can be reached by phone at 886-3787, or by e-mail at jimenezn@caller.com)
  
  

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