Hurricane Gilbert Memoires

[Ptarmigan]

Anyone here in Texas remember Hurricane Gilbert in 1988? I was a kid that time in elementary school. Hurricane Gilbert was a monster Category 5 with 185 mph winds. If I recall, there was lots of news coverage in Houston when Gilbert was around. I think Gilbert was projected to be a Category 5 hurricane again and hit Texas as one. I remember school had to close because of this hurricane. First time I had encountered a school closure because of bad weather. I remember it was cloudy and some light rain. Thankfully it made landfall south of Texas in Mexcio. I know Gilbert caused stormy weather in Central Texas. I wonder if Southeast Texas felt any effects from Gilbert. All I remember was that Gilbert caused a huge scare that would not be seen until Rita in 2005. I wonder what would happen if Gilbert did hit Texas? I would imagine something really bad.

[CDeb]

Anyone here in Texas remember Hurricane Gilbert in 1988? I was a kid that time in elementary school. Hurricane Gilbert was a monster Category 5 with 185 mph winds. If I recall, there was lots of news coverage in Houston when Gilbert was around. I think Gilbert was projected to be a Category 5 hurricane again and hit Texas as one. I remember school had to close because of this hurricane. First time I had encountered a school closure because of bad weather. I remember it was cloudy and some light rain. Thankfully it made landfall south of Texas in Mexcio. I know Gilbert caused stormy weather in Central Texas. I wonder if Southeast Texas felt any effects from Gilbert. All I remember was that Gilbert caused a huge scare that would not be seen until Rita in 2005. I wonder what would happen if Gilbert did hit Texas? I would imagine something really bad.

Yup, I remember they cancelled Monday classes on a Friday afternoon. I remember the satellite images of the storm basically filling the whole gulf, as it expanded (and weakened) after making landfal near Cozumel. The Yucatan and Jamaica were devastated by that storm.

[plumber2]

Gilbert made landfall south of Matamaoros Mexico and was downgraded to a category 3 storm by landfall. It actually had 200mph winds as a Cat 5 before it crossed the Yucatan. And yes, it was scary for us coastal county folks watching it move our way.

Allen in 1980 was another one that got everybody's attention. It was a Cat 5 storm but was downgraded to Cat 3 by the time it came ashore north of Port Isabel. I was living in Brownsville at the time and rode out the storm inside Sunrise Mall. We watched the palms trees bend almost perpendicular to the ground as gusts would move through every few minutes. Several small structures sustained damage but things got back to normal within a couple of days.

[Firebird65]

I worked at a newspaper in Conroe and I was dreading the storm would hit here. For one, I sure didn't want to drive around in a Chevy Cavalier through protentially high water simply to get a man-on-the-street weather story that always reads the same. Take a look at today's hurricane stories - you could really re-run a story, change the date and name of the storm and no one would know the difference. Shoot, they may already do that! Show some kids splashing in the water, have a few pictures of downed trees and an interview with someone that says they've never seen a flood like this and Volia!

I also covered the Montgomery Bears high school football team and I remember they moved the game up a day to get it in before a storm potentially hit.

[heightslurker]

I hear some people predicting Dean will be like Gilbert was...since I don't remember what it was like in Houston to have a hurricane hit that far south to us, (being on the 'dirty' side and all)....glad to know there is a chance we won't have a repeat of all the rain we got from Erin....

or we can hope anyway!

I worked at a newspaper in Conroe and I was dreading the storm would hit here. For one, I sure didn't want to drive around in a Chevy Cavalier through protentially high water simply to get a man-on-the-street weather story that always reads the same. Take a look at today's hurricane stories - you could really re-run a story, change the date and name of the storm and no one would know the difference. Shoot, they may already do that! Show some kids splashing in the water, have a few pictures of downed trees and an interview with someone that says they've never seen a flood like this and Volia!

I also covered the Montgomery Bears high school football team and I remember they moved the game up a day to get it in before a storm potentially hit.