CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — While Tropical Storm Alberto did not deliver a significant wallop to the Coastal Bend, it did cause some headaches on Padre Island and other island communities.
Alberto flooded area beaches from Padre Island to Port Aransas and north to Rockport. The stormwaters also washed out the area underneath the JFK Causeway bridge where the very popular Doc's and Snoopy’s restaurants are located. Even the canals on the island were swollen, and it caused some docks to disappear under water.
Jace Tunnel is a marine biologist with the Harte Research Institute and explained that Alberto had some help in causing these swells.
”We kind of have this perfect combination right now of where we were already having high tides and now you put in there a tropical system which blows in massive amounts of water," he said.
Packery Flats park was flooded as was much of the area in and around Packery Channel along Highway 361. So, how long will all of the water remain?
”We can probably expect the water to be high probably for a good week or so before the water starts going back down.” Tunnel said.
Port Aransas didn’t see anywhere close to the amount of flooding that took place on Padre Island.
”Luckily, this has been a non-event so far. Just a rain event so we’re happy with that.” Port Aransas Police Lt. James Stokes said.
There could be one big positive. Tunnel told 3NEWS that all this beach flooding could wash away the nasty tar balls that have been accumulating on our area beaches the past few weeks.