CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Nueces County's Coastal Parks department is ready to take action to keep possible storm surge waters from doing serious damage.
Tropical Storm Alberto sent storm water rushing across our beaches, through beach roads and many open areas.
For many of those travelers this may be a Fourth of July holiday vacation cut short as Hurricane Beryl may start sending rain our way by Sunday. However, the real concern is the storm surge which is sure to come if that hurricane impacts the Coastal Bend.
Nueces County Parks Director Scott Cross believes the Port Aransas area is better able to withstand any type of storm surge that Beryl may send its way compared to what he believes might happen over on Padre Island.
"Over here in Port A we have a much wider beach and we can handle something like Alberto," Cross said. "Over here with Alberto it wasn't that bad at all, we got water in the driveway that was it. But over at Padre Balli I mean it just went all the way in, it was a mess over there."
That's why sand is piled up in front of the County Park's office on Padre Island. It's going to be used as part of a proposed plan to try and protect county assets by building berms to hold back storm surge waters.
"I'm expecting the beaches to be flooded, I'm probably going to be berm-ing up some access roads down at Padre cause the beach is so narrow down there and in front of the office and keep that tidal flood surge from coming in and flooding everything out and pushing all of that debris inside the parks over there," he said.
Those using the RV parks won't be told to leave but it might be a good idea according to some of those folks from out of town who are staying at the I.B. Magee Beach RV Park.
"We're from San Antonio so we kind of looked at the weather and we knew it was coming, but we planned on staying here until we leave Saturday, so we're hoping we're going to beat it before it actually comes in cause we did look at the weather before we left and we just hope to enjoy the Fourth of July," visitor Irene Cedar said.
"We're all good we had a great time and probably let's hope the storm brings us rain to this area cause Lake Corpus Christi needs rain," Kelly Vines visiting from San Marcos said.
3NEWS asked Corpus Christi Water officials how much rain it would take to fill up our lake system. The National Weather Service told CCW 20 inches of rain would do that.