Hurricane Claudette in July, 2003 caused significant damage to the dune-socks along
the west Galveston beachfront.
Specifically, in Pirate's beach, the dune-socks had a 46 inch drainage tube going
underneath the dune-socks
at various points to allow for drainage of rain and
flood waters back to the ocean.
Hurricane Claudette's storm surge and waves ripped out all of those drainage
tubes and destroyed the overlying dune-socks.
The repair of the dune-socks along Pirate's Beach has been taking place during
August and September, 2004.
This series of photos shows the rebuilding of the drainage tubes and overlying
dune-socks
on Buccaneer Boulevard in Pirates' Beach.
On Thursday, September 23, 2004 work which had been underway had to be suspended due to storm surge and waves from the re-emergence of Hurricane Ivan in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico near the Louisiana-Texas border.
Equipment had to be moved out of the now high tides and surf, and work had to
be suspended. Here we see some of the hydraulic hoses and the sand hopper awaiting retrieval.
A close up of the above photo.To the right, you can see part of the steel pipes
that are place out into the surf to suck water into the hydraulic pumps.
More of the steel pipe water suction unit.
A lot of heavy equipment was used to retrieve items from the rising surf.
The Ross Web Site helicopter monitored events closely. If you look carefully,
you can see
the Ross Web Site logo on the side of the helicopter.
The foreman (back to us in the foreground) directs one of the heavy units where to dig to attempt to find equipment which had been fully swallowed by the sand.
More digging. The equipment was very hard to find.
Finally, one of the missing buried units was found.
The next steps involved moving the rolled up dune-socks to higher ground.
The water pumping pipe units also had to be moved.
The steel dredge also needed to be moved before it disappeared completely.
On Friday, September 24 normal operations got back underway. A trench was
dug
where Buccaneer Boulevard meets the beach, and the dune-socks were unrolled
and
laid out in the trench.The drainage tube is then laid at the junction of
two separate dune-socks.
Workmen then attached the two separate dune-socks across the top of the drainage
pipe.
One of the workmen was happy to pose for the Ross Web Site cameras.
Attaching the two parts of the dune-socks continues.
The hopper is mounted up high. High pressure water is pumped into this hopper, and
sand is loaded into the top. The sand is then forced down into the dune-sock,
eventually filling it up.
Another unit moves to the top of a sand pile to begin picking up sand to drop into the hopper.
The hopper is here being attached to the dune-sock so that sand can begin flowing.
Heavy equipment begins to pile up the enormous volume of sand needed for this process.
Here you can see the hopper being filled. This occurs about once every 30 seconds
or so for the 2-3 hours it takes to fill a typical dune-sock.
You can play this short movie clip.
Filling of the dune-sock on one side of the drainage pipe is well underway.
Filling continues. The water is the outflow from the dune-sock, leaving the sand behind filling the dune-sock.
A diesel pumping unit provides the pressure, pulling water in from the pipes which extend out into the surf.
By Sunday morning, September 26, filling of these particular dune-socks was completed.
Once the dune-sock filling work is completed all along west beach, these dune-socks will be covered with sand, planted with local beach grass and will look just like normal sand dunes.
