How the Great Hurricane of 1900 helped Galveston Texas.

     This hurricane that hit Galveston Texas in 1900 proved to be one of the deadliest storms in world history. It killed near 10,000 people in the Galveston Texas area, flooded all buildings in Galveston, and destroyed almost everything in sight. It bought 145 mph winds, heavy storm surge, and flooding rains that made Galveston Texas look like a ghost town after the storm. Worst of all, it came without warning.
     However, out of all this, how in the world could this have helped Galveston Texas? While there was a lot of the money that put Galveston into further debt, most of it was actually issued to make the impact of a hurricane less and prevent another tragedy like the hurricane of 1900 from happening. The best idea of all this rebuilding was an 18 ft tall seawall put in for Galveston. This seawall prevented waves and storm surge up to that height from extensively flooding the city. Also, this seawall project raised the city of Galveston as a whole and made it almost twenty feet higher in elevation. At the time, Galveston was only 9 ft above sea level. With this tall storm wall and raising of the city, the city now stands over 20 ft tall.
     However, many hurricanes have challenged this sea wall in the past. Hurricanes like the ones in 1961 and 1983 were very powerful and caused lots of damage, but didn't heavily flood the city. Hurricane Ike in 2008 was a near category 3 hurricane that bought 160 mph hurricane equivalent storm surge going over the 18 ft sea wall. While it caused lots of damage to buildings and killed 117 people in the U.S., compared to that of the 1900 hurricane, it wasn't the worst hurricane ever for Galveston Texas  thanks to modern warning systems and technology.

 If all of these storms had come without that sea wall in Galveston Texas, then there would be many more deaths and much more catastrophic destruction that would have made people want to move away and leave Galveston Texas a forgotten city.
     Today, many cities along the coastlines face this same decision that Galveston faced in 2008. Should they raise the city and make a sea wall with heavy monetary costs? While rising sea levels is a big issue today, dealing with hurricanes and how to prepare these cities for them is much more important as Hurricanes like Katrina and Sandy have shown. Galveston is a great example of making changes to stop weather phenomenons like hurricanes from killing many innocent lives; and many other cities should make big changes like Galveston did to save lives today and in the future.