U.S. Gulf Coast Hurricane Recovery Update

By Rachel Ribando Gros

As the United States Gulf Coast recovers from the most recent hurricanes there, news about the cultural resources affected continues to pop up on the internet.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has put out a call for any volunteer structural engineers and architects willing to help with the assessment of cultural resources damaged in the wake of the Hurricane Ike.

Lynn Edmundson writes from Historic Houston in an attempt to assist the Galveston Historic Foundation, which has recently been displaced by Hurricane Ike. The Galveston Historic Foundation (GHF) has set up temporary headquarters at Preservation Texas in Austin, from which the GHF has announced that although damage was serious, it was not as bad as they had feared it would be. The 1861 U.S. Custom House, GHF headquarters, was flooded with eight feet of water, damaging files, computers, archives, and systems. At The Texas Seaport Museum at pier 22 the wooden workshops were lost and the pier structure was damaged. The 1857 Italianate Mansion had flooding of up to 18 inches, most likely damaging the furniture on the first floor; windows were lost on the second floor. The 1889 Gresham House, or Bishop’s Palace, retained minimal damage, but flooded up to three feet on the lowest floor, which contained offices and a ticket counter.

Hurricane Ike further uncovered a mysterious shipwreck along the coast of Alabama in Fort Morgan. The ship is about 150 feet long, 30 feet wide, and appears to be badly burned. The ship was partially uncovered in 2000 by Hurricane Camille and was thought by researchers to be the Monticello, a battleship from the Civil War. The Army Corp of Engineers, however, believe it to be the schooner Rachel, built in 1919 at Moss Point, Mississippi.

A video of the wreckage can be seen at http://www.algulfcoastvideo.com/shipwreck08.htm.

Featured thumbnail and photos by meltedplastic on Flickr