Inside the Moon
Dee-Scoveries A6
Fishing A7
Snake! A9
Boots on the Ground A15
The
Issue 585
Island Moon
The voice of The Island since 1996
July 2, 2015
Around The Island By Dale Rankin editor@islandmoon.com
Up Vermont way a fellow was released from jury duty when he showed up to court wearing a blackand-white-striped jumpsuit with a matching beanie. A judge told him he could be charged with contempt for his sartorial choice but instead sent him home. File that away for the next time you get a jury summons.
Weekly Photo by Mary Craft
Fisherman Hospitalized After Contracting Bacteria in Corpus Christi he couldn’t hold food and was visited by emergency medical technicians. On June 21 he awoke “cold and clammy” and was admitted to the hospital. His left leg was amputated below the knee shortly after entering the hospital and up until Monday had little brain activity, couldn’t breathe on his own and his blood wouldn’t coagulate.
Friends and family of former Palo Duro High School coach Doug James,78, say James was admitted to the hospital last week and has been through life-threatening situations all week.
In Barcelona the Lexus car company sent science nerds into overdrive when it released a video of a hoverboard that uses magnet technology and superconductors cooled by liquid nitrogen to rise and float the rider an inch above the earth like Back to the Future. The company says it won’t release the product to the public but didn’t say why. Think of it…skateboards on the sand.
Free
FREE
A former high school football coach from Amarillo is intensive care (as of earlier this week) at CHRISTUS Spohn Hospital after contracting a bacterial infection caused from a cut he suffered while fishing in the waters of Corpus Christi.
Family members say James was doing “some breathing” by himself and his brain has gone into survival mode from the bacteria attack.
James and some friends went fishing June 19 when he scrapped his knee and continued fishing in the water and that night cleaned his cut with overthe-counter medicine. The next day
James was the head football coach at Palo Duro H.S. in Amarillo. For 17 years his teams were known as “The James Gang.
It’s Time to Light it Up!
4th of July Island Blast and Boat Parade Set for Saturday Viewing Areas
Closer to home the summer swings along with beach driving becoming a little more treacherous each day without rain or the high tides of last week as the normal summer beach conditions kick in with windblown sand piling up next to the dune line. It has been a quiet and relatively slow Tourist Season so far compared to the past couple of years. But hang on to your koozies folks, there is plenty of Tourist Season left and we’re about to hit the sweet spot.
PINS bunkers and Last week we ran an item concerning whether there are World War II era bunkers on Padre Island National Seashore. We got a response from PINS Superintendent Mark Spier who reports that there are some concrete boxes in the ground on the northern end of the park but they are not bunkers but cisterns used for collecting water. Spier says there was a radar site also on the northern end of the park. During the war what later became PINS was used as a bombing target for pilot trainees at the Naval Air Station and was actually one of the three sites considered for the nuclear test site before the selection of the Los Alamos site in New Mexico. As we reported last week there are the remnants of gun bunkers near Horace Caldwell Pier in Port Aransas where guns were placed to guard the pass but none on the National Seashore. In an unrelated history matter… on Sunday, July 26 on the beach next to Caldwell Pier there will be a reenactment of the planting of the first United States flag on Texas soil which occurred on July 26, 1845. The ceremony will be done by the Palo Alto Battlefield Historical Society from the Rio Grande Valley complete with period costumes. The dragoons will splash ashore at 1 p.m. and the public is invited to attend.
What’s in the water? In what must be placed in the Only OnThe Island Department we are getting reports from pool people all over The Island that they are having trouble with “milky” looking water and gummed up water filters. According to them the problem is lack of chlorine in the tap water. Oh the humanity! While this doesn’t qualify as an Island Disaster yet it is something for pool owners to be
Around continued on A3
Island Blast after 7pm
Launch Site
Para
de S
g Are
s ca
So far no plan for The Island
By Dale Rankin More than a year ago the Corpus Christi City Council approved a total of $2.2 million to update a much needed comprehensive plan for the city’s future through 2035. The previous plan was based on data and projections from 1987. The Boston-based planning group Goody Clancy, at the suggestion of City Manager Ron Olson, was hired to produce the new study, called Plan CC 2035, to begin the process at a cost of $900,000 and the resulting document is now available for viewing in draft form on the city’s website. Included in the 300-plus page report is a detailed plan for downtown development and a 429 word section on Island development which contains only broad goals and points out that, unlike most small communities, The Island does not have a “downtown” but rather
Flour Bluff Editor’s note: The following is the full text of the section concerning Flour Bluff in the Draft Plan CC 2035
Land Use Character Related To Nas-Cc And Waldron Field
tagin
Boat
Plan CC 2035 is City’s Blueprint for City’s Future
Flour Bluff’s character is and will be significantly influenced by the presence of NASCC and Waldron Field. NAS-CC, of course, is a major employer in the city, and there are strong economic reasons to retain the military presence in Corpus Christi. Once a separate community, Flour Bluff retains a quiet residential character, with a range of housing from very affordable units and multifamily housing to large-lot single-family homes.
Restrooms
No Boat Traffic
Para
a
n be
ach
here
de Ro
ute
The Department of Defense has encouraged communities to work with military bases to develop land use studies and implement them.
Flour Bluff continued on A5 Look up in the sky…at 9:15 pm this Saturday, July 4, as the third annual 4th of July Island Blast fireworks show will take to the sky from the launch site at the west end of Whitecap Boulevard. Organizer Jerry Watkins says everything is in place for the show, however this year’s show won’t be accompanied by the spectacular grass fire which happened last year when the falling embers lit up the spoil island across the canal from the launch site. “The Flour Bluff Fire Department has tried to do a control burn on that island twice,” Watkins said Wednesday. “But it’s too green to burn. They are going to try one more time but if they can’t burn it neither can the fireworks.” The $15,000, 22-minute fireworks show is funded by donations from Island residents and businesses and is done by a professional fireworks company hired for the occasion. In only three short years it has become a highlight of the Island calendar and a reason to throw the Mother of All Deck Parties on Island canals. Portable restrooms will also be placed at the end of Whitecap and at the Caravel boat ramp for public use.
Party on the Patios The fireworks show builds on a tradition begun sixteen years ago by Islanders Ann Weber and Harald Meyers who, along with their
Fireworks continued on A3
Live Music A18
a retail section spread along the SPID/Park Road 22 corridor, and calls for “neighborhood villages” at both the SPID/Commodores and SPID/Whitecap intersections which will require more planning to facilitate. (For the complete language of the plan as it pertains to The Island and Flour Bluff see the stories in this issue). The report divides the city into seven distinct sections with a distinct development plan for each. They are: Downtown, Westside, Northside, Southside, Midtown, Flour Bluff, and Padre/ Mustang Islands, but provides a comprehensive plan for downtown only. Critics of the plan including the Corpus Christi Builders Association say most of the focus of the plan is on the revitalization
Plan CC continued on A5
Padre/Mustang Planning District Future Land Use Padre Island and Mustang Island contain residential neighborhoods with year-round residents and “winter Texans,” tourist-oriented developments and attractions, and public parks and beaches. Unlike many beach communities that have a small-town core with a walkable cluster of restaurants and shops that serve both visitors and residents, Padre Island commercial development is spread along the SPID/Park Road 22 corridor. The remaining developable land on Padre Island is controlled by a small number of owners. The new Schlitterbahn Waterpark and resort will be a big visitor attraction and is likely to encourage additional residential/ tourist development.
Island continued on A5
A little Island history
Texas Horse Marines Captured Ships from Horseback on Copano Bay
It was this month 179 years ago that the Texas Horse Marines, a mounted company of Texas Rangers in the service of the Texas revolutionary army rode into Texas history. In 1836 the Rangers, under the command of Maj. Isaac Watts Burton, had been dispatched by Gen. Thomas J. Rusk to watch a stretch of the Gulf Coast south of San Antonio Bay and when they heard of a suspicious vessel in Copano Bay, the Rangers hid on the shore and sent up distress signals. Considering how much Texas history has occurred on horseback it isn’t surprising to learn that one of the Republic’s greatest naval victories was achieved by 20 or so armed and mounted Rangers known to history as the Texas Horse Marines.
Standard issue tomahawk This little-known band of Texas patriots, under the command of Maj. Isaac Watts Burton, is believed to be the only Marine unit in history to receive a tomahawk as standard issue and perhaps the only one to capture three ships while riding horses and without firing a shot.
The “soldiers at sea” in this instance had been dispatched to the Texas coast by Gen. Thomas J. Rusk, who feared that Mexican troops might land on the Texas coast. This was in June of 1836, three months after
Texas’ decisive victory at San Jacinto but the Mexican army was still in Texas. A Mexican insurrection was very much on the minds of the new Texas government.
History continued on A6