What the Sea Takes

Every August, the people of Port Mason watch the sky.

Port Mason is a small town on the Gulf Coast of Texas. For more than a hundred years, it has lived with hurricanes. The old people remember the storm of 1961, when the water rose to the church steps. The young people have grown up with warnings on their phones.

This year, the warning came on a Tuesday. A hurricane was moving across the warm water of the Gulf, and it was getting stronger. The mayor told everyone to leave. “If the storm hits at high tide,” she said, “the whole town center will flood.”

Most people listened. By Wednesday night, the roads out of town were full of cars. Houses were boarded up, and shop windows were taped. Boats were tied down or pulled out of the water.

Not everyone left. A few older residents stayed, as they always had. “I have survived nine of these,” one fisherman told the local paper. “My house is still here, and so am I.”

The storm came at dawn. The wind tore the roofs from three buildings, and the harbor road was washed away. But the new sea wall held, and the town center stayed dry. No one was killed.

In recent years, the storms have grown more frequent and more violent. Scientists say the warm water feeds them. Port Mason has been rebuilt many times, and it will be rebuilt again. The question its people now ask is not whether the next storm will come, but how much of the town it will take.