• John Braden •
• Originally published January 15, 2009 at 11:02 a.m., updated January 15, 2009 at 11:02 a.m.

Matagorda County escaped a possibly devastating blow from Hurricane Ike on the weekend of Sept. 12, but preparations that were made last week ensured the county’s readiness. Ike, being the biggest storm that Matagorda County Judge Nate McDonald has had to deal with since he has been in office, called for the cooperation of dozens of city and county officials, McDonald said. Present on a near 24-hour basis were public information officers, Red Cross volunteers, mayors, school district and TxDot representatives, numerous law enforcement agencies and others. “It’s easy to conduct a symphony when you have such great musicians,” McDonald said about the members of the EOC. “We were all working together like a well-oiled machine,” McDonald said. The EOC was active from 8 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 10, until 6 p.m. on Sept. 15. Hurricane Ike, which was a category four hurricane at its strongest, hit the Texas coast as an extremely large category two storm. McDonald, along with the other members of the EOC issued a mandatory evacuation for all of Matagorda County from 8 a.m. Thursday through 10 a.m. on Saturday. By Monday, most Matagorda County residents were back to their homes and starting the sometimes lengthy return to their normal lives. Possibly the hardest hit area in the county, the small town of Sargent, will be undergoing a rebuilding and cleaning process for quite some time, said PIO for the EOC Mitch Thames. Sargent was already feeling the effects of Hurricane Ike’s storm surge by Friday afternoon and battled up to 10 feet of water as the storm moved on shore. The surge had come inland more than a mile by as early as Friday afternoon. “More than 60 homes had water in them when the surge was only at 5 feet,” Thames said. The town of Matagorda is miles away from the coast, so the threat there was at times harder to see, he added. As of Friday afternoon, a 5-foot surge had moved about five miles inland over the sparsely occupied marshes of the Colorado River basin and Matagorda Bay and was threatening the small town. Matagorda was able to avoid getting flooded, however, as the surge, which reached a maximum height at 7-foot above sea level, quickly receded on Saturday. Palacios was also hit hard by the storm, as they fell victim to the strong winds and battled major power outages since last Friday evening. Bay City, with minor power outages, was able to stay largely undamaged as the storm passed well east of the county. There were no fatalities and no major injuries from the storm. See full story in the 09/18/08 edition

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