Padre Island homeowners seek urgent repairs to canals damaged in tropical storm

Damaged canals, bulkhead failures and sinkholes that happened on North Padre Island during Tropical Storm Alberto have left homeowners seeking immediate action to repair the properties.

The damage is to waterfront lots that are built along the island’s canal system, where more than 30 miles of bulkheads, or straight concrete walls that extend from below the berm to above land elevation, are built to separate the land from the canals, functioning as a protective barrier to prevent land loss from erosion and currents and also maintain proper water depth.

Padre Island Property Owners Association member and island resident Dave Edgecomb, who has lived on a canal lot on Cutlass Avenue with his wife, Kim, for seven years, said the storm sent torrents of water rushing past their house last Wednesday, resulting in downed palm trees and a breached bulkhead that caused sand to pour out from under the house and pool.

“There was much more water flow than ever before,” he said. “We’ve found it’s pretty much scoured clean down to the dirt floor base of the bulkhead. The canal bottom used to be 5 feet deep. The scouring of that current that came by during the tropical storm and that comes by every day due to tidal flow has now scoured that depth to 10 feet, so now the wall has no dirt in front of it."

He said that it wouldn’t take much for it to tip over.

“We haven’t done anything wrong, and that water has eroded,” Kim said.

An area around the center of the property line is slowly losing sand, also affecting his next-door neighbor, Brent Hammond, Edgecomb said.

“No one’s shored it up, no one’s put any rip rap or sand or whatever it needs on the side of it, so it continues to fail, and our yard continues to erode,” Hammond added.

Now, the residents are waiting to hear from the PIPOA about what will be done.

The PIPOA is responsible for bulkhead maintenance and repairs. PIPOA members pay an annual fee based on their residence and abide by a landowner agreement for common use and maintenance of the canals, parks and street, with a certain amount of the fee set aside for bulkhead maintenance.

At the monthly meeting of the PIPOA held on Tuesday night, Interim Board Secretary Drew Diggens read from a statement sent by Vice President Jeff Rackley, stating that the POA has loaned property owners the use of emergency bulkhead materials out of inventory on a loan to stabilize their homes to mitigate further damage, and that a meeting with the board would be held to discuss various options.

But multiple Padre Island residents who attended voiced concerns that too much time had passed after the storm without a response on how the damage to the bulkheads would be fixed.

The residents also say the City of Corpus Christi should be responsible for paying for damage to the canals.

City Attorney Miles Risley told the PIPOA that unlike streets, sewers and public waters that are under city control, canals are private infrastructure that are controlled and maintained in large part by private individuals, the PIPOA or developers.

“We haven’t identified city-owned or controlled areas within the canals,” the attorney said. “Those properties have never been dedicated to the city.”

A news release published by the City of Corpus Christi on June 19 stated that city staff had met with the PIPOA and homeowners of damaged properties, working with them on the best methods to combat bulkhead failures.

The release also said the city is identifying public property that may have been damaged in the storms and will work to streamline permit issues and address any damaged public infrastructure.

However, over a week has passed since the storm hit the property and caused the washout, and no one has taken any action on their property beyond assessing damages, Edgecomb said.

With the city filing a disaster declaration with the state of Texas on June 20 and residents reporting property damages to the Texas Department of Emergency Management, some PIPOA homeowners have been asking if the city will qualify for Federal Emergency Management Agency funding that could help private homeowners repair their own property.

Risley said that the city had extended the disaster declaration in coordination with TDEM and is working with the agency to maximize the chance of obtaining state or federal assistance.

At the meeting, the topic of the Whitecap and Gypsy bridges was also raised.

Last year, PIPOA members were worried that projects such as the recent construction of the Don Patricio Bridge on Park Road 22 would increase water flow rates below Whitecap and Gypsy and result in scouring, or underwater erosion, of bridge posts once the canals opened.

According to a press release written last December by Diggens, engineers for the PIPOA met with the City Engineering Services department and Diamond City Holdings to present findings to the participating parties.

“Engineers for all groups discussed the increased water velocity and resulting scour that will occur at the Whitecap and Gypsy bridges with the opening of the canals and Don Patricio bridge,” he wrote.

The PIPOA has conducted several studies, including one in December of 2023 with Seattle-based engineering firm Anchor QEA that included a peer review of a previous study conducted by contractor LJA Engineering, designed to observe projected flow rates in the canal system. The study engineers recommended further analysis to determine the need for scour protection at both bridges. Additional recommendations included a bathymetric multibeam survey of existing bridges before any scour protection was installed.

Diggens, reading from Rackley's written statement, said that the PIPOA also commissioned a survey in February for the canal system running from the former site of JB's German Restaurant and Bakery to the Gypsy Street boat ramp, which was designed to establish a baseline of canal conditions at that time. He said that was the week the canals were connected to the Don Patricio bridge, and the survey indicated no washouts before the Diamond Beach connection was made to the canals, adding that the POA members recently contacted board members about washouts on the Gypsy Bridge on Park Road 22 and the canals the week of June 10, before the storm.

At Tuesday’s meeting, City Engineer Jeff Edmonds told the group that the city accepts full responsibility for the bridges and bulkheads that lie within the public right of way and that are considered an integral part of the bridges.

Corpus Christi Assistant City Manager Neiman Young made clear Tuesday that the city will help facilitate discussions with the PIPOA, but it is not involved in mitigation or maintenance.

"As the city engineer has stated, we’re more than happy to invite the PIPOA into the discussions regarding communications on progress on maintenance that’s been made on bridges and public property, but as far as the bulkhead, I can’t make a commitment or any statement on that," he said.

The engineers from Anchor QEA were at Tuesday’s meeting discussing site investigations conducted with homeowners to evaluate the extent of the damage to existing infrastructure that happened during the storm, noting that damages would be included in a report to provide recommendations for short-term solutions for stability and repairs.

Hammond said that as the PIPOA waits on their recommendations for how to protect the property, he’s worried about additional storms that the season could bring.

“The engineers were out two days ago talking about building up the bulkhead, but it takes time to come up with engineering plans,” he said. “Will it happen before the next storm? Will that happen before my deck falls in? Will that happen before this reaches Dave’s pool? I don’t know.”