Alberto made its mark on Padre Balli Park

• Tropical Storm Alberto left a lot of debris and damage at Padre Balli Park
• The beach is covered in trash, pieces of concrete, and rocks.
• Nueces County Coastal Parks is responsible for cleaning up the mess and they have started the process.

Tropical Storm Alberto left its footprints in the sand at Padre Balli Park on the island. Some beach goers were unpleasantly surprised to see large amounts of trash, broken concrete, pieces of wood, and rocks all over the beach after the storm.

“A few days ago, this beach was pristine. Yeah, so, it’s shocking to see it like this," Veronica Carlisle-Johnson and Meredith Johnson, visitors from Fort Worth said.

People were wondering where all of this debris came from.

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“As the storm moved on shore, it caused some very impressive waves. We saw about ten foot waves combined with the three and a half foot storm surge that we saw along the islands," Nicholas Price, a National Weather Service Corpus Christi Meteorologist said.

The debris was a mix of picnic tables, lifeguard stands, and the roads that were torn up by the force of the waves during Tropical Storm Alberto.

“The water ended up going back towards low tide. It ended up showing a lot of that debris and kind of spreading it out a little further to where it was a lot more visible, which is why it looked the way that it did," Price said.

Padre Balli Park is owned by Nueces County, so they are responsible for cleaning up the storm aftermath.

“We don’t have any indication that any of the debris is the leftover from Bob Hall Pier. But, we're still assessing. Right, we’re still going through that. We’re having to pump water out of there. We’ve gotta get all of that out of there to see. They were doing a lot of water pumping yesterday. We’ve been in touch with The Texas Department of Emergency Management," Brent Chesney, Nueces County Commissioner Precinct 4 said.

Nueces County Coastal Parks has already started the cleanup process.

Erin Holly

“If it’s on county beaches, then we’re going to be out there doing it," Commissioner Chesney said.

While the total cleaning up of the damage at Padre Balli Park will take at least a few weeks, there is a silver lining for island residents and visitors.

“At this point, we don’t see any reason for that to delay it now because, on Bob Hall, we still have a little more value engineering to do," Commissioner Chesney said.

The Bob Hall Pier rebuild project is still on track and on budget. Construction is still set to start before the end of 2024.

“It’s sad and I realize it’ll take quite some time to clean it up.” Carlisle-Johnson said.

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