b'Coastal Bend CommunityS timeinthehis- Above: The north side of this iconic ummer of 1919 was a trulyimage of the Corpus Christi bayfront is gloriouswhere debris from the storm was piled tory of Corpus Christitheup, where the convention center is now.post-World War I economyRight - Downtown near the Bayfront was booming; new hotels,as described by the photographer, public facilities and touristMarie Shirkey: Somewhere among the attractions were opening or were un- wreckage is a paved street running back der construction on North Beach, asto the bay, and this street ran along by developers tried to one-up each oth-er, and business was never better inthe Seaside Hotel where the pretty salt Corpus Christi as visitors descendedcedar arbor was and back toward the upon the Coastal Bend from across thePavilion Hotel out over the bay. At X is country. These were the glory days. the Nueces Hotel, and what you see on In an era before weather satel- this side is the Horne Apartments. This lites,hurricanehunterplanes,andtakes in about two blocks and over all eventheSaffir-Simpsonscale,thethis, you know, was full of buildings.passing of a tropical storm over Puer-to Rico in the first week of September made little news in the U.S. By the time the storm had developed into a modern-day Category 2 over the Bahamas, the U.S. Weather Bureau had alerted authorities in Florida, but no thought was given to the possibility that the storm, a modern Category 4 as it slammed through the Florida Keys, had a long way to go. 44 THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINEFall 2019 TheCoastalBend.com'