b'Coastal Bend CommunityA Great Corpus ChristianRobert Homer Simpson was a 6-year-old survivor of the Great Hurricane of 1919. After graduating with honors from Corpus Christi High School, he went on to become a pioneer in meteorological research, co-developing the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, used to this day to identify hurricanes into five categories of intensity.east quadrant of the hurricane settledAbove/Left : Robert Simpson (left), who co-developed the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, over Portland, North Beach and thesurvived the Great 1919 Hurricane as a child. His familys home is pictured in the photo below.downtownCorpusChristibayfront. Whilesustainedwindsof110mphAbove - Downtown Corpus Christi as described by the photographer, Marie Shirkey: Clearing away tore off rooftops, blew over telephonewreckage down-town on Chaparral St. Lichtensteins have their things out trying to dry them.and power lines, and shattered win- X is the Nueces Hotel. This is where the water was up in the lobby.dows, the storm surge would do theBelow - (Marie Shirkey): This is in the block back of our house. All this was covered with houses.sinister work of upending most of theThe dark streaks you see are oil streaks. X is the Simpsons house and XX Millers.citys private homes and smaller inns and businesses. Overthemidmorninghours, Corpus Christi Bay first rapidly rose five feet, flooding streets and topping cars;thestormsurgehadwashed away the causeway between Portland and North Beach, cutting off the only dryescaperouteoffthepeninsula, which was occupied by thousands of tourists, residents and U.S. Army per-sonnel attached to the 37th Infantry. Bymid-morning,automobilescom-mandeeredbypoliceandotherof-ficials, were being used to evacuate people off North Beach to downtown via the railroad trestle that crossed Halls Bayou (todays ship channel)until the surge topped the crossing. 48 THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINEFall 2019 TheCoastalBend.com'