In Shadow of National Events, Island Has Own Tragedy

Even while sharing in the national sorrow over the recent terror attacks, this coastal playground has found life upended by tragedy of its own: a bridge collapse that killed eight people, including a well-liked fire chief, and severed the island’s only link to the mainland.

A ghost town atmosphere has descended over the beaches and hotel resorts that mark one of the country’s favorite getaways for spring break revelers and winter-weary retirees. Grief over neighbors lost in the Sept. 15 accident and uncertainty about the island’s economic fortunes now hang in the damp Gulf of Mexico air.

“It’s just a small community,” said Patrick Culver, a U.S. Coast Guard officer stationed on South Padre. “National events have somewhat overshadowed this event, but . . . this is our tragedy.”

Officials have struggled gamely to keep the island running, arranging barges to provide food, propane and other supplies. Tour boat operators have dropped some of their dolphin-watching trips to shuttle visitors and locals from Port Isabel, on the mainland. Children are rising early for the half-hour ferry ride to school.

“The magnitude of this incident has been tremendous,” said state Trooper Adrian Rivera, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety.

What happened was this: Four barges, laden with steel and phosphates, were pushed by a tugboat into the concrete supports of the Queen Isabella Causeway about 2 a.m., snapping the bridge like a wafer and toppling a 160-foot segment. In the darkness, motorists never saw the void. At least nine cars cascaded into the murky waters of Laguna Madre, 85 feet below.

Three people were rescued by a group of young men who were fishing in a boat near the bridge. They heard a sound like thunder and saw headlights tracing a sickening arc downward. The rescuers trained their spotlight on a fourth person, a woman, who cried out and vanished.

“The current just took her under,” said Leroy Moya, a 22-year-old bank manager. “She was just gone.”

As officials were planning repairs to the causeway, Navy divers this week pulled the last three victims from beneath a mountain of submerged concrete and reinforcement steel.

The state’s attorney general has filed a negligence lawsuit against the tug operator, and authorities are investigating whether criminal charges against the pilot are warranted.

The loss of the 2 1/2-mile bridge, the longest in Texas, has been a blow to the economy here. South Padre is dependent on the millions of tourists who come each year to fish for blue marlin and red snapper, gaze at loons and falcons and relax on the sand. Visitors log 3 million hotel stays annually, but officials say the number of guests actually may be twice that amount.

Last week, Texas Gov. Rick Perry issued a disaster declaration.

Officials predict business losses of $30 million, even if the bridge is repaired by Christmas, as planners hope. One mid-size hotel already has closed, beachwear shops and restaurants have curtailed hours, and the island’s normally bustling main drag, Padre Boulevard, was practically deserted last weekend. Even for autumn, the off-season, the quiet was extreme.

“This row would be very busy right now,” said Mayor Edmund K. Cyganiewicz, driving past empty parking lots and a host of darkened storefronts along the city’s four-mile length. The island got more bad news when promoters of a lucrative annual motorcycle get-together planned for next month canceled too.

Cyganiewicz and other officials are trying desperately to get word out that South Padre remains open for business. Hoping to turn setback into selling point, boosters even point out that it’s a good time to take advantage of hotel rates that have been halved and beaches that guarantee solitude.

But the crisis has hurt the army of maids, cooks, waitresses and maintenance workers who form the backbone of an economy beholden to tourism. Falling business has prompted scores of layoffs as hotels get by with skeleton crews of managers to answer telephones and make coffee for the few guests who remain.

At Blackbeard’s, a well-known seafood restaurant and one of the island’s biggest employers, general manager Mark Westbrook was forced to let go of all but about 20 of his 180 employees. Business has been unpredictable since the bridge catastrophe but markedly slower. Fewer than half the tables were full Saturday night.

Louise Gockley said she and two other employees at the South Padre Motel were laid off because only two of 16 rooms were occupied. She found work at a small store in Port Isabel, where she lives. Others have not been as lucky or have picked up and moved out of the area.

Local leaders say the eventual economic toll will hinge on their ability to fashion a decent ferry operation from nothing. State officials hired two 18-car ferries to transport more than 2,000 visitor vehicles left stranded on the island by the collapse. But it has been a slow process, in part because one of the ferries broke down. Guests who came back to fetch their cars sat in line up to eight hours to reach the remaining ferry at a makeshift dock.

Officials expect to have two larger vehicle ferries soon, and they are looking for a craft that can accommodate up to 300 passengers. “The key to our survival right now is larger ferries,” Cyganiewicz said.

In a region inured to severe storms--the island was evacuated twice in recent years but was left unharmed--few thought much about the security of the 27-year-old causeway. “When we thought of potential disaster, we thought of hurricanes,” said Dan Quandt, executive director of South Padre’s convention bureau.

The collapse has given new momentum to controversial proposals for a second bridge to the mainland.

But some island promoters view the free ferry rides as still another tourist draw: “We’re a true island now,” said Mary Pollard, who coordinates events for the convention bureau.

Yet sadness remains. South Padre and Port Isabel are intimate, with a combined year-round population of 7,000. Bob Harris, Port Isabel’s fire chief, was one of those who died. For relatives of all eight victims, the bridge--intact but for the missing segment near its apex--looms as a reminder.

Hector Martinez gazed at the gap as he rode the ferry to Port Isabel. His 32-year-old son, Hector Martinez Jr., had been returning to the mainland to meet friends at a hamburger stand after finishing his restaurant shift on the island. He never arrived.

“I never got to tell him how much I loved him,” the elder Martinez said. “If he would have had another five seconds, he might have made it across.”