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Waves brought even a pickup to the island's beach
SOUTH PADRE ISLAND — Connie Ruff and Benneta Barrows hadn't planned for their walk on the beach to be a cleanup day, but once they saw a perfectly nice hamper they decided they could use it.
"We're just picking up what we can and adding to the piles," Ruff said.
Hundreds of miles south of Hurricane Ike's striking point, remnants of the deadly storm are littering the shores of the world's longest barrier island to the degree that the beaches resemble a dump.
Plastic bags full of collected junk line the high tide mark, and the waves each day bring more.
Here, a spa tub. There, a piece of cupboard. A few yards down a green plastic deck chair. Not much further, a white tabletop.
A toddler's activity station somehow made the long trip down the Gulf Coast with its bobbing yellow bear and purple dog intact, but a rubber boot somewhere lost its partner, as did the bowling shoe beside it.
"We think these are sandbags," Barrows said, sifting through their catch. "You find a lot of garbage cans. The great big ones."
Fast debris cleanupNo one knows how much trash has washed up, but officials say they've never seen anything like it.
One four-mile stretch had produced enough to fill 2,970 industrial-size trash bags. Further south at Cameron County's South Padre Island beaches, Ike's residue quickly filled seven 30-cubic yard garbage bins.
"You name it, I'm pretty sure it's washed up," said Joe Hernandez of the Cameron County Parks police. "Pieces of furniture, pieces of boats, a little bit of everything. Even a vehicle, a pickup truck. Go figure."
Out behind the hotels and condominiums of the town of South Padre, the debris is being cleaned up as quickly as it's spotted. But past the town's five-mile skyline, the cleanup effort wanes.
South Padre stretches 34 miles to the Port Mansfield jetty, after which the island becomes the 65-mile Padre Island National Seashore.
The junk isn't picky.
"If it looks like it's a hazardous material we remove it, but we have a lot of beach to cover," said park spokeswoman Dimitra Guerrero. "In some cases, we just kind of let nature take its course. Or visitors take advantage of it."
On South Padre, the best may already have been picked up.
Los Fresnos wine shop owner Sheila Yore said friends had taken vacation days to search for wicker. A lumber shop owner built an entire deck from washed-up wood.
"My friends found two refrigerators. They don't work, but they were taking them apart for the copper," said Manny Espinosa, 28, of Port Isabel. "They left behind a Coke machine. Later on they regretted it because they could have gotten all the quarters."
But debris can be dangerous, both to beachgoers and wildlife. The most obvious risk could be the countless small pieces of plastic that could be mistaken for food.
"The plastic is a real killer of both turtles and birds," said Dr. Joshua Rose, natural resource specialist for the Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park.
Happily, Sea Turtle Inc., which rescues and rehabilitates sea turtles, has been quiet.
"We have not had any turtles come in so far from any internal injuries from eating plastic as we'd expected," Sea Turtle Inc.'s Tom Wilson said. "Thank goodness. But I would imagine with the amount of trash that's coming in it's affecting wildlife."
Cleaning up before turtlesThe park wants to clean up as much of the debris as possible before the Kemp's Ridley turtles' return because a debris-clogged beach would make it hard for them to dig their nests.
Los Fresnos resident Peter Hackett came out with his pickup truck to see what was there.
He ended up fishing rope from a pile to strap down a settling tank that he said was full of gas and could explode.
"I wanted to see if there was wood or something, but this thing's got to get off the beach," he said.
Asked if he felt saddened to see evidence everywhere of people's lives washed up by the storm, he shrugged.
"That's part of living on the coast."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
"We're just picking up what we can and adding to the piles," Ruff said.
Hundreds of miles south of Hurricane Ike's striking point, remnants of the deadly storm are littering the shores of the world's longest barrier island to the degree that the beaches resemble a dump.
Plastic bags full of collected junk line the high tide mark, and the waves each day bring more.
Here, a spa tub. There, a piece of cupboard. A few yards down a green plastic deck chair. Not much further, a white tabletop.
A toddler's activity station somehow made the long trip down the Gulf Coast with its bobbing yellow bear and purple dog intact, but a rubber boot somewhere lost its partner, as did the bowling shoe beside it.
"We think these are sandbags," Barrows said, sifting through their catch. "You find a lot of garbage cans. The great big ones."
Fast debris cleanupNo one knows how much trash has washed up, but officials say they've never seen anything like it.
One four-mile stretch had produced enough to fill 2,970 industrial-size trash bags. Further south at Cameron County's South Padre Island beaches, Ike's residue quickly filled seven 30-cubic yard garbage bins.
"You name it, I'm pretty sure it's washed up," said Joe Hernandez of the Cameron County Parks police. "Pieces of furniture, pieces of boats, a little bit of everything. Even a vehicle, a pickup truck. Go figure."
Out behind the hotels and condominiums of the town of South Padre, the debris is being cleaned up as quickly as it's spotted. But past the town's five-mile skyline, the cleanup effort wanes.
South Padre stretches 34 miles to the Port Mansfield jetty, after which the island becomes the 65-mile Padre Island National Seashore.
The junk isn't picky.
"If it looks like it's a hazardous material we remove it, but we have a lot of beach to cover," said park spokeswoman Dimitra Guerrero. "In some cases, we just kind of let nature take its course. Or visitors take advantage of it."
On South Padre, the best may already have been picked up.
Los Fresnos wine shop owner Sheila Yore said friends had taken vacation days to search for wicker. A lumber shop owner built an entire deck from washed-up wood.
"My friends found two refrigerators. They don't work, but they were taking them apart for the copper," said Manny Espinosa, 28, of Port Isabel. "They left behind a Coke machine. Later on they regretted it because they could have gotten all the quarters."
But debris can be dangerous, both to beachgoers and wildlife. The most obvious risk could be the countless small pieces of plastic that could be mistaken for food.
"The plastic is a real killer of both turtles and birds," said Dr. Joshua Rose, natural resource specialist for the Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park.
Happily, Sea Turtle Inc., which rescues and rehabilitates sea turtles, has been quiet.
"We have not had any turtles come in so far from any internal injuries from eating plastic as we'd expected," Sea Turtle Inc.'s Tom Wilson said. "Thank goodness. But I would imagine with the amount of trash that's coming in it's affecting wildlife."
Cleaning up before turtlesThe park wants to clean up as much of the debris as possible before the Kemp's Ridley turtles' return because a debris-clogged beach would make it hard for them to dig their nests.
Los Fresnos resident Peter Hackett came out with his pickup truck to see what was there.
He ended up fishing rope from a pile to strap down a settling tank that he said was full of gas and could explode.
"I wanted to see if there was wood or something, but this thing's got to get off the beach," he said.
Asked if he felt saddened to see evidence everywhere of people's lives washed up by the storm, he shrugged.
"That's part of living on the coast."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source:chron.com
