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We’re talking about some of the Extreme Weather Events in Texas History. It’s the 2000s and the Bad Boys are about to hit the Texas Coast, In the past few episodes, I’ve talked about some of our most devasting hurricanes. The one that wiped out the entire town of Indianola in the 1800s, how in 1900 a Hurricane devastated Galveston, and last episode in the 60s and 70s, we met hurricanes, Carla, Beaulah, and several others all of whom battered the Texas coast and brought forth death and destruction throughout the region.

For a few decades it seemed like things were becoming peaceful. Even as the century changed, into the 2000s, things really were different. Not exactly silent,  but they seemed to be more subdued. The ocean was entering a quieter rhythm; part of a natural heartbeat scientists call the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.

The waters of the Gulf were a little cooler, the winds aloft a little harsher, slicing apart many storms before they could rise into monsters. Some years, El Niño set up shop in the Pacific, tilting the balance of the atmosphere and turning the Gulf into a hostile place for hurricanes to grow.

Storms still came, but many curved away, sparing Texas and spending their fury elsewhere. To long-time coastal residents, it almost felt like a truce — as though the Gulf itself was taking a breath between great battles.

But as history always warns, quiet seas are never quiet forever. Coastal cities in Texas received a warning that things might be different when in 2005 Hurricane Rita brushed the Texas-Louisiana border in 2005, and then when Humberto came along in 2007 and Ike in 2008, it was a grim reminder that Texas was always living on borrowed time.

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