Apologies for a somewhat fatalistic post.
Tarballs from the Deepwater Horizon spill are now washing up in Galveston, with oil on other East Texas beaches. Granted, tar isn’t exactly unusual on the beaches here, but it still feels ominous.. They’re combing it up off the beaches as it shows up (like they comb up any other crap that washes onshore).
Police were called in to deal with an unidentifiable animal – turned out to be a dog that went swimming and got tangled up in seaweed that had tarballs in it. (I can see the headline now: “Police called in to investigate Galveston Beach Swamp Thing”). The dog is OK, thankfully. How long before it’s the turtles that nest on Galveston’s beaches?
My brother and his fiancee visited us this weekend, and we decided not to go down to the seawall – probably not the best decision, but since we’d have packed a lunch, we wouldn’t have been doing much for the tourism there anyway. Much like the areas of Louisiana that are still struggling to recover from their hurricanes, Galveston still wears heavy scarring from Ike. September 11th of this year (that’s become something of an ominous date, yeah?) will mark 2 years since we were evacuated for Ike. I wonder what will have washed up in Galveston by then?
And there’s very little I can do.
I’ve made my donations to the relief effort, written letters. Now, I suppose, all that’s left is to wait and be thankful I’m not living on the coast farther east of here, where the oil and sludge is washing onshore in a toxic slurry.