{"id":741,"date":"2010-12-10T14:14:12","date_gmt":"2010-12-10T19:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thechristys.net\/?p=741"},"modified":"2012-02-17T15:31:01","modified_gmt":"2012-02-17T21:31:01","slug":"the-texas-city-dike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thechristys.net\/?p=741","title":{"rendered":"The Texas City Dike"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"image\"<\/a> The Texas City Dike is a pretty amazing piece of real estate.\u00a0 A number of years ago, I was looking around Google maps and I saw this giant toothpick sticking out of the mainland into Galveston bay.\u00a0 It was long and skinny and man-made strait.\u00a0 What the heck was it?\u00a0 After zooming in I found that it was called the Texas City \"Texas_City_dike_after_Ike\"<\/a>Dike.\u00a0 I had not taken up fishing yet and have never heard of it.\u00a0\u00a0 It was sticking out of a small refinery town SE of Houston called appropriately enough – Texas City.\u00a0 After some quick internet reconnaissance I found it it was built in 1935, it was 5 miles long and made of granite rocks.\u00a0 A road was added and boat ramps, bait shops and a large fishing pier.<\/p>\n

I had to see it.\u00a0 A week or so later I packed up Linda and Katie in the convertible and we were off to see the dike.\u00a0 It was very cool.\u00a0 There were docks and beaches, parking areas and fisherman all up and down the strip on both sides.\u00a0 When we got to the end it was as if we an almost driven across the bay to Galveston.\u00a0 We were closer to Galveston and Boliver than we were to Texas City.\u00a0 The ship channel goes right past the dike.\u00a0 Giant freighters, tankers and cruse ships constantly travel the channel.\u00a0 It’s quite the sight to see.\"txcitydike\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When Ike hit in Oct 2008 the dike was in the wrong place at the wrong time.\u00a0 The hurricane winds and 11 foot <\/span><\/strong>storm serge wiped out everything on the dike including the road.\u00a0 Fisherman were distraught, not only had they lost 10 miles of prime bay shore fishing but the debris from the dike was scattered everywhere in the water, it wasn’t save to drive a boat anywhere near the dike.<\/p>\n

\"dike\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Fast forward 2 years and the Texas City Dike is reopened.\u00a0 There aren’t any bait shops of fishing piers (they decided not to rebuild or run power to the dike) but the road is new, beaches were replenished and there are 3 boat ramps open, and of course 10 miles of prime bay shore bank fishing.\u00a0 On the weekends they charge $5 a car to get onto the dike.\u00a0 The use the money to pay for the rebuild and keep the place cleaned up.\u00a0 I think it’s a good deal.\u00a0 I recommend you visit the dike.\u00a0 There are picnic tables and places to walk along the water, watch the giant ocean going ships go by or the little fishing boats come and go.\u00a0 The dike is one of those local treasures that makes Houston a great place to live.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\"txdike\"<\/p>\n

Arial photo by Robert Laird, http:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Texas City Dike is a pretty amazing piece of real estate. A number of years ago, I was looking around Google maps and I saw this giant toothpick sticking out of the mainland into Galveston bay. It was long and skinny and man-made strait. What the heck was it? After zooming in I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thechristys.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thechristys.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thechristys.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thechristys.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thechristys.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=741"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/thechristys.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":840,"href":"http:\/\/thechristys.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions\/840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thechristys.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thechristys.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thechristys.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}