AUSTIN, Texas — Even though Austin is far enough from the Gulf of Mexico to avoid the direct impact of hurricanes, it’s not immune from tornadoes and flooding caused by hurricanes hundreds of miles away.
That was the case on Aug. 10, 1980, when Hurricane Allen came ashore near the Rio Grande Valley and caused millions of dollars in damages in Central Texas.
At Austin’s airport, the damage estimate was placed at over $1 million when a tornado ripped through a large hangar and damaged or destroyed numerous small aircraft. The irony was that many of the airplanes had been flown away from the Texas coast and into Austin’s airport, where they were expected to be safe from the storm.
In a North Austin neighborhood, homes and apartments were damaged and left unlivable. People who lost their homes recall that the wind was barely blowing one moment, then suddenly rose quickly without warning, shattering windows and pulling roofs from homes and apartments.
But despite the multiple tornados in Austin, there were no deaths and only a few minor injuries.
It was a different story in San Marcos, where a tornado caused by Hurricane Allen ripped apart a nursing home and injured 12 people.
Down the coast where the storm hit, there were floods, high winds and destruction in the Corpus Christi area. When the storm finally lost its steam over the desert southwest, Hurricane Allen had left a trail of death and destruction from Haiti to Texas, with over 250 people dead and $2.5 billion in damages.
The storm was so bad that the name "Allen" was permanently removed from the list of names for future hurricanes.
PEOPLE ARE ALSO READING: