After a major hurricane did huge damage to the City of Galveston on the Texas coast, the city government decided to (a) build a sea wall and (b) raise the grade of about half the entire city behind it. The grade raising consisted of jacking up about 2000 structures and pumping in an aqueous slurry of dredge sand to fill roughly 1/4 mile square areas, one at a time.
This photo shows the amount of fill placed in the location of the fire hydrant.
In other words, basically every man-made thing in the ground, aside from power and telephone poles, got covered with up to ten feet of sand: boundary monuments, streets, fences, everything. That must have been an interesting challenge for the City Engineer and his staff as roughly half the City had to be resurveyed after the grade raising.
The photo below shows a street before the fill was pumped in. The houses have been raised and what appears to be a stripe painted on the power pole is probably marking future grade.
What a feat! What year was this and how has the work held up?
> What a feat! What year was this and how has the work held up?
The roughly three miles of concrete seawall was built between 1902 and 1904. on the Gulf of Mexico side of the island. At the same time, the land behind the seawall was filled with hydraulically-placed sand. That occured between 1903 and 1911. It worked fairly well in that when another major hurricane hit Galveston in 1915, damage was relatively light compared to what the 1900 storm had done.
Per this account:
Galveston Seawall and Grade Raising
"Work was accomplished in quarter-mile-square sections and involved enclosing each section in a dike and then lifting all structures and utilities such as streetcar tracks, fireplugs, and water pipes. Around 2,000 buildings were raised on hand-turned jackscrews. The sand fill was dredged from the entrance to Galveston Harbor and then transported to the residential district through a 20-foot deep, 200-foot wide, and 2.5 mile long canal using four self-loading hopper dredges. After the fill was discharged in the areas to be raised, new foundations were constructed on top of it."
Not just Galveston, other major cities like Seattle and Chicago had similar projects.
Great post! Galveston is also good for fishing, not just dredging 😛
and the dredging operations didn't stop there, this is roughly the centennial of the opening of the Houston Ship Channel which eventually spelled the end for Galveston's status as Queen of the Gulf.
In the case of Seattle, it looks as if they did things in reverse. Their regrading of the city apparently involved cutting down hills and ridges as well as filling in tidal flats to make new land along the shore.
If memory serves correctly
Galveston is one of those places lacking imagination in naming their streets. I remember seeing something like: A St., B St., C St., C 1/2 St., D St., etc.
Oops! Just checked Google Earth. It appears they are like: Avenue L, Avenue M, Avenue M 1/2, Avenue N, Avenue N 1/2, Avenue O, Avenue O 1/2, etc.
> and the dredging operations didn't stop there, this is roughly the centennial of the opening of the Houston Ship Channel which eventually spelled the end for Galveston's status as Queen of the Gulf.
If memory serves correctly
I'll always remember how odd I thought it was when a couple who visited my grandfather frequently would talk about living on "P and a half" in Galveston.
pic of a slurry pump
Been reading about this since Kent first posted. Very interesting read and quite a municipal undertaking.
Thank God FEMA wasn't around then; Galveston would probably still be under construction..:pinch:
Here's a unique pic I found of one of the slurry deliveries during that time:
cool subject..thnx Kent.
Discharge End of Slurry Pipe
There are some great photos of the slurry pipelines running down the public streets between houses and other buildings jacked well above ground level, spewing fountains of sand and silt at leaking joints. Apparently some of the pumpboats came from the Netherlands (where presumably the technology had been in use for some time).
Here's one of the discharge end of the slurry pipe. Note the trees that have been dug out of the ground and prepared to be replanted at the new ground level.
Here's a link to quite a few more photos of the Galveston grade raising:
If memory serves correctly
> Oops! Just checked Google Earth. It appears they are like: Avenue L, Avenue M, Avenue M 1/2, Avenue N, Avenue N 1/2, Avenue O, Avenue O 1/2, etc.
Friend of mine from college (a recovering lawyer) owns a bar on Avenue M
Very interesting. Thanks for the info. I'm always interested in seeing the old photos.
Hmmm ... Wonder about New Orleans ?
Perhaps that's a possibility for New Orleans. Wonder where they'd get the fill? I never knew such a thing was feasible even though Galveston is tiny compared to Nawlins.
Hmmm ... Wonder about New Orleans ?
> Perhaps that's a possibility for New Orleans. Wonder where they'd get the fill?
The Galveston grade raising was pretty much entirely sand and silt dredged from the harbor. Is there a program of dredging along the Mississippi River and, if so, what is done with the dredged material?
Hmmm ... Wonder about New Orleans ?
From time to time, I have wondered about 2 questions:
First and foremost, what exactly would compel people to intentionally build a town/city Below sea level on purpose?
Second, has Holland experienced issues due to being below sea level? If not, what is the difference in the build (protection)?
On the "fill" question, where did Boston get the fill for the Back Bay area?
