HOUSTON—Tricia McCulloch asked for our help last month to end a lingering nightmare from Hurricane Ike.
She is an employee of the Galveston Police Department who normally works on payroll and other financial matters. But during the hurricane, she was one of dozens who helped answer distress calls at the temporary Galveston Emergency Operations Center at the San Luis Hotel.
At 2 a.m., as the hurricane made landfall, she received a cell phone call from a woman on the Bolivar Peninsula. The woman and her family were in their home on Crystal Beach and the water was rising close to the bottom of their house on pilings more than a dozen feet off the ground.
Tricia tried to dispense advice but the line went dead before she could get the woman’s full name or her address. Rescue attempts on Bolivar were now impossible. The tidal surge was about to reach 20-feet.
“Tears just flowed,” McCulloch told us in that October interview. “Because you couldn’t do nothing to help them.
“For me to not know if she lived or not, it’s a nightmare. I don’t know where she’s at. I need to know. I need to know something.”
Well, as fate would have it, we did know something. More importantly, we knew someone.
After we first aired Tricia’s plea for help, she received another phone call, this time from a man who said he knew who the caller was: his mom. He also said this reporter should know her too because we’d already met - twice.
Shortly after Hurricane Ike, we met Connie Travis.
She and her family had ridden out the storm in their house at Crystal Beach. They shared their home video of the storm and shared their post-hurricane advice that no one should ever make the same mistake.
They survived in a neighborhood where entire homes were washed away and where two of its residents are still listed among the missing.
But, during that first interview Connie also mentioned a 911 call she made the night of the storm. So we thought it was worth asking: was she the source of Tricia’s year-long nightmare?
She sighed and said “Yeah. It’s me!”
Mystery solved, but the story wasn’t really over. Because in our October interview with Tricia she said she only wanted one thing.
“I don’t think I’d need to say anything. I could just hug her and know she’s OK.”
So we returned to Crystal Beach this time with Tricia along for the ride and that hug is exactly what she got.
“I’m so glad you’re still in the world,” she said meeting, and hugging, Connie Travis for the first time.
“And it’s nice to meet you,” answered Connie.
The reunion happened at the same house where Connie made that 911 call. The home survived that 20-foot storm surge. And a year later the women believe the intensity of that raging storm made it difficult to understand each other that night in a brief but sometimes frightening conversation.
Connie had been trying to reach anyone to let the world know there were still survivors on Bolivar. She says she was also trying to get a message to her kids, before the cell towers went dead, that she was still alive.
“I wanted their families to know that not everybody was dead. That was the reason I made the call,” said Travis. “And I’m sorry I scared you. I’m so sorry I scared you,” she said holding McCulloch’s hand.
“I’m just tickled pink to meet you,” answered McCulloch.
Although Crystal Beach and the entire Bolivar Peninsula have made great strides in recovering from the hurricane, the area is still heavily damaged and deeply scarred. It will take years to rebuild.
Now, at least, one of the lingering scars got mended. And all it took was a phone call, and a hug.
“I’m sorry I gave you any angst at all,” Connie Travis said as she and Tricia McCulloch hugged one last time. “I feel so horrible. I feel so bad about that.”
“I’m good now,” answered McCulloch. “I’m just really happy to see you.”
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