NORTH BEACH, Tx — Starting on the Fourth of July, the aquarium started preparing for Hurricane Beryl and remained open until Sunday.
Fernando Arevalo
Employees started setting up Flood Control Devices around the aquarium on Thursday and finished up on Friday, July 5.
These devices are filled with seawater and act as sandbags to prevent storm surges and water from getting into the aquarium. This morning, the devices released the water back into the Gulf.
Animals such as alligators, otters, bald eagles, and dolphins all reside on the ground floor and, therefore, were moved to inside the main building of the Texas State Aquarium. The building is hurricane-proof and has emergency power systems in case of a blackout.
The President and CEO of the Texas State Aquarium, Jesse Gilbert, says Tropical Storm Alberto gave the aquarium a good road map to how to deal with hurricane season.
"The aquarium lost $200,000 in revenue due to Tropical Storm Alberto. This would’ve been very impactful. Particularly given it was the holiday weekend. I think that, being just closed Sunday, we probably really limited that revenue loss.However, there are probably not as many tourists in town post-storm. Hopefully, that’ll change here pretty quick," says Jesse Gilbert.
The aquarium will resume normal business hours for the rest of the week.
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