The Flagship Hotel was on the exposed side of Galveston Island, on Seawall Boulevard. The Hotel was on stilts out over the beach, over the water. Most of it still is, though you'd have a hard time reaching the hotel now that the access road ramps fell down. I guess this was hurricane damage from the previous year's Hurricane Ike. Most of the hurricane damage had been cleaned up by the time I got there, most of a year later. But I guess it wasn't so easy to clean up the Flagship Hotel. But the saddest part was Seawall Boulevard itself. You're looking across Seawall Boulevard, towards the beach. You might ask: where is the sea wall? You're standing on it. The road itself is atop the seawall. The wall doesn't feel very high above the water. And then you realize that the city of Galveston is lower than the wall--walking to Seawall from the interior involves going uphill for the last half-block or so. If sea level rises, Galveston could go under.
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