MAY 17, 1986 DERECHO
"The Texas Boaters' Derecho"
Figure 1. Areas of central and southern Texas affected by the May 17, 1986 derecho event (outlined in blue). Curved purple lines represent the approximate locations of the squall line (based on surface observations) at two hourly intervals (in CDT). The orange capital letters represent the locations of water bodies where hundreds of boats were capsized or swept onto shore by strong downburst winds during the derecho event. These include Lake Sam Rayburn ("R"), Lake Livingston ("L"), Lake Steinhagen ("S"), Lake Houston ("H"), Galveston Bay ("G"), Matagorda Bay ("M"), and Corpus Christi Bay ("C").
Saturday, May 17, 1986, was a big day for pleasure boaters in portions of eastern and southern Texas. Both a fishing tournament and a racing contest were bringing hundreds of boaters to Lake Livingston (orange "L" on Fig. 1). Many sail boaters were entering portions of Galveston Bay (orange "G" on Fig. 1) for scheduled regattas. And hundreds of individual boaters were taking advantage of the warm weekend to go fishing in their boats or to enjoy other forms of pleasure boating on lakes and coastal waters in the region.
Unknown to most of the boaters, during the mid morning hours a line of thunderstorms began developing over central Texas (TX) near a southward moving cold front. Near midday this line of storms began producing damaging winds as it moved southeastward towards Waco and Temple (see Fig. 1). During the afternoon hours the squall line advanced rapidly southeastward producing a derecho event. Significant wind damage affected several communities and cities. In Temple several trees and power lines were blown down, several homes were damaged, and a truck was blown over. Three people were injured when a tent was blown down at a golf tournament in Bryan. Homes were damaged and barns were destroyed near Cedar Creek in Bastrop County. Part of a school roof was blown off in Runge. A motel roof was blown off and homes were damaged in (and near) Beaumont and planes were damaged at the airport. At the National Weather Service Office in Victoria a gust of 68 mph was measured as the storm front moved by, and at the nearby airport two hangers were damaged and a plane was blown over.
Although there was significant damage in several communities and cities associated with this derecho event, it would prove to be a much more "scary and deadly" storm for the weekend boaters in southeastern Texas. What started out as a nice warm day for pleasure boating, would quickly change as the sky darkened towards the northwest and the storm gust front rapidly overtook many boaters before they could reach the shore. Those water bodies hit by the strongest downburst winds are shown on Fig. 1 and include Lake Sam Rayburn, Lake Livingston, Lake Steinhagen, Lake Houston, Galveston Bay, Matagorda Bay, and Corpus Christi Bay. Hundreds of boats on these water bodies were capsized by the severe storm winds and many of their occupants became stranded in the water. Six boaters drowned and others were injured. Many of the those that were stranded in the water had to be rescued. The U. S. Coast Guard reported that in Galveston Bay alone they had to rescue 140 people associated with 65 boats. About 60 of these people had to be pulled out of the water. Some others stranded in Galveston Bay were rescued by individual and private company boaters. One of these people, clinging to his overturned fishing boat, was not rescued until Sunday...the day after the storm.
Figure 2. Map showing where downburst winds (long thin black arrows) affected the southern portion of Lake Livingston, Texas (orange "L" on Fig. 1). Areas where buildings were damaged and where trees were damaged or blown down are also shown. The red capital letters and the blue arrowed line (described in the text below) show where specific boaters were affected. (Modified from Storm Data for May 1986)
Lake Livingston experienced the greatest tragedy associated with this derecho event. Five people drowned in the lake waters. One person drown as he was trying to rescue his son near Point Venture (on the north portion of the lake as indicated by the red arrow and "V" on Fig. 2). Four other boaters perished near the west side of the dam (red "C" on Fig. 2). Even though they had their life jackets on, they were still not able to survive. One of them was found floating on the water near the dam. The other three were found trapped on the bottom of the lake below their 21 foot long crushed boat which had been broken into several pieces. It appears that the boaters (along with their boat) were crushed into the rocks on the dam wall by the big waves and were too severely injured to escape from the water. Scores of other people, many of which were involved in the fishing tournament and the boat races, had narrow escapes as their boats capsized or were battered or blown over as they reached the boat docks. Many had to swim to shore and several who made it to Pine Island (red "P" on Fig. 2) were stranded there until they were rescued the next day. There was also a lot of damage to trees and buildings near the lake shore (Fig. 2). Figure 3 shows a barn that was severely damaged on the eastern side of the lake.
Storm Prediction Center meteorologist Richard (Rich) Thompson experienced this event during a summer break when he was a meteorology student at the University of Oklahoma. Rich, a native of Houston, Texas, had gone on a weekend camping and boating trip with several friends from Houston. On Saturday, May 17th, they arrived at Lake Livingston, placed their 16 foot long boat in the water and began water skiing in the southeastern portion of the lake between Pine Island and the southeastern shore (red "A" on Fig. 2).
Although he and his friends were having fun, Rich realized that there was a risk of thunderstorms on that day. Since there was a radio on the boat, Rich checked local radio stations on several occasions to see if there was news about any storm development in the region. However, he heard nothing.
During the afternoon, Rich noticed that the sky was gradually graying to the west and northwest suggesting that a thunderstorm was slowly approaching the lake but was still a long way off. Even though this visual clue was nothing spectacular, Rich was a bit concerned because of the risk of being struck by lightning when the thunderstorm finally arrived at the lake. So, after discussing the potential risk with his friends, they began to move back towards the marina at a comfortable pace. The route to the marina was about 4 miles long (blue line with arrows on Fig. 2).
About 10 or 15 minutes after they began returning to the marina, Rich realized that the storm was approaching faster than he originally thought, and he became seriously concerned about making it back to the marina (red "B" on Fig. 2) before the storm reached the lake. So, they put the boat on full-throttle and began racing towards the marina. When they were still about 5 to 10 minutes away from the marina, Rich saw the dark murk to the west and northwest give way to a well defined storm gust front with a deep blue-green hue. Rich then realized that the storm was moving very rapidly towards them and that strong damaging winds would be a real threat. Would they be able to make it back the marina boat docks before the storm gust front hit them? A few minutes later the gust front appeared as a blue-green "bulldozer blade" with the appearance of several teeth below a flat shelf cloud. Below the shelf cloud was a detached and horizontally rotating "roll cloud" just a few hundred feet above the surface and it was flying towards them. They were still about a mile away from the boat docks. By this time the gust front had already hit the north end of Lake Livingston, and unknown to Rich and his friends, boats there had capsized and one person had drowned near Point Venture.
By the time they were about 200 yards from the boat ramp, Rich and his friends could see a "spray foot" moving towards them on the lake as the wind shift line and gust front moved across the water surface. Then, a few seconds later, the water spray and gust front hit them and the surface winds shifted from southeast to northwest and quickly increased to about 40 mph or greater. Fortunately, this reversal of the wind direction briefly tended to flatten the waves and Rich and his friends made it back to the docks safely. Many other boats were converging and arriving at the boat docks at the same time.
While Rich was relieved to have gotten back to the boat docks, the threat from the strong winds was not over. During the next ten minutes the winds would keep increasing in speed, finally exceeding "hurricane force" (greater than 75 mph). Once all six people were out of the boat, they tried pulling the boat out of the water. However, they were unable to pull the boat out as the waves were increasing in height and began crushing the boat into the concrete dock and severely damaging the hull. They were knocked back from the boat themselves as the 8 foot high wave crests broke over their heads. The badly damaged boat finally sank. As they were trying to save the boat, Rich looked up and saw the top 20 feet of a tall cedar tree break and fly off to the south. About this same time, not far to the southeast of Rich, four other boaters were drowning near the dam since they were not able to make it back to boat docks on time. Finally, after twenty minutes of chaos, the winds and waves died down. Rich would later find out about the deaths and injuries that occurred on Lake Livingston that day and feel quite lucky that they made it back to shore before the height of the storm.
Figure 3. Badly damaged barn on the east side of Lake Livingston (located at the black "dot" outlined in yellow on Fig. 2). (From Storm Data for May 1986)
In summary, the May 17, 1986 derecho event began near midday in central Texas and moved rapidly southeastward crossing the Gulf of Mexico coast line in the late afternoon and early evening hours. Although there was some significant wind damage in land areas, this windstorm primary affected the weekend pleasure boaters on lakes and other water bodies in southeastern Texas. Hundreds of boats were capsized or blown ashore and many were damaged or destroyed. Five people drowned on Lake Livingston and another person drowned on Lake Steinhagen. An unknown number of others were injured. Over one hundred boaters had to be rescued, particularly in Galveston Bay. And a few people were not rescued until the next day. This derecho event shows how severe downburst winds can be a serious hazard to pleasure boaters.
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(References....Houston Chronicle archived newspaper articles from May 18-20th, 1986; Storm Data for May 1986)
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