Like the other cities in Orange County, 2018 started for Bridge City as a rebound from the disaster Tropical Storm Harvey. The disaster may not have been as bad as Hurricane Ike for Bridge City, but the city was hit hard and it bounced back just like it did the decade before.
Orangefield, especially the school district, was hit harder by Harvey and continues to rebound and rebuild. All in all in 2018, the top story in the BC/OF area was all about water…drinking it, draining it, and pumping it.
The year in BC started on a bad note with a string of car burglaries in the neighborhoods near West Roundbunch Road. Bridge City Police Chief Paul Davis reported his department arrested five juveniles in January suspected of being connected to the car burglaries. Chief Davis added that detectives believed a gang of about 10 juveniles ranging from age 14 to 16 were involved in the burglaries.
Drainage was an issue post Harvey in Bridge City like it was in most of Orange County. Carl Harbert and Eric Andrus both serve on the City Council in Bridge City. They met and agreed it was time for creation of a Beautification Committee in the city that would also address drainage.
Harbert said he has seen the problem first hand in Bridge City. He believes 90 percent of the flooding from the last storm was caused by poor drainage. Harbert said trash and just general debris were blocking ditches causing them to back up. Harbert expressed, “It’s going to take the school, it’s going to take all kind of organizations, but it’s our town, it’s time to clean it up and make it look presentable again.”
The City Council agreed with the goal of both Harbert and Andrus. Although it did not officially create the Beautification Committee, the council gave its support to Harbert and Andrus in organizing the effort.
The Orangefield Independent School District was hit as hard as any in Orange County by Harvey. Flooding from the storm damaged the Orangefield High School and severely damaged the district’s elementary school.
The school district’s superintendent Dr. Stephen Patterson said Orangefield received $2.5 million in insurance claims which maxed out the district’s flood insurance policy. Patterson indicated the school district handled the disaster as well as could be expected.
In Patterson’s opinion the school district bounced back phenomenally from Harvey. Orangefield is experiencing a record high enrollment of students, the district’s families are still here, and are supporting the schools.
The recovery effort though was painfully slow according to Patterson. “Once you’ve used all of your insurance funds, you’re now into a FEMA situation, and when you start working with FEMA and the federal government that procurement process just slows everything down.”
The Orangefield School Board approved the final payment in February to Belfor for remediation work the company did on the school buildings in the district. Patterson shared that five months after Harvey all three schools in Orangefield were at least partially back in use by February. The district used 16 portable buildings to house classes for the elementary school while repairs were done to the Orangefield Elementary School building.
The City of Bridge City got some good news in February also with the reopening of the public library which was damaged by Harvey. The library is still undergoing repairs and construction of a new meeting room. The Bridge City Public Library is located at 101 Parkside Place Drive just off of West Roundbunch Road.
More good news was the expansion of the Wal-Mart store in Bridge City. The store’s manager Robert Sullivan said there were improvements to the checkout area, to the apparel inventory, and additions to the technology department. The flooring of the store was improved, and the Wal-Mart got a new paint job over the whole building located on Texas Avenue.
Bridge City saw a successful conclusion to a project that took years to complete. Efforts to install filters in the city’s three water wells were concluded by the summer. City Manager Jerry Jones had expressed his frustration with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for its delays in giving approval to install the filters in the wells.
Approval was finally received from the TCEQ in June allowing the filter to be placed in the final well in August. The well known as the Romero Well had repairs done to it when the filters were being installed in the other two wells. Mike Lund the superintendent of the Bridge City Water Department indicated tests of the wells for MCL levels showed much lower levels of the contaminate.
The Bridge City Independent School District saw some changes during the year. Superintendent Todd Lintzen said the budget was tight, but also balanced for the school district. The district is growing with more students. He characterized the district’s budget as fairly aggressive regarding the students and the instructional material. The budget for the new school year included a six percent pay raise for all the district employees. “That was one of our goals to remain competitive with teachers and teacher pay,” Lintzen stated.
The district’s maintenance director John Scales gave an update on the new baseball and softball fields being built. Scales informed that Sports Field Solutions indicated the work should be done in time for the softball and baseball seasons in the spring of 2019.
New scoreboards were ordered for the two fields and they will be almost mirror images of each other. The scoreboard for the softball field will be in right field and the scoreboard at the baseball field will be in left field. The only differences between the scoreboards is the baseball field which is being named to honor former coach Chuck Young will have his name on the scoreboard and there will be pitch counts for home and visitors on it.
The athletic department at the Bridge City High School experienced a significant change during the year. A Cardinal alumnus Dwayne DuBois announced his resignation as athletic director and head football coach at Bridge City. He returned to the Hardin-Jefferson School District where he came from to take the job with the Cardinals. One of DuBois’s long-time assistants Allen DeShazo was named to replace him.
A changing of the guard occurred in Bridge City on a couple of items. The former Bridge City Police Station on Texas Avenue was sold providing additional funds for the city’s general fund. The lone bid for the building was from Ricky Etheridge for $200,100. The new Bridge City Police Station opened in 2017 off of Texas Avenue at Rachal Avenue.
The other change was the retiring of Bridge City’s long-time City Secretary Sherry Tisdale in October. Jeanie McDowell was selected by a committee to replace Tisdale whose last day was October 31.
McDowell served as the director of personnel and purchasing prior to her appointment as city secretary. McDowell has served Bridge City for close to 27 years. During her service to the city she has filled in as the city secretary on an interim base. “I’m not a complete stranger to this job,” McDowell informed.
The year closed with a high note from the tenth annual Christmas Light Parade being held a week late. Inclement weather forced the parade to be postponed for a week. The event was the largest and the best parade done in its ten year history.
-Dan Perrine, KOGT-
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