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Galveston County Judge to Force Out "Hard-Headed" Texans of Bolivar (ex) Peninsula

by Christina 123 | September 16, 2008 at 03:34 pm | 233 views | 4 comments | 30 recommendations

GALVESTON'S top official, Judge Jim Yarbrough has called the 250 remaining residents on the largely wiped-out Bolivar Peninsula, "a hardy bunch" but now the plan is to force them out as part of a recovery operation. He concurred that some may have been washed out to sea.

County Judge Jim Yarbrough, the top elected official in Galveston County, said those who defied warnings that they would be killed if they rode out the storm on the Bolivar Peninsula are a "hardy bunch" and there are some "old timers who aren't going to want to leave."

The Texas attorney general's office is trying to figure out how legally to force the holdouts to leave, Yarbrough said. Local authorities are prepared to do whatever it takes to get residents to a safer place.

The peninsula is too damaged for residents to stay, and with no gas, no power and no running water, there is also concern about spread of disease, officials said.

"I don't want to do it," Yarbrough said. "I'm doing it because it's in their best interests."

Authorities may never know if people who tried to weather the storm were washed out to sea. So far, there are no confirmed fatalities, but Yarbrough and other officials said he didn't think that would hold.

"I'm not Pollyana. I think we will find some," he said.