The Leaning Tower of South Padre

Graft and corruption in Washington?

High ranking politicians making hair brained decisions?

Hell, I think they might take some direction from the Laguna Desmadre area…..or maybe vice-versa. Take for example the Ocean Towers project located on the north end of the Island, just past Andy Bowie Park, there on Cameron County Land.

Ocean Towers SPI (OTSPI) was to be built as one of the first really big high rises on the sand spit that we call South Padre Island. The County Politicos….the infamous late, not-so-great, Pedro “peckerhead” Benavides, then precinct County Commish, (since his none-too-soon demise replaced by none other than his grieving widow Sophia “the talking sphincter” Benavides) along with the rest of the counties stooges: John “morning” Wood, , Edna “asshole” Tamayo, David “douchebag” Garza and of course the two most culpable criminals of them all, Gilbert “pussychaser” Hinojosa and his replacement speedy-gonzalez lackey Carlos “cuntface” Cascos along with nefarious Park Mis-management Javier “la rata” Mendez and Jolly Joe Verga (better known as the Mexican Laurel and Hardy’s) gave their unanimous blessings to the project, and of course the money exchanged hands beneath the table (accompanied by the jubilant grito) and everybody went away smiling.

The developer, a certain Mr. Clayton set about making the big building a reality. Between the county and the developer, engineering “studies” were held (with the requisite wink and nod), and an out of town firm, Coastal engineering gave the assurance that the project would work out allright.

Now I’m not sure where in the world they got this idea from. You see, South Padre Island is an delicate, shifting barrier island with a base that is a very poorly consolidated mudstone (actually a quasi mudstone) called the Prairie Terrace, something totally incapable of holding back the concentrated weight that the OTSPI was designed as. It was evident to anyone who had seen the plan that it would be like trying to anchor the thing in bread dough.
And sure enough, before the building was even complete it began to sink into the mire…..attaining a most evident lean, not unlike the leaning tower of Pisa.

Construction was halted and the area was cordoned off. The principals began the furious back pedal, but aside from a flurry of immediate publication in the local rags, the whole mess became back burner, manana news as is the case of so many failures, mistakes and political blunders here on the third world- third coast.

So what’s to become of this great eyesore? Nobody knows for sure.

Perhaps, like so many other local eyesores (and believe me there are plenty of them here, starting with the SPI City Manager Dewey Dickweed) it will simply be left to rot in place, eventually falling down across already raped and ruined sand dunes and formally pristine island expanse. It's what we want, it's what we deserve.

Who knows? Worse yet…..who cares?