In this case, the forecaster ended his advisory with a notice putting all Gulf offices on the alert and the clerk added “Good Night.” And so the offices received a message ending with these words: “All observers will remain on the alert during the night. In case the barometer begins to fall and the wind rises, Good Night.” This created a furor in coastal cities on the West Gulf and it was several weeks before the criticism subsided. By Sunday morning, however, the gusty wind had not risen much and there was no great fall in the barometer, so the weathermen had no answer at daybreak. Soon afterward, however, the weather deteriorated rapidly at Corpus Christi, and hurricane warnings went up as big Gulf waves pounded over the outlying islands into Corpus Christi Bay and the wind began screaming in the palms. Around noon the worst of it struck the city. The tide mounted higher than in any previous storm of record, except in the terrible Galveston hurricane of 1900. Much of Corpus Christi was on a high bluff above the main business section, but the latter and the shore section to the north were low. It was after church and time to sit down to Sunday dinner when the final rise of the water began to overwhelm everything. The police, sent out by the Weather Bureau, were knocking on people’s doors and telling them to get out and run for high ground. But these low sections had survived a big, fast-moving hurricane three years before, without nearly so high a tide, and most people thanked the police but determined to stay and eat. This decision was fatal in the North Beach section. The road was cut off and nearly two hundred were drowned. Down on Chaparral Street lived a man named Clyde Simpson, with his wife and seven-year-old son Robert. The boy’s uncle and grandmother were there also. They were about to sit down to a big platter of chicken, and the boy had his eye on a pile of freshly fried doughnuts. They had been out standing with other nervous people to look at the great waves roaring across the beach, but after a little the storm waters had forced them back and covered the streets. Now the water was rising fast. Several houses had come up off their foundations. A large frame residence on the opposite side of the street floated across, and, while they held their breath, missed them by a few feet, struck the house next door, and both collapsed. The elder Simpson said it was time to get out, dinner or no dinner.