Hurricane Season and Your Golf Cart: What Ike and Beryl Actually Taught Galveston Island

September 23, 2026

Galveston Island has two storms in recent memory that bracket the range of what hurricane season can do to a golf cart: a historic, seawall-topping Category 2 in 2008, and a much smaller, weaker-than-expected Category 1 sixteen years later that still caught the city off guard. Both left a pattern of cart damage that fifteen minutes of preparation would have prevented. The short version: charge the cart fully and unplug it from the wall before the power goes out, move it to the highest ground your property allows if you are anywhere near open water, and after the storm do not charge or drive a cart that took any water until it has been inspected. The long version explains why, using what actually happened here.

What the last two storms did

Hurricane Ike, September 13, 2008. Ike made landfall on the northeast end of Galveston Island in the early hours of the morning as a Category 2 storm with 110 mph sustained winds. The rising surge overtopped the island’s own 17-foot seawall around 4 p.m. the day before landfall, and six feet of water reached the Galveston County Courthouse downtown. Ground assessment after the storm put surge on the Bolivar Peninsula and in parts of neighboring Chambers County generally between 15 and 20 feet, with the highest measured water mark, 17.5 feet, found roughly ten miles inland in Chambers County. On Galveston Island itself and the west side of Galveston Bay, surge was estimated at 10 to 15 feet, with the highest bay-side inundation at least 10 feet. Any cart on the island or the peninsula at ground level during that event went underwater, in some cases well over the roof.

Hurricane Beryl, July 8, 2024. A much smaller storm by comparison, Beryl made landfall as a Category 1 near Matagorda, well south of Galveston, and city officials later said the wind damage to Galveston caught them by surprise. The storm produced an EF-1 tornado, which began as a waterspout, crossing Galveston Island near Jamaica Beach in the early morning hours, and storm surge along the upper coast generally ran 4 to 6 feet, with some areas seeing up to 8 feet. It was a fraction of Ike’s scale and still put real water and wind damage on the island.

The lesson from putting these two storms next to each other: you cannot judge how much prep a season needs by the storm’s category alone. A Category 1 forecast to make landfall well down the coast still put a tornado across Galveston Island and caused wind damage the city did not expect. Prep the cart every season, not just for the big ones.

Before the storm

Charge it to full and unplug it. A fully charged pack self-discharges from a much better starting point during a multi-day power outage, and unplugging the charger before the power goes out, or before it comes back on, protects it from a surge when service is restored.

Move it to high ground if you are near open water. On the West End near Jamaica Beach, on Tiki Island, or anywhere on the Bolivar Peninsula, that means getting the cart as far from ground-level exposure as your property allows, a garage’s second level, a raised carport, or off the island entirely if you are evacuating anyway. Ike’s surge reached well past what most ground-level structures on this island could withstand.

Cover exposed connections if the cart has to stay outside. A cart that cannot be moved off ground level at least benefits from a cover that keeps direct rain and wind-driven spray off the battery compartment and charge port, though a cover is not a substitute for moving the cart if surge is a real possibility.

Note your cart’s current condition. A quick photo of the battery compartment and terminals before the storm gives you and your technician a baseline to compare against afterward, which matters more than it sounds like it should when you are trying to figure out what the storm actually did versus what was already there.

During the outage

If the power goes out for an extended period, resist the urge to keep checking or attempting to charge the cart. A pack that is simply sitting, disconnected, holds up better than one subjected to repeated partial-charge attempts on an unstable grid.

After the storm

Do not charge or drive a cart that took any water until it is inspected. This is the single most important rule, and it applies whether the water was ankle-deep rainwater or full storm surge. Saltwater in a battery compartment attacks the terminals and internal plates; it gets into the solenoid and controller, where it can cause corrosion-driven failures that show up weeks later, not immediately; and it can create a genuine safety hazard if power is applied before the cart is properly checked.

Assess visually first, but do not stop there. A cart that looks dry can still have salt residue and moisture trapped inside sealed housings that were never designed to be watertight against a surge event.

Get it inspected before assuming the worst, or the best. Some flood-exposed carts are fully salvageable after a proper cleaning, drying, and load test. Others, especially those that took saltwater fully into the battery compartment and controller for an extended period, are not economical to repair. The flooded and storm-surge page walks through exactly what gets checked and in what order.

A property-by-property view

Preparation looks a little different depending on where your cart actually lives, since exposure varies a lot across this service area.

West End and Jamaica Beach. Sitting directly on the Gulf side of the island, these properties face the most direct surge exposure in the event of a landfalling storm. If evacuation is not an option, get the cart as high as your property allows, and treat the FM 3005 crossing rules that normally govern Jamaica Beach as secondary to simply getting the cart to safety.

Tiki Island and bay-front canal properties. Surrounded by water on most sides, these carts face surge risk from the bay side even when the immediate threat looks like it is coming from the Gulf. A dock-front garage is not automatically safer than an open carport if bay water is what actually rises.

East End and denser island neighborhoods. Farther from open water but still low-lying, these properties saw real flooding during Ike even well inland from the immediate coastline, six feet of water reached the Galveston County Courthouse downtown. Do not assume distance from the beach means safety from surge on this island.

Bolivar Peninsula. This is the highest-exposure location in the entire service area based on Ike’s documented surge figures, and any preparation here should assume the worst-case scenario is genuinely possible, not a remote hypothetical.

Mainland communities (Texas City, La Marque, Hitchcock, Kemah). Generally lower surge risk than the island or the peninsula, but not zero, particularly for properties directly on Galveston Bay. Wind damage and extended power outages are the more likely risk for these areas, which still argues for the charge-and-unplug routine even where surge is unlikely.

The pattern worth remembering

Neither Ike nor Beryl gave Galveston much advance warning of their actual severity relative to their category. Ike was a historic storm that everyone knew was coming and still overtopped a seawall built to hold back exactly that kind of surge. Beryl was a Category 1 forecast for a landfall well south of the island and still caught the city off guard with wind damage. The practical takeaway for a cart owner here is simple: treat every storm in the forecast cone as worth the fifteen minutes of prep, because the storms that actually hit this island have not been reliably predictable by category alone.

If your cart went through this season’s weather and something does not feel right, whether that is a smell, a light that will not come on, or a charger acting strange, get it checked before you assume it is fine. Corrosion from saltwater exposure does not always announce itself immediately.