Residents, some of whom lack heating or basic amenities in their own homes due to the exceptionally cold climate, rescue sea turtles stunned by the cold and take them to a convention center at a resort in South Texas.
“Every 15 minutes or less, another truck or SUV stops,” Ed Caum, executive director of the South Padre Island Convention and Visitors Bureau, told the Associated Press on Wednesday.
He said that sometimes people bring one or two sea turtles, sometimes more. “Yesterday we had full trailers arriving with 80, 100, 50,” he said.
The South Padre Island convention center started waving on Monday, when its neighbor, Sea Turtle Inc, was no longer able to cope with the number of sea turtles that fell and its mostly outdoor operation had lost power. He said the convention center itself had no power or water until Wednesday morning.
He says he has “collected” more than 3,500 sea turtles so far. He said he hesitates to use the word rescued because “we know we are going to lose some”.
Caum said that as another cold front approaches, they do not know when they will be able to return sea turtles to the water.
Temperatures in the area on Wednesday afternoon were in the 40s (about 4ºC). He said it could be Saturday – when temperatures are expected to reach 60ºC (above 15ºC) – before the turtles can be released back into the Gulf.
He said that with the energy returned, they were able to bring the convention center temperature to 60F (15C).
“We are trying to do the best we can to save as many turtles as possible,” he said.