The Valley Morning Star published a story on Sunday looking back at Hurricane Beulah, a massive rainmaker that struck this region 40 years ago next month, September 1967. Many readers can’t imagine what 1967 was like since they’re too young to recall, or more likely, weren’t even born. But those of us around back then, even if were just little kids like Chisme here, well remember this great storm.

Beulah unleashed biblical-like rains and epic floods in its wake. The wind power of Beulah is disputable because the wind gauge at the Port of Brownsville got blown away as the storm marched inland. From a rain standpoint, however, there is no doubt this was a category 5 storm. Beulah was such a massive rainmaker that it even rained 20 inches as far inland as Falfurrias, if that can be believed. Here in the Rio Grande Valley, it took weeks, even months in some places to get out from underneath the water.

What’s scary to think about is that the Valley was a place with barely 250,000 people in the region back then. By 2010, according to figures from the Center of Border Economic Studies, Hidalgo and Cameron counties alone will have 1.2 million residents. Think about it, 1.2 million people in our formerly little Valley.

Since 1967, aside from all of the population growth, our infrastructure is struggling mightily to keep up. Our old levees are largely worn and in great need of repairs and revitalization. As someone who lived through Beulah, albeit as a little kid, Chisme thinks three words come to mind if and when we get another Beulah: God help us.