When my wife and I rented a beach house in Galveston’s affluent West End on a recent weekend, we weren’t sure what to expect. News emanating from the island bore a whiff of chaos. We’d been disconcerted to learn, for example, that nineteen-year-old Damiana Humphrey, visiting from Oklahoma, had fended off a shark in nearby waters with a punch to the face the previous week, but we decided to proceed—with caution.

To reach our destination we had to fight apocalyptic traffic. Leaving on a Friday afternoon from Houston, we drove sixty miles in three hours—around triple the normal time. We finally crossed the causeway only to find the streets gridlocked with cars and the coast congested with beer-sozzled sun worshippers. Even the typically more sedate West End was overrun by speeding golf carts and rowdy parties. 

It wasn’t always this way. Author Kimber Fountain moved to Galveston in 2011, three years after Hurricane Ike devastated the island with 110-mile-per-hour winds and a twenty-foot storm surge. The city of around 50,000 residents was still rebuilding, and tourism was at an ebb tide. Fountain fell in love with the historic architecture, slow pace of life, and bohemian culture. “I had never spent so much time sitting at a red light with no other cars going across the intersection,” she recalled. “It was a quiet little town.”

These days, Galveston is a bit louder. Almost 9 million tourists—including around 1.5 million cruise ship passengers—descended on the city last year. That was a nearly 10 percent increase from 2022 and the highest number since before Ike. Based on the half-million visitors who thronged the city over Memorial Day weekend, 2024 promises to be even busier. (The out-of-towners are clearly undeterred by former NBA star Charles Barkley calling out the city’s “dirty water” during an NBA-on-TNT broadcast.) That growth has given the local economy a boost—tourists spent an estimated $1.3 billion last year—but it comes at a cost. During a recent trip, residents told me that traffic, littering, and public intoxication are the worst in recent memory. 

There’s more at stake than frustration over crowding. Four swimmers have drowned so far this year—two during Memorial Day weekend. Galveston mayor Craig Brown told me that the city normally sees between three and five drownings annually. “Some of them are young people who get caught in riptides, and they panic,” Brown said. “Some are due to alcohol abuse.” The Galveston beach patrol hires around 150 lifeguards each summer to monitor the busiest spots, but they can’t cover the entire 32-mile coastline. “We do our best,” the mayor said, “but sometimes it’s just not enough.” 

Fountain holds herself at least partially responsible for the island’s increased popularity. She has spent much of the past decade promoting her adopted hometown to the outside world by hosting city tours, editing and writing for Galveston Monthly magazine, and publishing three books of local history. “The whole aim of my work is to laud these wonderful, creative small businesses—all our fantastic restaurants, our art community,” she told me. “Now we’re sitting at this precipice where it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, what have I done?’ ”

I returned to the island on a recent Tuesday to speak with its denizens about the tourist boom. Most seemed to think the economic benefits outweighed the occasional inconveniences. I started in Galveston’s historic downtown, where I met Mark Iacampo at his buccaneer-themed gift shop, A Pirate’s Life. Founded in 2021 on the first floor of a 130-year-old commercial building on the Strand, the store carries nautical accessories ranging from daggers to tricorn hats. “Every summer for the past three years,” Iacambo said, “has been bigger than the last.” 

A few blocks away, I met Jim Griffin manning the counter at the Galveston Bookshop, which features a well-curated selection of books, vinyl records, and fantasy memorabilia. “There are so many people here on weekends that we’re lucky the island doesn’t sink into the sea,” he said with a chuckle. “I meet a lot of interesting people, and I just try to make them feel welcome.” 

During a moment’s break from serving customers at the venerable Poop Deck, an open-air saloon on Seawall Boulevard, bartender Carmica Johnson told me she’s noticed the beaches filling up especially early this summer. “On Saturdays, as soon as day breaks, they are packed,” she said. The boulevard, as the name indicates, runs alongside the seawall skirting the coastline. Around once a month, she sees someone accidentally drive off the wall and onto the sand—a seventeen-foot fall at some points. In the early morning of May 31, two cars went off at the same spot. Fortunately, there were no major injuries. 

In his office at city hall, Brown touted a “mobility plan” that includes building parking garages along Seawall Boulevard and expanding bus service. “We’re trying to get to a situation where you can park your car at the beginning of the day and not have to get back into it until you leave.” The city is also working on ways to reduce the traffic impact of its booming cruise ship industry. The Port of Galveston now features three terminals that launched around 360 cruises last year. 

The city’s hotels and restaurants are trying to keep pace with the tourist boom. A new $250 million Margaritaville resort is scheduled to open on the island’s East End sometime between 2026 and 2028. On a smaller scale, Galveston native Keath Jacoby and her husband, Dave, opened the 61-room Hotel Lucine on Seawall Boulevard last year. Dave told me the rooms have been packed nearly every weekend this summer. “We’ve seen a lot of bachelor parties, bachelorette parties, birthday parties, that kind of thing.” He said locals have learned to navigate the weekend crowds. “From Memorial Day to Labor Day, I only take Seawall Boulevard if I want to look at the ocean or I’m not in a rush,” he said. “It’s just part of the cadence of the island.” 

Some residents are perfectly happy with those rhythms. Taking a break from trying on brocaded waistcoats at A Pirate’s Life, customer Kate Thomas, who grew up in Texas and now lives in California, said she’s been coming to the island since she was a student and downplayed what I saw as pandemonium. “This is nothing compared to how busy it was twenty or thirty years ago.”

Back at the Poop Deck, Randy Cruz, a white-haired former manager of an air-conditioning and heating company, clad in a sleeveless T-shirt and cargo shorts, said he lives a short walk away and comes here between four and seven days a week. “I’m single and retired,” he said with a grin. “This place is laid-back, and there’s very rarely trouble.” 

For her part, Fountain spends most weekends hunkered down at home to avoid the invading hordes. She talked about preparing for the regular influx of vacationers the way one might prepare for a hurricane. “Especially if it’s a holiday weekend, I go to the grocery store and get everything I’m going to need for the next two or three days. That’s why all of us have such wonderful gardens. We have to turn our homes into little sanctuaries, because sometimes we can’t leave them.” 

Galveston has long required adaptability and resilience from its residents. After all, its past is full of natural catastrophes. Before Ike, there was Hurricane Alicia, in 1983, and Hurricane Carla, in 1961. The Great Storm of 1900 killed as many as 12,000 people and remains the deadliest natural disaster in American history. Last week, Tropical Storm Alberto brought flooding to the West End not far from the house my wife and I rented. With meteorologists forecasting a busier than usual hurricane season and studies indicating the island is slowly sinking while facing fast-rising sea levels, Galveston may be living on borrowed time.

For now, Texans seem determined to enjoy the island’s peculiar blend of history and hedonism. Like many other tourists, my wife and I love Galveston in spite of its brown water, its less-than-pristine beaches, and even its newly elevated mayhem. But the next time we visit will probably be on a weekday.