lol, before the media makes this look like the sky is falling someone from Texas might point out a few things....I grew up about 20 miles north of Pelican Island on Galveston Bay...
Pelican Island is not on the Gulf of Mexico it's on the Galveston Bay side south of Galveston Island(in Galveston bay)... There were only about 200 people on it at the time (vacation homes and visitors at the park),, and if you look real close at the last photo in the link at the RR tracks you can see their covered with rust,weeds ect. because the train hasn't ran on that track in years(the one the barge hit)...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelican_Island_(Texas)