Moody Gardens Rainforest Pyramid reopens

This past weekend Moody Garden's rainforest exhibit re-opened for the first time since Hurricane Ike. But because I am new to Houston, it might as well have been the first time ever - as I had never seen it. And, it was fab!!

The exhibit under the landmark glass pyramid in Galveston suffered extensive water damage during the storm that ravaged the Texas Gulf Coast on Sept. 13, but the staff has been working on rebuilding it for the last seven months.

"This is my baby. I watched it grow and nurtured it. During the hurricane, I was glued to my TV and worried about what could be happening," said Donita Brannon, the Horticultural Exhibits Manager. "I was pleasantly surprised when I got here that the glass pyramid was intact. Not one piece of glass was broken."

I was amazed, too. With all the damaged that occurred in the area and the homes that were literally washed away, you would have thought that the glass structure would have had suffered more damage than it did.

But what did get damaged were the plants inside. Brannon says about a third of the pyramid was flooded with up to five feet of salt water - and if any of you have a green-thumb, you know that salt water and plants don't exactly mix.

"If you saw the amount of water and damage that was here, you'd be amazed that everything is so green," Brannon said. "A lot of the plants are re-blooming."

But nature has a way of coming back and throughout the entire rainforest, there were signs of new life in the form of blooms, new leaves and seeds. The staff says that after the storm, they even noticed that the fish were breeding more than usual.

"In nature, after high water storm, a chain of events starts to occur. The same thing happened within the pyramid," said Greg Wittaker, Animal Husbandry Manager. "Even in here, nature takes care of its own."

Inside the pyramid, you'll find an acre of new tropical plants from Africa, Asia and the Americas along with colorful macaws, turtles and freshwater fish. In fact, the collection of plants is one of the most complete reproductions of the actual rainforest in North America.

"We really want people to learn about why the rainforest is important to us and why we should preserve it," Hamachek said.

Check it out and let me know if it really is better than before.

Oh...and by the way, the Palm Beach part is opening on May 16. I don't know what that is, but it sounds tropical and relaxing.