By Gardner Selby
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, October 17, 1989; Page A6

GALVESTON, TEX., OCT. 16—The death toll from Hurricane Jerry rose to three today when authorities found the body of a man along the beach. They said he was the driver of a small pickup truck in which the other two victims were passengers when it tumbled over a seawall into the Gulf of Mexico during the storm.

As Jerry, a relatively small hurricane, weakened into remnants of stormy weather over Missouri and Tennessee, Galveston officials estimated that it caused between $5 million and $8 million in damage and said they would not seek federal disaster assistance.

The primary damage after Jerry swirled ashore with 85-mph winds Sunday night, spawning several tornadoes, involved smashed roofs and windows and destruction of sand dunes on Galveston Island. Authorities said they plan to restore the dunes by planting used Christmas trees there this winter.

Today, Jerry left behind a blue sky and gentle surf, reason enough for bicyclists to resume pedaling along the city's famous seawall and for tourists to clamber aboard brightly painted trolleys. But there also were tragic reminders of a hurricane's unpredictable power.

In tiny Jamaica Beach, 15 miles west of here, where the storm's compact eye came ashore about 8:30 p.m. EDT Sunday, Police Chief John Gardner said that aside from an automobile washed into the surf, "I don't think we have a whole lot of damage here."

In Galveston, however, authorities reported finding the body of Alan Perryman, 19, of Little Rock, Ark., washed ashore near a hotel frequented by tourists. They said he was driving the pickup truck on the road next to the sloping seawall, apparently heading for a friend's apartment.

The bodies of the passengers – Coast Guard Apprentice Seaman Dan Lindley, 24, and Lindley's daughter, Salina, 2 – had been found floating near the beach by a passerby after Jerry moved inland Sunday night. Officials said Perryman also was a Coast Guard apprentice seaman.

Authorities said the accident occurred as the storm's winds reached 85 mph and tides seven feet above normal pushed water over the 17-foot seawall. The wall was begun in 1902 after an unnamed hurricane two years earlier killed about 6,000 Galveston residents and destroyed 3,600 homes in the worst such weather-related disaster in the nation.

Dozens of onlookers watched along the seawall this morning as the smashed GMC Mini-Blazer was pulled from the water. Police said that four other vehicles were reported as having gone over the wall during the storm but that they had not determined whether anyone was missing as a result.

No witnesses had come forward to describe the fatal accident, police said. Minutes before the vehicle hurtled from the roadway and down 20 feet to a rocky abutment, they said, Perryman had telephoned the Galveston Coast Guard installation from a convenience market facing the ocean.

Perryman asked if he and Lindley should report for rescue work, police said. Told not to report, they apparently set out toward a friend's apartment, police said.

Lindley's parents, who live in Portland, Tex., said today that their son and granddaughter spent Friday and Saturday with relatives in Beaumont about 100 miles away. Lindley's estranged wife, Mary, who had driven to Houston to wait out Jerry, was planning to return to Portland, where she and her husband had been high school sweethearts, Lindley's parents said.

Lindley's mother, Jimmie, said Salina, just learning to talk, had said "Hi" and "Bye" to her during a telephone chat Friday night. "I had just bought her a Christmas present, a new little sailor's dress to match her daddy's uniform," Lindley said.

As a tourist trolley eased along the sunlit Seawalk Boulevard this afternoon, police on the beach below draped Perryman's body in a sheet, placing his wallet on top.

Coast Guard mail clerk Pete Hubbard, 23, who identified the body of Perryman, said he attended the seven-week Coast Guard boot camp with Lindley in Cape May, N.J., last spring.

Gazing at the ocean, Hubbard said of Lindley: "He'd have been safer anywhere except for where they were. I don't know where they were headed."