Freeport, TX Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 6.5 miles southwest of Freeport, TX
Good news, and an honest one: USGS's data can't distinguish this stretch, 6.5 miles southwest of Freeport, TX, from a flat trend. Whatever small movement it measured here is statistical noise, not a reliable direction, so none is claimed.
The grain of this number
USGS surveys the coast in transects spaced a few hundred feet apart; this page groups the nearest ones into a single ~3.5-mile reading for the stretch closest to Freeport, TX, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 28.88, -95.43. USGS's Gulf of Mexico assessment last surveyed this stretch through 2001, computing the rate with its LRR method. Other US regions were surveyed in different years, sometimes decades apart, so this page states its own rather than implying one national vintage.
What backs this reading up
18 transects feed this segment's number; 0% of them individually measured retreat. USGS's confidence interval here is ±9.87 ft/yr. The unadjusted figure here, 5.31 ft/yr, would place it 1201 of 1211 if ranked directly - but an unreliable rank isn't a useful one, which is exactly why "no significant trend" is the headline instead. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. Rank 1193 nationally for growth belongs to North Wildwood, NJ, 1369 miles from this stretch, measured at 4.21 ft/yr. 1.3 miles up the coast, Jones Creek, TX shows the same lack of a significant trend.
One address near Freeport: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.