Mobile Remembers 1979 Hurricane
By GARRY MITCHELL
12:33 PM ET 09/12/99
MOBILE, Ala. (AP) - Just after nightfall, the wind whipped surf across deserted
coastal roads as Hurricane Frederic roared out of the Gulf of Mexico and slammed into
Mobile. With wind gusting to more than 140 mph, Frederic battered the coast and the
bayside city of 200,000 during the night of Sept. 12, 1979.
The storm caused only one death in the Mobile area - a 4-year-old girl crushed
by a falling refrigerator as her family's mobile home overturned in Theodore.
But, at the time, it was the nation's costliest hurricane, with damage estimated
at $2.1 billion and insured losses of $752.5 million. And it remains a vivid memory to
tens of thousands across the Alabama coast.
``My parents had nothing left. The business was leveled,'' said Marguerite Noel.
She now runs the Nuttin Fancy diner a few miles from where her father, 72-year-old Al
Ward, had a fishing camp on the Dog River south of Mobile.
As Frederic approached, Ward packed all his tools into a 30-foot trailer and
fled to his daughter's home. He never saw the trailer or his fishing camp again; nothing
but a concrete slab was left where his store once stood.
Before striking Mobile, Frederic had already obliterated much that was standing
on the band of Alabama coastline called Pleasure Island.
``I remember it was like a bomb set off. It blew everything away,'' said Danny
Williams, who was 8 years old when Frederic hit and who now tends bar at the Pink Pony Pub
on the beach at Gulf Shores.
The hurricane - rated a Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, with 5 the most
intense - hammered its worst wave surge into Gulf Shores, with water rising 15.7 feet
above mean sea level. The sandy barrier island is more or less at sea level.
Frederic virtually cleared the resort island of homes and businesses, spreading
splintered wreckage across the white sand and opening the door for the vast resort
developments that jam the shoreline today.
Owners of small, single-family homes collected their insurance claims and moved
out, leaving tracts for commercial development that prospered as Americans flocked to
Sunbelt locales like Pleasure Island.
The building boom also brought environmental scrutiny. ``I think there's a lot
more protection of the beaches, more planned development now,'' said condo builder Gene
Brett, who has built multistory structures with thick concrete walls to protect against
the next hurricane.
But Gerald King, a Gulf Shores developer, said a storm the size of Frederic
today still would inflict heavy financial losses because of the heavy tourist investment
along the shore.
Thousands had jammed evacuation routes and pressed into shelters as Frederick
bore down on Mobile, while thousands more boarded up windows and huddled in homes.
King was one of those who stayed, riding out the storm in a house at Perdido
Beach with several other families. ``That was a mistake,'' he said. ``Before the night was
over I was very sorry I was there.''
The next morning, people emerged shaken and dazed. Leah York said she just
couldn't believe the destruction. ``You couldn't go down the main highway for the tree
limbs,'' said York, whose mobile home had only minor damage. The city itself, known for
its stately live oaks, was littered with fallen limbs, utility poles and dangling
electrical wires, making driving almost impossible.
Electrical power was out for several weeks in some area of Mobile - for over a
month at Dauphin Island.
``Frederic was pretty stout,'' said Williams, tending bar at Gulf Shores. ``You
judge all other storms by that one.''
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