Hurricane Frederic's 30th Anniversary

[baygirl_1]

Thirty years ago today we were making preparations for Hurricane Frederic's imminent arrival. Hurricane Frederic made landfall at Dauphin Island, AL shortly before 10:00PM on Sept. 12, 1979
I was young but I remember it quite vividly. My first thought was joyful-- no school! But, then I learned that hurricanes are not joyful things, at all. I remember the sound of the wind, the way our house shuddered every time a tree fell against it, and the sight of neighbors waving flashlights in their windows to reassure us that they were still there. The devastation that we saw the next morning when the sun rose was horrible! There were so many trees down it took my father and the neighborhood men 2 days just to clear the street halfway down. (They couldn't get beyond that as the trees there were just too thick for their chainsaws.) Many neighbors had trees that tore throught roofs of their homes. For weeks afterwards, the nights were incerdibly silent while the days were terribly loud with the sounds of chainsaws and helicopters. My sister and I had the job of pulling out leaves that had been blown between the boards on our wood-frame house. There were so many of them! Frederic's winds even blew out some of the mortar between the bricks of our chimney. Afterwards, we had 3 weeks without electricity. My mother boiled the water for the first couple of days, just to be safe. We stood in line for hours to buy ice. We took flashlights to the grocery store to see inside the store while we shopped for bread and milk. And we had great backyard meals with neigbors as we ate our way through freezers-ful of food. There are many memories--- some good, some not so good, and some downright terrifying. It is my fervent hope and prayer that the situation will NEVER be repeated!

Here's a link to one of our local TV station's Frederic tributes: http://www.wkrg.com/alabama/article/30th-anniversary-of-hurricane-frederic/343206/Sep-12-2009_6-06-am/

And here's a link to the Mobile NWS office Hurricane Frederic page: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/mob/frederic/

[CrazyC83]

That was definitely a really bad storm, it probably would do about $15 to $20 billion in damage if it hit today, although it certainly wasn't the biggest storm despite its huge eye. Looking at all the data, the landfall intensity was probably 110 kt, and the peak intensity I would guess was 120 kt a few hours before landfall.

[StormClouds63]

Frederic was one of only four major GOM hurricanes to make landfall in the 1970's:

Celia (1970)
Carmen (1974)
Eloise (1975)
Frederic (1979)

[Sabanic]

I was 19 at the time, and it destroyed Mobile & Dauphin Island

[baygirl_1]

I was 19 at the time, and it destroyed Mobile & Dauphin Island

Yes it did. Forgot to mention that our family had just purchased a house on the west end of Dauphin Island earlier that year. We'd spent the Spring and Summer fixing it up. Frederic destroyed it in just a few hours! We spent almost every weekend for the next 3 years talking the ferry back and forth to the island rebuilding the house from the pilings up. At first, for me (just a kid at the time), the ferry was a big adventure but it pretty quickly became a huge pain!

Like I said, I pray that it will never happen again (though I know the odds show it will).

[wobblehead]

At the age of 27 I experienced my first exposure to the eyewall of a hurricane and Frederick was its name. Mobile had not experienced such fury since the storm of 1926. My late grandfather lived in Mobile at the time and often told me stories of his experience with the 1926 storm. He was alive at the time of Frederick but was in Washington D.C. when it struck so unfortunately we did not get to share the experience.