One man's hurricane history

By David Thornton

A tidal wave of media coverage spun out of Katrina and Rita, but hurricanes aren't always about human misery and massive destruction. What follows is a summary of run-ins with these sometime-tempests while growing up along the Gulf Coast.

Camille - August 1969
Sustained winds at landfall: 180 mph at Pass
Christian, Miss.
Was born two weeks before this monster in Pensacola, Fla., where my father said he and some neighbors were having fun jumping into the air and being blown several feet back in 80 mph winds - and the eye of the storm was 120 miles away! One of only two Category 5 hurricanes to hit the continental U.S. coast, the other being Andrew in 1992.

 
Eloise - September 1975
125 mph at Walton County, Fla.
We'd moved to Panama City, Fla., from Albany, Ga., just two months after landfall and I remember seeing a motel on the west end of the beach with mattresses stuffed into all the first-floor doorways from the force of the storm surge. Toilets lay on the opposite side of the scenic route and other debris littered a dune lake across the way. Still recall all the skeletal remains of pine trees stripped bare of bark and knarled by the swarms of tornadoes that spun out of the hurricane's right-front quadrant. Remember rummaging through an old house perched high above what is now Rosemary Beach containing a salt-sprayed framed print of Da Vinci's "The Last Supper."

Frederic - September 1979
135 mph at Mississippi/Alabama border
Evacuated to grandparents' home in Montgomery, Ala., where weather was worse than in Florida, where Dad reported very little wind and rain. Frederic devastated the Mobile and Gulf Shores, Ala., areas. Recall eating at a seafood restaurant called Rousseau's on the Mobile Bay causeway just months before which I later saw had been reduced to pilings in a "National Geographic" photo.

Elena - September 1985
125 mph at Biloxi, Miss.
This erratic storm first sent us fleeing to Montgomery, then it suddenly took a right turn and rotated off Cedar Key, Fla., for a while before reversing course and heading back toward the Panhandle, washing out U.S. Highway 98 and the St. George Island causeway along Apalachicola Bay. The night before heading back to Montgomery, it being Labor Day weekend and celebrating a great comeback win by my favorite college football team, me and a couple other partiers piled into my friend Robbie's black Mazda RX-7 and headed toward the Strip, which we cruised up and down with the alarm blaring and advising tourists to "evacuate the area immediately!" We were amazed how many people seemed to be heeding the advice of us way-tipsy teens!

Juan - October 1985
75 mph at Alabama/Florida border
This slow-moving, meandering soaker meant a day or two of canceled school - yippie!

Kate - November 1985
100 mph at Mexico Beach, Fla.
This very late-season hurricane - hitting over Thanksgiving weekend - was the closest I'd been to a direct hit, though we were situated on the "good" side of the storm. Was dancing around in the front yard while wearing a raincoat, making my younger sister, Jane, laugh as she looked out the living room window.
Later, though, after dark, I have to admit that the low roar the wind was making outside - sounding like animal moans or ghosts, even - had me cowering for cover!

Marco - October 1990
Tropical storm brushing west coast of central Florida
A nice one-day break from classes at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

Andrew - August 1992
165 mph near Homestead, Fla.
Tampa barely got any rain out of what, until Katrina, had been the country's costliest natural disaster. But was happy that first day of classes were canceled at USF so I could stay up watching all-night coverage from the Miami TV stations.

Beryl - August 1994
Tropical storm forming just south of Panama City, Fla.
Was fishing with my father along the beach near Indian Pass when we noticed dark cloud bands coming in at intervals parallel to the shoreline. It wasn't until we got home that we realized a storm had formed just off the coast that day. Though not a hurricane, Beryl came ashore in the same general area as Tropical Strom Alberto did a month before. That storm caused catastrophic flooding as it hovered over south Georgia for several days.

Erin - August 1995
95 mph at Navarre Beach, Fla.
If any hurricane can be considered "fun," this was the one - strong enough to experience all of its awesome power but just far enough away to feel relatively safe; a day off from work to watch garbage can lids and roof tiles sail through the air from the confines of home. One friend described the double-sunset effect two rain bands caused with dolphins rolling in the surf between them; another told of some wild Jetski rides during the height of the storm. In the early morning hours before it hit I was celebrating my birthday at a house along Seagrove Beach when the tremendous roar of the "first wave" pounding the shore grabbed everyone's attention; we all knew there was a storm brewing but it had just been drizzling all night. On the way home, stopped at a convenience store for a quart of beer and the outer wall of Erin must have hit at the moment I was leaving, as a gust of wind threw the door against the side of the building and shattered the glass into a million pieces. Was hard to keep my car steady along Back Beach Road on the way home but I couldn't resist walking down to the bay once getting there to watch the enormous live oak branches twist in the gale above my head.

Opal - October 1995 There goes the neighborhood! Hurricane Opal,
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmOctober 1995.

125 mph at Navarre Beach, Fla.
A mere two months after Erin, this was the storm that ended Northwest Florida's fortunate 20-year run of near misses. Was drinking at a bar with my friend Phillip as the topic suddenly turned from that day's O.J. Simpson verdict to what was on The Weather Channel, watching as the storm - spinning in the Bay of Campeche off Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula - began to race toward the northeast and strengthen from a Category 1 to a 4 in the short time we were there.
Woke up horribly hung over the next morning facing the prospect of "possibly the worst hurricane to ever hit the United States," as the meteorologist said, its 155 mph winds coming straight at us at an astounding 20-plus-mph clip. Though a consideraby weaker storm would hit at just after 6 p.m. about 70 miles to the west, the waves early that morning were already topping the sand dunes in front of the beach house my parents had rented for the offseason. Remember driving
along the beach on the way into town thinking this would be the last time I would ever see what I was looking at. Still hungover, I retired early and slept through the storm. A couple days later - tired of the tension at my older sister Mary's house as well as eating Hormel chili on the grill due to a lack of electricity and scarcity in the grocery stores, not to mention the humbling experience of waiting in line for ice which never came - found out Phillip was house-sitting his mom's apartment while she was away in Scotland - and she had electricity and a stash of frozen daiquiris! When were able to finally get onto the beach, the house looked fine from the front but like a dollhouse from the back. For instance, my bedroom door opened to a beachside cliff and the drawers I had put my books into in a futile attempt to protect them from the surge were laying atop the massive rubble that used to be our concrete patio; to this day, I still have books that a few grains of white sand trickle out of when I open them! Despite two palm trees lying in the living room and every piece of furniture crammed into the back doorway, there was an unmoved stack of napkins atop the kitchen counter that was pushed into the dishwasher! But perhaps more strange of all was finding out about the media circus that O.J. caused while in town after the hurricane playing golf and visiting hometown girlfriend Paula Barbieri but hardly anyone knew about due to the widespread power outages!

Author's niece makes one last visit to
grandparents' house. Hurricane Opal, October 1995.

Earl - September 1998
100 mph at Panama City Beach, Fla.
This was a big-time rain event, up to 25 inches in one night! Knowing I'd be off work the next day, used the opportunity to catch a nice Budweiser buzz and walk down the river-like streets in boots that filled with rain the second I put them on! Younger sister's utility room was flooded and her car was floating.

Twenty-five inches of rain didn't put a damper on author's spirits this night! Hurricane Earl, September 1998.

Georges - September 1998
105 mph at Biloxi, Miss.
Outer band of storm so ferocious that pieces of ceiling almost hit me in the head as I sat at the computer while on the job at a beachfront condo!

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