Winds of War, Winds of Fate: a Brief History of Mississippi Antebellum Hurricanes

Today marks the 10^th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.  Forgive me as I delineate from the focus of this blog.  As a survivor, my thoughts have been on that particular event in my life.   Katrina was a historical event indeed, one that I will never forget.  But speaking of history, we don’t tend to think about weather that much.  But, of course, our ancestors had to deal with the elements as we do.  And that includes hurricanes here on the Coast.   Closer to our own history, I can remember my daddy telling me about a time when he was a boy and asking his grandpa about a big pile of dirt.  “Oh, a bad storm caused that,” was the reply with a shrug.  He was referring to the hurricane of 1947, a “bad storm” indeed that had hit several years prior.  

Aftermath of the 1947 hurricane
Mississippi Gulf Coast
Hancock County Historical Society

Hurricanes in the Atlantic basin weren’t named until 1950 when a need arose to create a system that facilitated more efficient communication among scientists and those potentially affected.  Oftentimes, there are multiple storms brewing at the same time, and assigning names just made it easier.   The first system used labels from the British-U.S World War II spelling alphabet, which included Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy, etc.  In 1953, the Hurricane Center changed to using English female names.  In 1979, we began using the current system of including English, Spanish, and French male and female names.  

The term “hurricane” emanates from labels used by the natives of the Caribbean for the strong storms they encountered in the area.  These indigenous people used the terms "hunraken,"(the storm god)  "huracan," (evil  spirit) and "urican" (big wind) to warn Christopher Columbus about these monsters.   Columbus himself experienced a hurricane in 1503 and noted that “The men were at this time so crushed in spirit that they longed for death as deliverance.”

As for the Gulf Coast, at least ten hurricanes are recorded to have struck the area during the colonial period beginning with a fierce one in 1717 that split Dauphin Island, located off the Alabama coast, in half.   

By 1819, the borders separating Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama had been defined.  Small towns sprung up all across the Mississippi panhandle.  Many of the inhabitants were from the larger cities of New Orleans or Mobile who built summer homes in the area in an effort to escape the heat and threat of yellow fever.    

That year, soldiers in the area of what is now Bay St. Louis were working on the Andrew Jackson Military Road between New Orleans and Nashville when the Storm King visited.  Surgeon A.P. Merrill noted, “This storm was probably the most violent and extensive that has been known in this region since its first settlement” and that “Numerous dead bodies of men, women, and children were taken up from the beach and buried by the inhabitants.  Many of these were never identified….” (p. 9-10)

In 1821, Colonel Zachary Taylor, commander of a garrison below Shieldsboro (now Bay. St. Louis) , nearly perished along with his men in a storm.

In 1831, a weaker hurricane struck the area but caused a levee breach that resulted in the flooding of New Orleans with three feet of water. 

Storms ravaged the area several more times in subsequent years.  But this article will focus specifically on 1860.  And while we often think about the political tempest brewing that year, it is interesting to note that residents of the Mississippi Gulf Coast also had to deal with direct hits from literal cyclones, three as a matter of fact.

Hurricane Tracks in 1860
Wikipedia

The first struck on August 11^th.  The storm caused little damage to Louisianans other than to the sense of women’s pride.  According to the New Orleans Daily Crescent, 

The stiff gusts sent many a hat and umbrella kiting….and this important fact was shown in numerous instances—that the ladies who will wear hoops and will expose themselves to the vagaries of a high wind, should be prepared for disaster, and wear some part of their raiment, or more thereof than usual, inside their hoops.  We heard of several pitiable spectacles of ladies outraged by the wind on public street. (p. 20) 

The damage was more severe to the east, however.  Thomas Rhodes, captain of a steamer that got caught in the storm, wrote about an incident, 

Looked around.  Saw no one but a youth (Jesse Little from Georgia) about 15 years of age, holding on close beside me….” A board fell and broke Rhodes’ hand and Little’s arm.  “He (Little) let go his hold, caught with the other hand, but owing to his exhausted condition could not hold on.  With a good bye; ‘may God bless you;’ he left me. The whistling of the winds and angry roar of water his only requiem. 

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper from October 26th, 1893 covered
a hurricane that hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast on October 1st, 1893
Those who experienced the hurricanes of 1860 must have
witnessed scenes such as this.

 Storm number two hit on September 15^th, 1860.  The water rose seven feet in twenty minutes in Pascagoula causing a poor oysterman named William Sparenburg to seek higher ground with his pregnant wife and four children.  A carpenter provided them with shelter where Mrs. Sparenburg gave birth to a stillborn child.

An eyewitness aboard a steamer wrote:  

 …the scene before us beggars description—not only are the wharves all gone, but the houses unroofed, and some blown down and entirely destroyed….The whole beach, as far as the eye can reach, is one mass of wreck and ruin.  A more desolate prospect I never beheld…A lot of stores were entirely washed away and lost; in fact, all buildings near the water’s edge were entirely destroyed…All the wharves are gone and the whole beach is a solid mass of ruins, such as houses, drift wood, dry goods, etc…But alas!  The heart sickens at the surrounding desolation!  Misery and destruction surround us on every side.  Truly had the wind raised and demolished houses built upon the sand, and great was the fall thereof. (p. 23) 

Such destruction led J.O. Nixon, editor of the New Orleans Daily Crescent,  to declare that, 

Some more efficient mode for building ought to be introduced in the erection of tenements at this place hereafter.  In fact, it will be well to expend a little more attention, and erect buildings of more strength and solidity than is now the custom at all the seashore resorts. (p. 24)   

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, October 26th, 1893 edition
included an artist's depiction of the destruction brought on by
a hurricane that struck the Mississippi Gulf Coast on October 1st, 1893

We’re still adjusting building codes today with each passing storm. 

Number three came ashore on October 2^nd, 1860, and proved to be weaker than the previous storm.  A correspondent from Pass Christian wrote in the New Orleans Daily Delta, 

As the hurricane of September 15^th had swept the Coast clean of bath houses and wharves, there was not much for its successor to do; but some few unfortunates who had gallantly gone to work to repair damages, again saw their timber afloat and will have to begin anew.  The water was not quite so high as on the 15^th but high enough to have carried off most of the wharves, had they existed; and the wind but little, less violent than on the last occasion—however…No houses lost, or lives endangered, that I have heard of. (p. 26)

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, October 26th, 1893
Artist's rendition of survivors burying the dead  after
a hurricane struck the Mississippi Gulf Coast on October 1st, 1893.
The aftermath of the storms of 1860 undoubtedly looked like this.

 
The people of the Mississippi Gulf Coast who endured three hurricanes in seven weeks in 1860 soon found themselves caught up in another storm.  The winds of war brought on by political turmoil swept the state into yet another disaster, the Civil War.  

Source:  Hurricanes of the Mississippi Gulf Coast:  Three Centuries of Destruction by Charles L. Sullivan

Until next formation......rest.