Happy Anniversary !!!
1979 Hurricane Frederick came through Mobile Sept. 12, 1979. Now that's a night that I will never forget!
My daughter who was 3 at the time was playing by herself in her room while the rest of us were watching the continuous weather updates on the TV. When suddenly there came loud crashing, glass breaking, blood curdling scream form her bedroom! I ran terrified to see what had happened to my baby. The winds had lifted the roof from the front porch and a support column had fallen through her bedroom window. Thank God she was OK!, Only frightened out of her wits, we both were! As the night continued the power went out. And in the dark we listened to the sounds of shingles being blown off our roof, the huge Oak tree across the street fall across the road and into our front yard and onto the top of my car. From the back yard we could hear all sorts of noises, twisting metal, banging wood, clinks and clangs of all kinds! We all sat together in one room listening to the battery-powered radio with only a flashlight to see our way around. Then suddenly, the rain stopped as everything got totally quite and completely still as the eye of the hurricane passed right over our house. It was so weird, I opened the back door to take a look outside. The stars were shining, the moon was bright, and not a cloud in sight, but it was too dark for me to see anything. So like a fool I decided to go out and survey the damages. My daughters swing set was so mangled it looked like a pretzel. My greenhouse was more in my neighbors yard then mine. And there were trees and tree limbs everywhere. Now I remind you that this was the EYE of the storm! As I head back to the door with one hand on the door handle the eye is gone, and the storm is back!!!!!! It sucked my feet right off the ground, and I'm hanging parallel in the air, hanging on to the door handle. My husband rushes to my aid and grabs my arm pulling me back inside the house. Needless to say I will never do that again. We survived the storm and so did our house, with the exceptions of a few shingles, a bedroom window and a porch column. However we were without power for three weeks after the storm. And I had just bought a full side of beef, 50 lbs of pork and 30 lbs of chicken only two days before to stock the freezer. Pulse I already had about 15 lbs of shrimp and a turkey. We had a 55gal drum and firewood everywhere, so we fed the neighborhood for the next few days. We traded T-bones and roasts for bag of ice. And we still had to burrier meat in the back yard.
1979 was a year to remember for the rest of my life!
Stephanie
