Mobile, Alabama Hurricane
September 27, 1906
1906—HURRICANE DOES $15,000,000 DAMAGE
STRIKING FURIOUSLY, a West India hurricane
roared into the Gulf Coast area on September 27,
1906, and destroyed millions of dollars worth of
property in Mobile County. Although only two or
three deaths occurred in the city itself, the
storm sent more than 150 persons to a watery
grave in the nearby vicinity, principally at
Sans Souci Beach, Coden, Herron Bay and Navy
Cove.
The storm began on Wednesday, September 25th
with a driving rain borne on a strong northeast
wind. By the evening of the 26th it was
impossible to walk on the streets with
umbrellas. The barometer continued to drop until
it reached a record low of 28.84, fulfilling the
Weather Bureau’s prediction that the storm would
be centered at Mobile.
All during Wednesday the force of the wind
increased. By midnight Wednesday it was a
northeast gale, and just before dawn Thursday
morning it reached hurricane proportions.
Daylight found the air filled with flying
objects—shutters, signs, awnings, roofs, trees,
timbers, and finally bricks from walls and
chimneys. Communication and electrical
transmission wires were leveled throughout the
city.
During the early morning hours on Thursday, the
wind veered to the east, and finally to the
southeast, backing up water from the bay into
the river until it overflowed the wharves and
flooded city streets. By 8 o’clock Thursday
morning, the yellow flood had reached Royal
Street on St. Michael and was running into Royal
Street gutters. It came within 25 feet of Royal
on St. Francis—or approximately 30 feet farther
up the street than the great flood of 1893.
Upper Royal Street, from St. Louis to
Beauregard, was also flooded, the water backing
on St. Anthony nearly to Conception, and almost
as far on State and Congress streets. Water
Street at that point was a surging maelstrom,
with the wind driving up St. Francis Street and
rousing the water in great waves at the street
intersection.
From 7:30 Thursday morning until about 10
o’clock Thursday the storm was at its height.
Then the wind abated and the waters receded,
allowing many persons to descend from trees
which they had climbed to save their lives. By
Friday morning, the storm was over and reckoning
of lives lost and property damage began.
It was found that all the lower coast had been
badly washed, with fully 150 lives lost,
including many fishermen of the Herron Bay
oyster and fishing fleet, where only three men
and one vessel of the fleet were saved. Eleven
steamboats and 22 sailing vessels were wrecked,
and many others damaged, in the river. The
quarantine station at Fort Morgan was washed
away when the waves cut a great channel entirely
across the land from the bay to the gulf. Scores
of vessels were wrecked in the lower bay and
just outside.
In Mobile itself, the destruction was not
nearly so severe. Chief damage was caused by the
flood waters, although the wind tore away parts
of many buildings. Nearly every church edifice
in the city was damaged to some extent: the
steeple of Christ Church was blown away and the
interior wrecked by falling debris; the
Methodist and Baptist Churches on St. Francis
Street lost their spires. The courthouse clock
and tower were badly damaged, as were the
Cawthon, Bienville, St. Andrew, Windsor and
Southern hotels. The Old Shell Road and Garrow’s
Bend were washed worse than in the storm of
1893, and great sections of other roads and
streets throughout the city were scoured away.
Gross damage in Mobile County was estimated at
more than $15,000,000.
The Mobile area was not the only one to be
ravaged by the storm. The entire
Mississippi-Louisiana coast suffered severely.
Many persons lost their lives at Biloxi, and
some 20 schooners and hundreds of small craft
were lost at Pascagoula. The death toll at
Pensacola was estimated at 50 persons, with
$5,000,000 in property damage. At least 100
Malayans in a settlement on Lake Bourgne, La.,
were said to have been killed.
After normal conditions had been restored,
the populace within the city counted itself
fortunate in having withstood the hurricane so
well. It was pointed out that in both the storm
of 1893 and the most recent one, the city proper
had proved to be relatively secure against such
hurricane disaster—a fact which was later
re-emphasized when an
85-mile-an-hour wind swept
the city in 1916.
Highlights of 75 years in Mobile, Mobile,
Ala.: First National Bank of Mobile, 1940, pages
67-69
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Mobile, Alabama
City Directories 1890-92
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