Mobile, Alabama Wind Storm
July 5, 1916
1916-MOBILE IS SWEPT BY 85-MILE-AN-HOUR
WIND
ALTHOUGH no lives were lost within the city
proper, the violent tropical hurricane which
swept Mobile on July 5, 1916, caused property
damage estimated at approximately $1,500,000.
Newspapers in other cities—notably the New
Orleans Times-Picayune, the Montgomery
Advertiser, and the Birmingham Age-Herald—
carried stories placing the loss of life as high
as 22 persons and estimated damage at
$8,000,000, causing The Register’s
indignant editorial comment: “Certainly, more
was expected of The Times-Picayune than
that it should consent to be represented by a
correspondent so careless of the fact as to
assert that ‘twenty-two lives were lost,’ when,
in truth, not a life was lost in Mobile and the
loss of life in the waters bordering the Gulf
was only nine.”
Within the memory of many present-day
Mobilians, however, is the terrifying northeast
gale which broke over the city about 5 o’clock
in the morning of July 5th. As the day wore on,
the wind increased in intensity until it
averaged from 80 to 85 miles an hour—sometimes
as strong as 105 miles an hour, according to
statements by Weatherman
Albert Ashenberger. In the late
afternoon, the wind veered to the south, blowing
the water out of the bay up into the city. At 7
o’clock the water was running two feet deep
across Royal Street. A few minutes later it was
a foot deep across St. Joseph Street and
business houses on both sides of Royal and in
the district between Royal and the river, were
flooded. Meanwhile, a heavy rainfall added to
the water damage, as scores of structures were
unroofed.
Highlights of the storm, as reported in Mobile
newspaper accounts, ran as follows:
“The Municipal Dock was unroofed and Pier No. 1
of the M. & 0. Railroad Co. was partially
destroyed. . The smokestack of the Battle House
and its two wireless towers were blown away;
some of the roof was torn off and thrown to the
street below. . . Cotton, sisal, staves and
cross-ties were washed out of the municipal
wharf up St. Michael and St. Francis Streets. .
. Street car service stopped about 1:45 o’clock
in the afternoon. Hundreds of people were
marooned downtown, and had to spend the night at
hotels. . . Scores of persons, including a
number of prominent Mobilians, county workers
and court attaches fled from the courthouse into
the jail. There, they remained until about
midnight, as guests of the sheriff. . . In the
height of the storm, The Register was
informed that Mr. and
Mrs. D. P. Bestor and
Mr. and Mrs. LeBaron
Lyons were missing aboard Mr. Lyons’
yacht Princess. However, it was later
reported that the four made it safely to
Magnolia Springs, from Dauphin Island where they
were cruising at the time the high winds struck.
. . The engineers’ docks at Fort Morgan were
destroyed.. . A big plate glass window was blown
out at Hammel’s.
. . Roofs of both wings at City Hospital were
removed by the wind, forcing inmates to move to
other quarters.. . The county courthouse was
severely damaged, and faces of the clock on all
four sides were blown off. . . The courthouse
tower was wrecked and rain poured into the court
rooms. . . The roof of the Cawthon was ripped
into shreds, hundreds of windows smashed and the
furnishings of many rooms were water-soaked. . .
The Mobile Yacht Club’s building was wrecked. .
. Many buildings at Monroe Park were badly
battered. . . The grandstand and fence at the
baseball park were blown down. . Train
passengers were marooned at the L. & N. station,
but were finally rescued after an appeal for
police aid brought a fire wagon to haul them out
of the flooded area. . Live wires were a
constant menace to life, and power company
executives issued warnings against coming in
contact with them. One such wire killed a horse
at Conception and St. Michael Streets... Every
house on the bay front from Bay Avenue and Shell
Road was demolished. Old St. Matthew’s Church
was destroyed. At least a dozen houses were
blown down in the Oakdale area. . . The Bay boat
Pleasure Bay sank at the mouth of One-Mile Creek
and the Carney went to pieces and to the bottom
at the foot of Dauphin Street. . . The river
steamer City of Mobile rested on the wharf in
front of the municipal wharves; nearby was the
three-masted schooner Joseph T. Cooper, a
portion of her stern torn away.. - The new mail
boat Harry Lee was damaged, and a sister
ship was reported to have sunk in the harbor. .
- The bay steamer Beaver sank. . . The mail boat
Uncle Sam went down opposite Monroe Park,
her crew saving their lives by swimming ashore.”
Sensational accounts of the storm appearing in
other newspapers throughout the nation, aroused
a deep feeling of resentment in Mobile, as
expressed in an editorial in The Register
on July 10th, five days after the storm:
“People outside are always alarmed when they
read that the hurricane has come, that the wires
are down and Mobile is shut off from the world.
Newspapers have been known to print in red ink
and largest letters ‘Mobile Is Wiped off The
Map!’ but it has never happened, and if we judge
by what has been experienced in the past, it
will never happen. Mobile is the most
comfortable place we know of in which to have an
attack of hurricane.”
Highlights of 75 years in Mobile, Mobile,
Ala.: First National Bank of Mobile, 1940, pages
78-79
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Mobile, Alabama
City Directories 1890-92
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