Mobile Alabama

[skysummit]

I think it was Danny from 1997 that sucked out the water

All of the water was sucked out? I know it's a shallow bay, but that must've looked nuts!

Welcome Twice!

[pelican13]

I wasn't living here when the bay was sucked dry by Danny.But I've heard it was quite the sight to see!!!

[wobblehead]

I've lived in Mobile since 1957 so I have a bit of storm experience. One storm that pulled the bay dry was Frederic which was a very dry system. When a storm tracks straight on a NW path from the Carib. it will pull a ne wind over Mobile as it approaches which pulls the water out of the bay which has an average depth of 15'. When the wind shifts out of the se it suddenly pushes water into the bay.
A path like Katrinas approach wedges strom surge and stakes it up because its final approach pushes into the intial fetch i.e. west track changing to north track. This is why the surge was so great from west LA. over to Mobile Bay.

[f5]

that 12 ft surge pushed an oil rig into a bridge had the surge been higher the bridge would of broke

[facemane]

It also depends on the angle the storm comes in . During Hurricane Elena,the
water in the Gulfport Small craft harbor was pushed out beyond the Deep water
markers due to the strong NW winds. A friend of mine who owns a restaurant
located there said it was the most amazing thing he's ever seen.

[PTPatrick]

Mobile was definately lucky...had they gotten the surge Pascagoula had, the water would have likely gone well into the downtown area. And had the water been 20+ feet like in Biloxi, all downtown(East of Broad, and most of southern parts of MObile(Dauphin Island Parkway) would have been under water. it would have devastated Mobile's already struggling downtown economy. However, I wouldnt say MObile got off easy...it was still worse than Ivan for MObile Wind damage wise, and add to that the water, It was bad. Even old timers said the only what that was worse was Fredric.

[Jim Cantore]

If Hurricane Ivan would have made landfall anywhere from Dauphin Island to Pasagoula the surge would have been Katrina like for Mobile, and Dauphin Island would have been submerged

As for Mobile bay being sucked dry the same thing happened to Pamlico Sound during Ophelia

[AL Chili Pepper]

I think it was Danny from 1997 that sucked out the water

All of the water was sucked out? I know it's a shallow bay, but that must've looked nuts!

Welcome Twice!

I made a trip to the causeway when Danny's eye was over the mouth of the Bay, and the only water I saw was in the ship channel. Strange sight to say the least. I heard that Frederic did the same thing, pulling all the water out until he got west of there.

As for the 12' surge during Katrina, there was probably 6 inches of mud left on some streets. Many of the businesses along Water Street were shut down for weeks while the owners cleaned all the muck out of their stores and replaced items destroyed by the salt water. Some businesses along the causeway were totally wiped out, with the Original Oyster House and the Bluegill Restaurant being a couple of the more popular ones. The traffic lights in downtown, fed by underground power sources, were down for probably 2 months. The reason you didn't hear much out of Mobile after the storm was because the damage paled considerably in comparison to that to the west.

[beachbum_al]

Do you really want to know this?

http://www.geocities.com/hurricanene/hu ... ederic.htm

http://www.southalabama.edu/meteorology ... deric.html

This is the main storm I remember going up into Mobile Bay. One thing I remember is that the hurricane pulled the water out of the bay. I was only 9 years old but I remember the next morning. Trees were down all over the place. Power was out for over two weeks. The beach was destroyed. Buildings had big old oak trees in them. And Dauphin Island was basically cut off from the rest of the world.

I hope the two sites I just listed will help.

I agree. We have been on target so many times and manage to be saved....Katrina, Ivan, Dennis, Opal, and the list goes on.

[Jim Cantore]

Do you really want to know this?

http://www.geocities.com/hurricanene/hu ... ederic.htm

http://www.southalabama.edu/meteorology ... deric.html

This is the main storm I remember going up into Mobile Bay. One thing I remember is that the hurricane pulled the water out of the bay. I was only 9 years old but I remember the next morning. Trees were down all over the place. Power was out for over two weeks. The beach was destroyed. Buildings had big old oak trees in them. And Dauphin Island was basically cut off from the rest of the world.

I hope the two sites I just listed will help.

I agree. We have been on target so many times and manage to be saved....Katrina, Ivan, Dennis, Opal, and the list goes on.

Imagine the damage total if Frederic hit today

can somebody say 25 billion?

[drezee]

Wait, if a 12-foot surge hit Mobile, why wasn't there widespread destruction? Storms with 12-foot surges have caused alot of damage before.

A couple of guesses here
1) the head of Mobile Bay is a large river delta system with minimal development along a causeway
2) The waterfront of Mobile(west side of bay) is primarily industrial with few small structures to be washed away
3)The eastern shore of the bay, especially in the upper reaches, is quite elevated above sealevel

having said this I havent lived there since 1995 so no doubt I could be wrong. I know for fact the SE part of the bay was leveled by surge (donw below Point Clear). I imagine Dog River and Fowl River areas were inundated and we have the seen the video from Bayou La batre and Dauphin Island

docjoe

Parts of South Mobile County are completely destroyed. I mean GONE! The damage to the west was far and above worse though. More population effected to the west as well. I have seen SLOSH models that have been run for Mobile Bay. The problem is that the SLOSH models didn't predict the 30 ft Storm Surge from Katrina. If Katrina hit Biloxi or maybe a little to the East, Downtown Mobile would have been in a world of hurt. SLOSH models in the 20-25 ft range with a cat 4 in that locale for the head of the bay.

[beachbum_al]

Parts of Daphne, Point Clear, and Fairhope near the water was badly damaged. Nothing compare to our neighbors in Mississippi and Louisana but there was a lot of damage from the surge alone when Katrina hit. And the businesses along the causeway were destroyed.

Posted: Wed Mar 01, 2006 2:00 pm Post subject:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

docjoe wrote:
Dr. Jonah Rainwater wrote:
Wait, if a 12-foot surge hit Mobile, why wasn't there widespread destruction? Storms with 12-foot surges have caused alot of damage before.


A couple of guesses here
1) the head of Mobile Bay is a large river delta system with minimal development along a causeway
2) The waterfront of Mobile(west side of bay) is primarily industrial with few small structures to be washed away
3)The eastern shore of the bay, especially in the upper reaches, is quite elevated above sealevel

having said this I havent lived there since 1995 so no doubt I could be wrong. I know for fact the SE part of the bay was leveled by surge (donw below Point Clear). I imagine Dog River and Fowl River areas were inundated and we have the seen the video from Bayou La batre and Dauphin Island

docjoe


Parts of South Mobile County are completely destroyed. I mean GONE! The damage to the west was far and above worse though. More population effected to the west as well. I have seen SLOSH models that have been run for Mobile Bay. The problem is that the SLOSH models didn't predict the 30 ft Storm Surge from Katrina. If Katrina hit Biloxi or maybe a little to the East, Downtown Mobile would have been in a world of hurt. SLOSH models in the 20-25 ft range with a cat 4 in that locale for the head of the bay.

[Margie]

Here are some excellent links regarding surge in Mobile Bay (max 11.45 ft just before 2pm CDT) and the impact to Mobile county and surrounding counties served by the Mobile NWSFO:

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/mob/0805Katrina/

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/mob/0805Katrina/psh_mob.shtml

For the MS coastal counties and SE LA, use LIX:

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/lix/html/psh_katrina.htm

Katrina's surge angled into Mobile county from the SE and the primary areas that were damaged were those facing more south or west. Bayou La Batre was the hardest-hit...basically destroyed. This was the easternmost coastal point of "total destruction" from the surge. Grand Bay floods even in a good rainstorm, and they received considerable flooding from Kat.

Aerial of Bayou La Batre after Katrina:

http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24529686.jpg

Also, the HLS from MOB accurately predicted the surge height for each of the coastal counties in its purview by the Saturday 10:30pm HLS (remarkable...kudos to the Mobile forecasters). The key is probably that they recognized that the bulk of the surge was already determined by the intensity and radius of maximum winds just prior to when Kat moved onto the shelf (which happened sort of in two parts, due to the broad hf wind field to the east...first onto the southern LA shelf, and, about six hours later, onto the shelf south of the MS / AL coast). These surge numbers were basically unchanged for all future HLS. By contrast the information from LIX to each county EM (which was passed on verbally and not even in the HLS) changed with almost every advisory (increased).

[Ivanhater]

thanks, a lot of good info from everyone

[beachbum_al]

i got pictures of what katrina did to the Eastern Shore Ivanhater if you want them

[Steve]

>>I was at one point a little worried that it would head in to the "arm pit" of Florida- that area north of Cedar Key and SE of Tallahassee

Thing is though, there aren't any historical storms that I know of that went in their strong. Bastardi always used to talk about that. As far as I know, there have been no recorded majors hitting the Big Bend (possibly may have been one).

Good points Beach Bum. I got moved to Dauphin Island, AL when I got called back to work. I lived on the Island from 9/15 thru 11/15. When I first got to Mobile, it was pretty trashed. All throughout Spring Hill area were 8' high stacks of tree limbs in front of EVERY House. After a week, I moved down to DI. The whole island was pretty destroyed. Even when I left in late November, the west side of the Island was still protected by national guardsmen at checkpoints. Nothing but a couple of businesses were open (Island Chevron and the hardware store). Much of Alabama Point and Montlimar St. Louis (sp?) were screwed up too. The condo I stayed at, Dauphin Surf Club, only had their 2nd stories usable. Luckily I got one of those. But the 50' long pier that went from the condos to the beach was washed out. Getting to the beach required shoes lest you possibly got bit by black snakes or moccasins and rattlers that were on the prowl. In downtown, one of my company's offices on Royal St. wasn't operational until mid-December, so I'm sure we're not the only ones. The only thing that saved the east side of the Island was the transitional Sand Island which I understand from the locals is changing shape and its identity. Because it acts as a barrier to the eastern side of DI, it saved a full head-on surge and limited it to a degree. We used some high powered binoculars during Rita to see 12' breakers (looked like Hawaii 5-0 stuff) breaking just on the other side of Sand Island.

I don't know what Alabama's total damage was from Katrina. But many of the towns in SW Mobile County were pretty destroyed too - Grand Bay, Bayou La Batre' et al. My guess would be somewhere between $900MM and $2BB.

Steve

[Ivanhater]

i got pictures of what katrina did to the Eastern Shore Ivanhater if you want them

ya, thanks