In the Eye

Baldwin County residents recount the night Hurricane Sally

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Neighbors rescuing neighbors

Ken Grimes is the City Administrator for the City of Orange Beach and like most he was hunkered down with his family during Hurricane Sally. He said he was not worried or scared but when the storm surge started to flood his home, he was mad.

“When the water came in, I got mad because I did not expect flooding. For my life I know what that means for the next six months. It’s just something that adds the pressure of rebuilding your house,” Grimes said.

His home sits 8 feet above sea level but the almost 9 feet of storm surge and rainwater left eight to 10 inches of water in his home.

Grimes had his radio with him and during the worst four hours of the storm he estimates a call was coming in every three minutes for fire alarms, gas leaks and human rescue. A few of the calls were from Grime’s neighbors.

A home across the street caught fire and due to a flooded street, the fire department could not reach the home. Grimes and one of his neighbors took a Jon boat and waded out to see if they could help get the Owens family out of their burning home. Thankfully, they had already left and sought shelter at a neighbor’s house.

He heard a call come over the radio for human rescue from a different neighbor. 

“They can’t get to her. It is too deep to get a vehicle back there. I am 6 foot, 3 inches and the water was above my waist. I had to carry her off the porch and down her sidewalk pushing boards and dock material and stuff out of the way to get her in the boat. My neighbor and I drug the boat back to my house and she stayed for the next four hours until the water receded, and my daughters walked her home.”

“Part of the reality is my adrenaline was rushing, everything was happening, and I didn’t think about how stupid I was walking out there in the storm because there’s debris, the winds blowing and it was crazy. There was a pretty strong current and the wind was blowing hard,” Grimes said.

Grimes pointed out that rescues like this were happening all over the county during the storm.

Battling the wind

Carlie Childs watched in horror as her husband Mikail struggled to hold a mattress against a window in their beachfront home as Hurricane Sally’s winds ripped at the building and threatened to crash through the glass.

The family had just lost power and struggled in the dark to fight against the powerful 100 mph winds. Water streamed into their home through the roof, doors, chimney and windows. Then, everything turned quiet. Sally’s eye had reached the shore and the couple and their children hurried to prepare for the second onslaught ripping winds in the opposing eyewall. The storm was moving so slowly that the family was ready and hunkered down by the time the winds picked up again and continued to batter their home.

Windows blown out

Rhonda and Thomas Davidson decided to stay at their home on Magnolia Circle in Orange Beach and ride out the storm. Two of their grandchildren were there as well due to their flights home being canceled Tuesday.

As the waters rose in Bay La Launch, waves began crashing into the Davidson’s home. Windows began blowing out sending water rushing through the first floor.

“When the windows were blowing out it sounded like someone was practicing skeet shooting. The house would have been destroyed completely if we hadn’t been here because we got to open up everything and push water out,” Rhonda said.

The water rushing through the home was filled with sewage. Rhonda said the fumes were terrible.

Like so many, the storm was worse than the Davidson imagined. Life jackets were secured on the children and Rhonda grabbed an ax as they headed to the second floor to ride out the storm in a closet.

The yard is now littered with debris and a lifetime of memories are stacked into piles as the cleanup begins. Rhonda’s immediate concern is finding someone to tarp the high-pitched roof and packing up her things.

Cleanup and a cup of coffee

It was at 4:30 a.m., in the midst of Hurricane Sally, when Sharon Watson of Elberta was told that an uprooted tree had leaned over on top of her car.

“The scary thing is when [I was told] I thought it was a joke, because the way the tree leaned over I did not hear it hit my car,” she said. “Had it leaned the other way I’m pretty sure it would have hit my room and killed me, but there was just so much other noise, we had so many limbs and treetops snapping, and the wind sounded like a freight train, so we didn’t hear the particulars. You know, you go to bed thinking it’s going to be a lot of rain and a Category 1 if that, and then sometime during the night it turns into a Category 2 and hits us head on. It happened so fast and in the dead of night, by the time you realize you need to leave, you can’t leave, you can’t even go out and run to somebody else’s house. You just have to stay where you are and hope for the best.”

When the sun rose Wednesday morning, Watson was able to check on her car and home. Trees were down, the roadways were blocked, and the power was out. What struck her the most was how the community and neighbors came together to help. Neighbors began working to clear the streets. The tree was removed from her car, which still runs and only suffered minor damage. People with generators began inviting neighbors to enjoy their air conditioning and warm food. Those with working water shared with those without. And, through it all, new friendships were forged.

“On the Thursday after the storm I decided to go for a walk, and I saw this older man in the middle of the street, almost trying to sweep away the debris with a pine tree broom,” Watson said. “I asked him how he was. I learned his name was Marco, and he said, ‘thank you so much for asking how I was,’ and it just hit me that maybe nobody else had asked him. So the next day my neighbors told me they had a pot of fresh coffee they made thanks to their generator, and I told them about Marco. I went to check on him again and found him trying to make a fire with charcoal, so I invited him to come to my neighbors.”

She says when he was given a fresh cup of coffee at her neighbor’s house, his face said it all. The following morning, Watson’s neighbors took the cup of coffee down the street to Marco. That was when he asked why he was the recipient of so much good will.

“I asked him, ‘why not?’” Watson recalled. “He said it made him feel special and blessed, and that he had never had that type of experience. To me, that’s what we should be doing as a community and as a neighborhood. He didn’t understand how happy it made us to be able to help him. When you’re living through something like this, you’ve got to do something to keep your mind off it, and helping someone else is the best way to do it.”

Impromptu cookout

Spanish Fort Police Chief John Barber and his fellow officers wanted to thank the community for their support after Hurricane Sally. Plans for a small cookout, grew however, into a community event with more than 300 people Sunday, Sept. 20.

“Just knowing that some people didn’t have power and everything else, we wanted to do something to give back to the community,” Barber said.

Local businesses joined in to support the plan.

“We talked to Piggly Wiggly. They said we’ll give you 200 burgers and buns and Styrofoam. We talked to Sam’s Club. They said we’ll give you a $200 gift card. We said that’s enough to get us started and so we started putting together for 200,” Barber said Monday.

That estimate soon grew.

“We started seeing all the social media and we thought, ‘this things going to be more than 200,’ so we scrapped together and we got another 50,” the chief said. “Then, when we started to hand out, we had people lined up before 12 o’clock and they were trying to feed their entire families and they had people staying with them and it wasn’t uncommon for somebody to pick up six meals out of one vehicle. We quickly realized that we were going to run out and so we made another run and Piggly Wiggly gave us some more product. We sent an officer out just trying to scramble, because it’s hard to find buns. It’s hard to find anything on the shelves. Anyway, we ended up feeding almost 350 yesterday.”

He said the event was a good chance for officers and their families to meet with the community and for everyone to show their support for each other during the disaster.

“The people that came through were just appreciative that we thought about them. I thought that was a really neat event,” Barber said.

Daphne High hands out food

 

Daphne High students chipped in to help their neighbors by handing out food following Hurricane Sally. Students joined with the city of Daphne to set up a food distribution station at Trojan Hall at the school.

Teacher Deborah Few said students wanted to do something to help the community.

“We’re trying to meet this side of the need. Lake Forest is kind of divided right now with all of the destruction. We’re hoping it’s going to spread a little bit,” Few said. “Ironically, after COVID this year, our mission this year for Daphne High School was actually Trojan Serve, so just because of COVID and wanting to give back and get more involved and the kids were ready to come back because of COVID and get involved.”

Students help elderly neighbor

When an elderly woman needed help saving her belongings from a home damaged by Hurricane Sally, Daphne High student Jennifer Tan said she and several fellow International Baccalaureate students joined in the effort.

“There was a lady who lost her house in the storm. So we were asked to help her unload her U Haul with whatever she was able to save into a storage unit. We spent all morning moving all her furniture and all her belongings into the storage unit,” Tan said. “It wasn’t really part of a club or anything. A group of us from the IB class just wanted to help out.”