Portersville Revival Group

JUNE 11, 2005 - TROPICAL STORM (T.S.) ARLENE
A RECOUNT AND COMPARISON WITH THE HURRICANE OF 1906
by Barbara Holley Reid

A hurricane in 1831 gave birth to Portersville. The hurricane of 1906 sounded the first death knell for the area, which had become known as the “Gold Coast". On the eve of the 100-year anniversary of the 1906 hurricane, the remaining inhabitants of Portersville keep a watchful eye on developing weather. During the morning hours of June 11, 2005, Portersville residents cautiously awaited landfall of the Caribbean born storm named Arlene.

In comparison to the mega- storm of September 27, 1906, Portersville was treated very gently by T.S. Arlene. Winds were modest. Flooding along the coastal roads seemed to have been the most serious effects of T.S. Arlene. Waters along Shell Belt Rd. and Coden Belt Rd. were noticeably elevated as early as the evening of June 9, 2005 (Thursday afternoon). Bayou Coden was "standing high ", an event usually only observed during a strong full moon.

T.S. Arlene was very short lived. Clearing began in Portersville during the middle of the afternoon of June 11, 2005. By 5 o'clock p.m., fishermen and fisherwomen were observed along the bulkheads. Fishing is known to be good after a storm passes and the after effects of Arlene brought in mullet and striped trout of large size. Other aquatic dwellers that were numerous included sheephead, juvenile triggerfish, pinfish, sea robins, and toadfish. Oddly enough, the blue crab was scarce.

As of sunrise on June 12, 2005, massive flocks of pelicans were diving wildly in an effort to take advantage of the marine harvest. Pelicans literally drop from the sky when fish schools are spotted and the scenario occurring around Bayou Coden and Portersville Bay looked like a scene from videos of the bombing of Normandy. The pelicans were so aggressive that some bystanders had to jump from one position to another to avoid being impaled on the great birds' beaks.

This observer reports no lose of life from either the direct effects of the storm or the dive-bombing pelicans. Several good mullet fry's were occasioned as a result of the storm.

In comparison, at least 31 deaths in Portersville (Coden/ San Souci) were attributed to the mega-storm of 1906. The 1906 storm has been described as one of the most destructive storms of meteorological history. Prior to the passage of the eye, winds blew from the north for almost fourteen hours, driving all the water out of Portersville Bay. After a brief lull, the winds shifted sending a surge waves back up the bay and inland approximately one and a half miles.

In the fall, 2004 Edition of “The Descendants” magazine, David Lannie provides a chilling account of the destruction attendant to the 1906 storm. In the article, entitled "Terror on the Gold Coast", Lannie, a descendant of the Alexander family, faithfully details the recollections of his grandfather who lived through the storm.

The original Alexander family home was located on the present day site of the dwelling known as Royal Oaks, which overlooks Portersville Bay. This stately residence built in a refined Neo-Classic style sets on a large lot underneath a live oak forest. Bayou Como drifts lazily to the east of the home. The scene deceptively speaks of an eternal placid existence.

The Alexander family was pivotal in Portersville history. Not only had they attended the port of Portersville, but also were pioneers in the founding of the first Methodist Church of the area. Considered of high intellect, the Alexanders are believed to have entertained such writers as Augusta Wilson Evans and Lollie Belle Moore Wylie.

On September 27, 1906, the family had been watching the weather and knew trouble was brewing. Lannie's grandfather looked out into Portersville Bay, saw no water in the bay, looked again, and saw three waves coming, each one higher than the next.

When the first wave hit, water poured into the windows and doors. Furniture swirled around the rooms. Knowing that to survive the family must get away from the collapsing structure, Lannie’s grandfather tried to get his mother and two aunts out of the house. He managed to get the women away from home after the second wave hit and when he went out the third wave hit. The wave was up even with the eave of the house and the house came over on the man and pinned him down where he could not move. The eave of the house kept the building from smashing him. Another wave lifted the eave and he swam until he got to the end of the house and into a tree. The three women, separated from him were drown.

The First Artillery battalion of the Alabama National Guard tried to assist the storm victims of Coden. The log of Captain Y. W. Pringle (grandfather of Arthur McRoy and family) recapitulates the mass destruction of the area and burials of the dead. Other accounts tell of bodies of the dead being plucked from the limbs of the massive live oaks of the region where the victims took refuge from the rising waters.

The devastation was so severe that the dead were buried near where found. An entry of Captain Pringle dated October 1, 1906 recalls the burial of three storm victims. Captain Pringle wrote:
As the shore of the bayou was so marshy, we towed the Bodies to a point at the mouth of Goose Bayou marked by a scrubby tree, this point is known as Murder Point, here we buried the bodies in a shell pile marking the graves with a piece of ceiling at the head of the center of the graves, they being in a line.
(Courtesy of the Bayou La Batre Historical Association).

The graves of other storm victims can be located through old maps. The subsequent hurricane of 1916 destroyed what remained of the elegant Gold Coast. Present Inhabitants of Portersville remain humbly grateful that Arlene was a gentler and kinder storm. The Gold Coast is now but a memory. Reminders from the era, pieces of building tiles, the arms of porcelain dolls and drinking cups long broken can still be seen with the ebb and flow of the tide of Portersville Bay. The name of the Bay and the unusual tidal flotsam give clue to the existence of a different era in Portersville as well as the power of nature to destroy that made by the hands of man.

One of the "tales" around Bayou Coden is that the fiddler crabs begin moving prior to a storm. Informal "testing" this theory began as of fall, 2004. Prior to both Hurricane Ivan and T.S. Arlene, the fiddlers were very active, an unusual state for this generally quite little creature. One marine biologist has opined that dropping barometric pressure may trigger this activity.