Brewton Hurricane Recovery: Alabama’s Hardest-Hit City Waits on Power as Aid Pours In

BREWTON, Ala. — For nine years, Drexell & Honeybee’s Restaurant has fed Brewton on a simple promise: eat what you need and give what you can. The donations-only restaurant has built its mission around the idea that anyone can fall on hard times. Since Hurricane Isaias tore through Escambia County, the restaurant and the town it serves are living that idea themselves, and Brewton hurricane recovery has become one of the biggest relief efforts in Alabama.

Isaias made landfall near Destin, Fla., on Friday night, Oct. 9, as a Category 2 hurricane with 105 mph winds, then raced north through South Alabama. It knocked out power and caused damage across the state, but officials now say Brewton, the Escambia County seat, appears to be the hardest-hit community in Alabama.

“Brewton is the worst (hit) in Alabama,” Brewton Mayor Frank Nalty Jr. said Monday, Oct. 12, after spending the day meeting with state and federal emergency management officials to assess the damage.

A downtown window that survived Ivan

Lisa McMillan, co-owner of Drexell & Honeybee’s, said the damage downtown caught her off guard. The storm blew out the restaurant’s front window, which had been in place since 1955.

“I was absolutely shocked when I came downtown,” McMillan said. “Both buildings to the side of us suffered damaged. That didn’t happen during (Hurricane) Ivan.”

That comparison carries weight in Brewton. Hurricane Ivan made landfall near Gulf Shores in September 2004 as a Category 3 storm and remains one of the most destructive hurricanes in modern Gulf Coast memory. In Brewton, rural Escambia County and neighboring Conecuh County, residents, volunteers and emergency crews working through the cleanup now routinely measure Isaias against Ivan and the other powerful storms that have struck Alabama over the past three decades.

Across the city, downtown businesses suffered structural damage, and trees were uprooted in neighborhoods and in the surrounding countryside. In some places, the falling trees landed on homes and vehicles.

Thousands of Escambia County customers still in the dark

On Monday, the heaviest concentration of hurricane-related power outages in Alabama remained in Escambia, Monroe and Conecuh counties.

Alabama Power said about 4,600 customers in Brewton were still without service Monday. The company’s timeline called for:

• More than half of those customers to be restored by midnight Monday.
• About 90% to be restored by Tuesday night, Oct. 13.
• Full restoration by the end of Wednesday, Oct. 14.

In Monroeville, the Monroe County seat, about 2,500 customers were without power Monday, with full restoration there also expected by Wednesday.

Alabama Power spokesperson Anthony Cook said the work in the hardest-hit areas goes well beyond routine repairs.

“Crews are continuing the restoration by rebuilding portions of the electric system, not simply making repairs in the areas that were directly hit by Hurricane Isaias,” Cook said. “In many locations, we are replacing hundreds of broken poles and rebuilding spans of wire in areas with extremely difficult access. This is labor-intensive work, but crews continue to make steady progress as they safely rebuild the infrastructure needed to restore service.”

The slow progress in Escambia County stands in contrast to the rest of the state. Alabama Power reported more than 390,000 customers lost service as Isaias moved through, and the company had restored about 90% of them by Sunday morning, Oct. 11. But Escambia County was the hardest-hit area on the company’s map over the weekend, with more than 5,000 customers still affected Sunday afternoon.

Hospital running on generators

The outages reached medical facilities. D.W. McMillan Memorial Hospital in Brewton was operating on emergency generators Monday.

The hospital, operated by the Escambia County Health Care Authority, was already in the news before the storm. The Brewton City Council had scheduled a public hearing for Oct. 12 on a request that the city co-sign potential borrowing by the authority if it needs additional funds to keep the hospital operating, a reminder of the financial pressure many rural Alabama hospitals face even in normal times.

Federal declaration and state help

Escambia County is included in a federal declaration for Isaias that authorizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate federal disaster response efforts and allows state and local governments to seek reimbursement for certain emergency response costs. President Donald Trump approved an emergency declaration on Oct. 9 covering Mobile, Baldwin and Escambia counties and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, whose reservation lies near Atmore in Escambia County.

Josh Johnson, a spokesperson for the Alabama Emergency Management Agency, said state resources are now heavily focused on Escambia County and Brewton. According to Johnson:

• The state has delivered 32 pallets of bottled water and 10 pallets of meals to the area, and more supplies were arriving Monday.
• Just Crumbs Ministry, a Mississippi-based nonprofit, was providing meals to about 1,000 residents.
• Major roads throughout Escambia County have been cleared.
• Residents with unmet needs should call 211 for help.

Tarps are also being brought into Brewton so homeowners and business owners can protect damaged roofs and walls from further weather. McMillan said one of those tarps will cover the front of Drexell & Honeybee’s once the restaurant reopens.

Johnson said the toughest part now is logistics: setting up distribution points so supplies reach the residents who need them most.

“That is what we’re working on now in what is the receipt point and distribution to the county,” he said.

Conecuh County left out of the declaration

Next door in Conecuh County, which was not included in the federal declaration, officials are still dealing with communications problems. Johnson said a cellular tower serving parts of Conecuh and Escambia counties failed during the storm.

Conecuh County was among the hardest-hit areas in the state when the storm passed. Over the weekend, outage data showed nearly every customer in the county without power at one point.

Other problems in Conecuh County on Monday included:

• The county jail without power. The storm left the Conecuh County Jail without electricity.
• A travel advisory. County officials issued a travel advisory because of debris on roadways.
• Red Cross supplies. The American Red Cross was handing out tarps, shovels, rakes, cleaning supplies and food at Veterans Park in Evergreen, the county seat.

Johnson urged people to stay off damaged roads unless they have a reason to be there.

“We don’t want people running along power lines, trees down the road and making a bad situation even worse,” he said.

Hot meals and volunteer crews

Faith groups, nonprofits and volunteer organizations have poured into the area. Among the relief efforts reported Monday:

• World Central Kitchen set up a rapid-response mobile kitchen at 117 Forrest Ave. in East Brewton, serving meals from noon to 3 p.m. Monday and Tuesday. The nonprofit, founded by chef José Andrés, sends kitchens and food trucks into disaster zones to serve hot meals.
• Community Enabled in Brewton was serving meals Monday.
• The Salvation Army in Flomaton was also serving meals Monday.
• Samaritan’s Purse crews were removing downed trees and tarping damaged homes.
• Jesus Saves International was distributing food, water, hygiene products, backpacks and other supplies.

From curfew to cleanup

The scale of the relief effort reflects how severe conditions were over the weekend. On Saturday, Oct. 10, the Brewton Police Department ordered a 7 p.m. curfew, citing a widespread power outage and extremely dangerous conditions, and said most roadways and sidewalks were blocked by downed trees and power lines. Escambia County Sheriff Heath Jackson said at the time that two deputies sent to an emergency call could not reach it because fallen trees blocked the road, and that one mobile home in the county had been destroyed by wind.

The storm’s path explains much of the damage. Isaias’ center crossed the coast well east of Mobile Bay, but forecasters said a band of extreme winds known as a sting jet raked the storm’s western side, spreading from Escambia County, Fla., north into Escambia, Conecuh and Monroe counties in Alabama. Communities closer to the coast, including Mobile and Gulf Shores, came through with comparatively scattered damage.

How Escambia County residents can get help

Residents dealing with damage or extended outages have several places to turn:

• Call 211. The state is directing residents with unmet needs to the 211 helpline, which connects callers with local services and relief resources.
• Visit meal sites. World Central Kitchen at 117 Forrest Ave. in East Brewton is serving from noon to 3 p.m. Tuesday.
• Contact the Red Cross. The Red Cross can be reached at 1-800-RED CROSS for shelter, supplies and other help.
• Document damage. Photograph damage to homes, vehicles and property before cleanup, for insurance claims and any future assistance applications.
• Use generators safely. Run them outdoors only, far from doors and windows, to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning.
• Beware of scams. State and consumer officials warn that unlicensed contractors and people posing as FEMA representatives often follow storms. FEMA does not charge to apply for assistance.

‘We’ll be OK’

At Drexell & Honeybee’s, McMillan is ready to get back to feeding her neighbors as soon as the electricity returns. A generator kept the restaurant’s freezers running through the outage, she said, so none of its food was lost.

“When they get the lights on, we have no problem with reopening,” she said. “We had a generator going, thank God, that we hooked it up to our freezers. We didn’t lose any food. We’ll be OK.”