After Hurricane Frederic, the residents of Dauphin Island were met by pure devastation. Those who left the island couldn’t get back, and those who rode out the storm on the island say they will surely never ride out a storm like Frederic again.
“What took men years to build on Dauphin Island took Frederic hours to destroy,” said Dr. John Dindo, assistant director at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, where he has worked for 43 years. “Unofficial estimates are the hurricane did 25 million dollars damage to the west end of the island alone.”
Dindo was at the lab during the storm but also volunteered with the fire department. The man who owned Ship and Shore, Mr. Ben Burger, had fire trucks and an old National Guard deuce-and-a-half that he loaded with generators and water. Dindo drove the truck off the island that afternoon expecting to return the next day — but the bridge was gone.
“The Dauphin Island Bridge back then was about 10-12 feet off the water. A concrete bridge, but about 10-12 feet off of the water,” Dindo said. “What happened is the roadbed actually got lifted up by the waves and deposited right there in the water.” The only route on and off the island didn’t make it.
Riding it out in a freezer
Burger and Billy Patronas, one of the island’s first town council members, stayed at the store to avoid the storm and rode it out inside the walk-in freezer. When the storm finally passed, residents found pure devastation.
“Every roof on every one of our buildings got peeled off,” Dindo said. “When the roofs left, all the pebbles on the roofs broke out every window. Then when the rain came, all the buildings got soaked.” Buildings were toppled and roads destroyed. Bienville Boulevard was impassable, its median and sides lined with downed pine trees, and crews had to cut a single lane to get through.
“One house would be right here and that would be wiped out and the next door neighbor’s house would still be standing,” Dindo recalled.
As someone who knows hurricanes well, Dindo offered this advice for anyone tempted to ride out a future storm: “Pay attention to the news teams. Listen to what they are saying. It’s not hype. Broadcasting saves lives. But you have to listen.”