Mobile, AL Hurricane, Oct 1893 - Damage

AFTER THE STORM.

Mobile and the Adjacent Country Suffered Great Damage.

A REPORTER RESCUE LITTLE CHILDREN

Parents Tied Them Up in Trees to Save Them from Drowning.

TWELVE CHURCHES BLOWN DOWN.

Streams Are Filled with Furniture Floating Away – Railroad Tracks and Bridges Washed Out.

Mobile, Ala., October 3. – The details of the storm which broke with such fury over the gulf coast Monday morning and raged with increasing fury for five or six hours are just beginning to come in.

As was feared, the indications are that the loss of life in the lowlands east of the city has been very great. There is no doubt that it will be fully a week or longer before the full story of the storm with all its attendant tales of death and destruction can be fully told. The sun rose clear and bright today. The inundated portion of the city early presented an animated appearance and the work of cleaning out the muddy sediment deposited in the stores by the receding water was pushed with that energy and vigor that characterizes the average Mobilian. The damaged goods were removed from the stores and warehouses to places where they could be dried out. Bridge gangs and section hands were busy along Commerce street repairing the damage to the culverts, bridges and roadbed of the Louisville and Nashville railroad, which runs along this street for nearly a mile.

Among the casualties to shipping the following are all that are known up to the present time: Eastern shore steamer Crescent City beached on the western shore of the bay, two miles below the city; river steamers Lee and Lotus, driven in the marshes high and dry about two miles above the city, and will probably be a total loss, the tug Colonel Woodruff, driven in the marsh and may be saved. The sloop yacht Annie L., owned by M. Marshall, is almost bottom up near the mouth of Chickasabogue creek and may possibly be saved in a damaged condition.

Washes in the Shell Road.
In addition to these vessels quite a number of barges went up on the marshes north of the city. One of the barges used in the dredging work on the channel was also blown high and dry on the eastern shore, a quarter of a mile below the city.

The beautiful shell road which wound along the western shore of Mobile bay for a distance of nine miles is almost a total wreck involving a loss – if it can be replaced at all, which is extremely doubtful – that will take an outlay of between $10,000 to $15,000. It is washed out and where the road once wound around the bends of the shore there is nothing but masses of logs and driftwood piled in the most inextricable confusion while across that portion of the road which the storm has left intact trees have been blown down in a tangled network of foliage that makes passing on foot even difficult.

Communication direct from Mobile and New Orleans by rail and wire has been totally cut off and will probably not be resumed for weeks to come. Between this city and Scranton, the Western Union has barely a pole left standing, thought the Postal fared better. Between Venetia and Scranton, thirty or forty houses have been blown down but no lives have been reported lost. At various towns along the route twelve churches were wrecked, five of them being located at Grand Bay.

Continued