This weather event did not happen in my book. But, I’m positive Bill overheard his father Woodrow and his Uncle Eustace talk about it. An unnamed category 3 hurricane hit Grand Isle, Louisiana on September 29, 1915. Grand Isle is due south of New Orleans, as the crow flies. Overland, you have to travel northwest along Louisiana 1 through Lockport and Mathews to US 90. Then east to the Big Easy. While in the Gulf of Mexico, the winds rated the hurricane a category 4.
The storm caused thirteen million dollars in damage and killed 275 people. The damage total is in 1915 dollars and is not adjusted for today’s inflation rate. In 1915, ships in the path of the storm were the only way to get meteorological data. Satellites in the sky tracking the storm weren’t imaginable back then. The storm began outside the primary shipping lanes, making early data hard to pinpoint. When it reached the Gulf and aligned itself with the shipping lanes, the data poured in. In the afternoon of September 29, the rising storm surge inundated the low-lying lands of Louisiana and areas next to Lake Pontchartrain. Western New Orleans flooded. Flood waters remained for up to four days in some areas. The surge of water crested between fifteen and twenty feet, a record for the region.
The high winds damaged almost every building in New Orleans. They demolished part of the French Market. The storm destroyed over 8000 telephone poles. The Presbyterian Church on Lafayette Square collapsed. The clock at the St. Louis Cathedral stopped at 5:50 p.m. The Times-Picayune building was damaged. In Leeville, only one house survived the storm. Winds blew down telephone wires in Morgan City. Many oyster boats sustained damaged in Plaquemines Parish, crippling the local economy. This was the deadliest hurricane to hit Louisiana until Betsy came along in 1965. Read about it in The Violent Mood Swings of Hurricane Betsy chapter in Bill’s Cajun House of Pleasure.
For more information on this unnamed hurricane, click here.
* * *
What I’m Reading – Many readers I know like to inquire what their favorite author is reading. At the end of each blog post, I’ll let you know what book is open on my Kindle. I hope my choice of reading material inspires you to read a variety of authors and topics. Currently, I’m reading the Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael series. I finished reading The Hermit of Eyton Forest. My review is on Goodreads and Amazon. Next week I’m moving on to book fifteen, The Confession of Brother Haluin.
Bill’s Cajun House of Pleasure is available on Amazon, as an eBook, and in physical formats. It is also available on the Barnes and Noble website.