The Hurricane that Broke Savannah 32.079861° -81.091488°

32.079849° -81.091614°

Hey, everyone!

Is this a great day for a podcast, or what?

No storms… no bad weather… at least not for me where I am.

Sorry if you are. You know the old saying… If you don’t like the weather stick around… It’ll change.

So stick around I’m going to tell you a story about a bad day… weather wise

See, in Savannah and South Georgia, back in 1881, they had a really bad day.

A devil of a hurricane…

The carnage started several miles south of the city where at the sportsman’s club on Wolf Island, the home of the club’s caretaker, Mr. Stokes, was ripped from the foundation and pushed into the river. Floodwaters crashed in the doors and windows and swept his wife and children into the river. His entire family drowned. Only Stokes survived and walked over sixty miles to Savannah to report the event.

I’m JD Byous. Welcome to History by GPS, where we travel through history and culture GPS location by GPS location. So, click on your favorite map app and follow along. Today I’m going to give you a general GPS location which right in the main square of the city, Johnson Square, then, you can find the other places mentioned on our website, HistoryByGPS.com.

Now… that location in Johnson Square is where the weather station kiosk used to sit… before the storm… and the coordinates are

32.079861° -81.091488°

 

From East Broad Street to West Broad Street few buildings escaped the fury and damage of the storm.” As you may know, West Broad is now MLK Blvd should you be visiting Savannah…

This hurricane predated the naming of storms by almost seventy years. In 1881 it was called simply “Hurricane Five” and was only a class 2 hurricane, but Seven hundred people died in the area around the city, with 355 of that total within the city limits. It was one of the deadliest hurricanes in American history.[1]

The Mayor’s Report for the year reported that “A hurricane of unparalleled violence occurred on the 27th of August last, doing great damage to property in the city and vicinity. … and all of the buildings belonging to the city were more or less injured… The fire alarm telegraph wires were broken in many places and leveled to the ground, and a great number of shade trees blown down. The fences and railings enclosing the parks and squares and at Laurel Grove Cemetery were partially blown down and crushed by falling trees.”

As one newspaper described, the Class 2 hurricane that hit Savannah in August 1881 was one of “unparalleled violence… all of the buildings belonging to the city were more or less injured.” And almost all of the buildings in the city had wind or rain damage. 

In the Atlantic, it started as a tropical storm and rolled to the northeast through the Lesser Antilles Island on August 22, and then it bounced up… off of Florida and headed to Savannah. By August 24, it reached hurricane strength. On August 27, it hit land directly at the mouth of the Ogeechee River at high tide, pushing a fifteen-foot storm surge.

In Savannah, wind gusts blew the city wind gauge away after recording a wind speed of 80 miles per hour. The intense damage resulted because Hurricane Five, though it was only estimated to be class two in strength, well, it came to Savannah… and it stayed for two days.

Hmmmm… that’s about the same length of time the tourists hang around here.

Anyway…

Small but slow storms can do as much or more damage