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AU Geology Professor Gets Close-Up Look at Devastation on the Coast

By: William White, OA News

A month after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast Aug. 29, 2005, Phil Chaney, associate professor of geography at Auburn University, took to the air to survey damage to the coastal islands.

“During Katrina, I was here in Auburn monitoring the Weather Channel and the Internet,” Chaney said. “When it came in, I saw that it hit in New Orleans, so I knew what was going to happen along the Mississippi Coast from my studies in the past.”

The associate professor of geography said he had been down to Dauphin Island the year before to look at the damage from Hurricane Ivan (Sept. 16, 2004) and has been looking at hurricanes over the past 10 years.  “Like Hurricane Camille (Aug. 17, 1969), Katrina was really going to do a lot of damage down there,” Chaney said. “From past experience, I knew that right after the hurricane, things would be really crowded down there.  So I waited about 30 days before I tried to go down.

He said he called the flight school group that had helped him in the past. “Because they know me, I was the first unofficial person they agreed to take up. They had been working with the cellular phone tower people and others,” Chaney said.

“I drove down to the Mobile airport on the 30th of September, met my pilot, Mike Wallace, and we went up in a small, single-engine airplane. We flew down the coast from Mobile airport to the end of Mobile Bay, across to Bayou La Batre, on across to Mississippi all the way over to Bay St. Louis and Waveland, where Camille came ashore.

I took photographs along all of that area.  When we came back, we flew back across the barrier islands. We went across Ship Island, where the old Civil War fort, Fort Massachusetts, is located. Fort Massachusetts is where I did my doctoral research in the 1990s. Flew back over Dauphin Island and on to the airport. After I got back, I got in my car and drove down to Dauphin Island and took more photos.”

Chaney said the hurricane’s destruction involved a tremendous amount of water. “It reminded me a lot of what I saw after Hurricane Opal (Oct. 4, 1995) hit Pensacola, Fla. I was there within a week after Opal hit. The evidence of waves coming on shore ad wiping out all the foundations of all the buildings was very clear, especially on Dauphin Island. There, you could see where the houses were snapped right off the posts. The houses were completely gone.

It was fascinating for me because I was there the year before and saw the damage from Ivan. I had done the flight and had been on the ground, too. I could see from Ivan a lot of homes had been wiped out. Then to see it the next year with Katrina, more were gone.”

Chaney said he was lost and unable to identify landmarks as he flew along the Gulf Coast. “All along the Mississippi coast, it was shocking because I was so familiar with it, but yet, flying along in the airplane I couldn’t tell where I was – all the landmarks were gone. I know the area from my many years doing research over there and driving along Highway 90, the coastal highway. I knew where all the major restaurants, the casino boats, the malls, the hotels and all that kind of stuff were.

The casinos were all wiped out. I couldn’t really tell where I was because they were all jumbled up. I remember the Hard Rock Café had not opened yet. They were getting ready for their grand opening, and it was completely wiped out.”

The associate professor of geography said that at Gulf Port, the loading docks and warehouses were a complete mess, and the Coast Guard station was wrecked. “They have a little mini-SeaWorld there, which had all been flooded. The dolphins got out and were out in the Gulf there. I guess some of the people at the park got some help, and the dolphins stayed in the area. They were able to rescue them, but the park was wrecked.”

“It wasn’t until I got back to my office and went through the photos that I was able to figure out where I was,” Chaney said.

“The amount of devastation was something else. It looked like an atomic bomb had gone off and just wiped out everything.”

He said there was a clear line where the water was, and beyond that was the wind damage. “The other thing that was interesting was how far back in from the water’s edge that the damage extended. There were places where it went three to five city blocks back,” Chaney said.

“In areas, there was a bunch of cabin-type structures where half of the little condo units wee gone. You could see where half of them were standing, but half of them were gone, and that’s where the water line was. That was really something else.”

Chaney said, from the air, the blue tarps dominated the rooftops. “You hear about the blue roofs. That is something I had gotten used to seeing, but the numbers down there were really amazing,” Chaney said. “FEMA or state EMAs got the blue tarps out there, so you see blue tops all throughout the region, but everything else was gone.”

He said there were surprises as he flew along the coast and over the barrier islands. “One thing I did notice was that the old Biloxi Lighthouse was still standing. That was one of the landmarks I could pick out.”

He said he noticed some trees remained, and the birds had returned by the time he flew over a month later. “Typically what happens, the birds kind of know something’s up and leave the area. They are back in a couple of days. The water is stirred up, so they are getting in there and feeding after the storm passes.

I noticed that out on the islands a lot of trees were still standing, which I was surprised about. You could see where the islands had been over washed, but you could see that a lot of the trees were still there. I expected them to be completely gone.

There were no trees on Ship Island, but it has never really recovered from Hurricane Georges in September 1998 and then Ivan and Katrina hit. All that is left out on Ship Island is the fort. Everything else is flat. Before Hurricane Georges hit, there were dunes 20 feet high.”

He said the Gulf’s waters had also cleared up. “Thirty days later, things had settled down and the water was pretty clear. Things were pretty much getting back to normal as far as the Gulf. But, definitely, things were not normal back on land.”

Chaney said he has learned to wait for several weeks now instead of being on site right after the storm. When Opal hit at Pensacola, he had special permission with the National Park Service to look at the damage.

“There were very, very difficult times down there. A lot of the people who are managing the area really don’t have time for somebody like me, unless I am down there on a specific research issue. The other thing is that it is very, very difficult to get gas, water, food and a place to stay.”

He said he learned another lesson about going in too soon after a disaster. “Actually with Ivan, I tried to drive down just a couple of days after that, and I realized, after getting halfway down there, I was going to be out of gas, and I was going to be stranded. Unless you have a lot of resources and a lot of money, then it is very difficult to get in there. Now, I wait to get in there.”

Chaney said boats and cars were anywhere and everywhere out of place as he drove into the coastal areas. “There were cars on top of cars. Cars lifted up completely out of place. Houses that had fallen on cars.

Boats were in places where there are not supposed to be boats. Boats right on the side of the highway. Boats washed up a hundred yards up on shore. I remember after Ivan I got a picture of a boat stuck in the drive-in tellers window at a bank on Dauphin Island. Boats were up on top of houses or on top of other boats.”

A month after the hurricane hit, residents, for the most part, still had not moved back. “Even 30 days later, there is still nobody around. The guys doing the clean-up are there, along with the security guards. There are basically no residents. The roads are torn up. It is a different world after one of those things.”

Chaney described the long process involved in moving sand that had been displaced onto the streets. “They come in with the bulldozers to clear the roads and pile up all that sand on the side of the road. As they clean up, this gigantic dune that has been built is taller than your car. You are standing there, looking down a long, straight stretch of road, and there are these dunes of sand on the side of the road for as far as you can see. If you didn’t know better you would think they were big drifts of snow.