Georges Hits Mississippi; 1.5 Million Evacuated

Slowly but furiously, Hurricane Georges crawled across the tan sands of the Gulf Coast on Monday and lumbered into the state of Mississippi, causing three deaths, spreading destruction across hundreds of miles and driving out 1.5 million people in one of the biggest evacuations in hurricane history.

National Guard troops waded through chest-deep water to carry children to safety. More than 400 people fled shelter in a college gym after the wind demolished the roof. Waves as tall as houses clipped off fishing piers. A 200-foot microwave tower fell into a heap between two nearby buildings, and a 139-year-old restaurant collapsed into Lake Pontchartrain.

As Georges drew near, people were told to leave the coast from Florida to Louisiana. State police in Louisiana called it “probably the largest evacuation we have ever achieved.”

At 8 p.m., the center of the storm hovered about 20 miles north of Biloxi. Winds of 110 mph had dropped to 55 mph, well below hurricane strength, and Georges was virtually stalled. The winds reached out for 70 miles in all directions. Rain poured down at an inch an hour, and forecasters said that up to 30 inches might fall by the time Georges wheezed out in midweek.

The three storm-related casualties included a man in New Orleans and a woman in Pensacola, Fla., both killed in fires started by candles being used for light, and an 86-year-old woman who died while she and 250 other nursing home residents waited for beds at a Baton Rouge, La., shelter. Georges has caused more than 300 deaths since it formed in the Atlantic, most in the Caribbean.

Total damage was estimated to be in the billions of dollars, much of it in Puerto Rico. President Clinton issued a disaster declaration, triggering federal relief for one county in Florida, 18 in Mississippi and six in Alabama, as well as for 18 parishes in Louisiana.

After clipping the Florida Keys and churning northwest across the Gulf of Mexico, Georges slammed ashore on the Gulf Coast during the early morning hours just east of Biloxi. It knocked out power to more than 678,000 homes and businesses. Airports and interstate highways were closed, and curfews were imposed.

Winds gusting up to 174 mph tore the roof off a community college gymnasium that sheltered 404 storm refugees in the town of Gautier, about 20 miles east of Biloxi. The people fled. Minutes later, the hurricane spawned a tornado that damaged the roof at Trent Lott Middle School in Pascagoula, 2 miles farther east. Ninety people huddled inside.

They were trapped for a while, but no injuries were reported.

Just north of Pascagoula, a man in a wheelchair was saved by emergency workers who found him stranded in his home. The Associated Press reported that rapidly rising flood water had reached his lap.

Seventeen miles still farther east, a torrent swept through a housing project near downtown Mobile, Ala. The water rose several feet above the heads of children. National Guard troops scooped them up and carried them out. The troops also led several adults to safety.

Soaring Waves Inflict Damage

Along the Alabama coast and farther east on the Florida Panhandle, soaring waves cut piers in half. Troops were deployed along the panhandle, rescuing about 200 people from their flooded homes.

Forty miles north of the coast, in the small town of Wiggins, a tower carrying microwave transmissions for middle Alabama lost its footing. It hurtled downward and tumbled into a twisted pile, barely missing two buildings.

At the western edge of the storm, the venerable Bruning’s Restaurant fell into Lake Pontchartrain at the edge of New Orleans. But the Big Easy was spared. Most of the city sits 5 feet below sea level, and its residents had feared the worst.

Ten thousand people spent Sunday night in the Superdome.

“We got off pretty lucky,” Derek Pociask told the Associated Press as he walked his dogs through a burst of rain on St. Charles Avenue. “It’d be nice to have electricity, but I’m glad this has turned out to be just a bad rainstorm.”

In Mobile Bay,, water turned into the color of rawhide. Ten feet of it flooded the Cock of the Walk, a restaurant along nearby Interstate 10.

Downtown, Mead Miller, owner of the Pickle Fish, a pizza restaurant, stood not far away holding a Bloody Mary in a plastic cup. He had come to check on his property. But he already knew it had survived. Mobile is guarded by police surveillance cameras, and he had been calling his precinct regularly to keep tabs.

Seeking Shelter From the Storm

Eva Golson, director of the Welcome Center, said her three-level brick and wood-siding home in West Mobile became a refuge for friends and neighbors.

Her daughter, Carolyn, moved in. She had been living alone in a low-lying area. Maurice and Margaret Ludwig, friends from Dauphin Island, 30 miles south of town, moved in as well. So did Dot Finnegan and Catherine Moore, who are neighbors.

“It feels more comfortable to be with others,” Golson said. “It feels safer, somehow.”

Her husband, Bill, a charter captain for 15 years until he sold his boat last year, described much of the damage. “Any number of homes are flooded that never had water before. People who live along the Dog, Fowl, Fish and Magnolia rivers--all short rivers part of the Mobile Bay estuary--are flooded.

“There’s water inside the big pavilion at Ballteship Park, where aircraft are on display. That’s located on the causeway between Mobile and Baldwin counties,” he said. “There is a submarine on display, and we could see on our small battery-operated TV that the wave action has dislodged the submarine as if it’s trying to float again.”

Jodi Swiderick, director of communications for the Mobile Chamber of Commerce, and her husband, Ben, who works at the Alabama Health Department, volunteered to help out in shelters.

“I’m not used to cooking for 200,” Ben Swiderick said. By afternoon, his shelter at Fairhope High School had lost power. “It was a pretty unique experience for me to make 200 ham and cheese sandwiches for dinner.

“We had several babies, one 1-month old, quite a few kids--probably 30 to 40. I feel sorry for the little ones. They get very anxious--so much energy and very little to do. When we lost power, we lost air-conditioning. With all the humidity, the floors and walls started sweating pretty badly.

“The floors became so slippery, it was a problem.”

When the full brunt of the hurricane hit, Barbara Weiss, who lives a block from the beach in Biloxi, was answering the phone. It was a telemarketer trying to sell her a credit card.

“Do you realize I’m in the middle of a hurricane?” she demanded.

The telemarketer started asking her about the storm. “He forgot what he called me for.”

At Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Airman 1st Class Zakia Ray brought her 5-month-old son, Malachi, to work to protect him from the storm. The base lost power. Without air-conditioning, it grew so hot that Ray stripped the baby down to his diaper.

She said she was tempted to strip down, as well.

The Treasure Bay Casino, near Biloxi, built to resemble a pirate ship, broke away from its primary mooring--designed to give way when winds reached 70 mph. But the casino stayed put, held tightly by its secondary mooring: 3-inch chains tied to 60-inch pipes driven into the sea floor and filled with concrete.

The casino and nine others along the Mississippi coast had been closed Friday night by the state Gaming Commission. A preliminary assessment showed little damage, but Chuck Potter, executive director of the commission, said it would be Wednesday or Thursday before they would reopen.

The closure, Potter said, would hardly make a dent in the $2.2 billion the state expected to gross from gambling this year. At Bay St. Louis, Miss., the Rev. Van Carpenter, 59, pastor of the Main Street United Methodist Church, and his wife took refuge in the study. Not long after dark Sunday, a tornado roared past. At midnight, the lights went out. Finally, there was a terrible ripping sound as a neighbor’s tree was torn from the earth.

Seconds later came the inevitable crash. The tree had fallen hard to the ground.

Carpenter’s phone still worked, so he called the neighbor. “Do you want to come over here?”

Surviving a Rough Day

“There’s no way I’m stepping foot out of this house,” the neighbor replied.

Morning came, and the church had survived. Not one of its 1 1/2-inch thick stained glass windows was broken.

But Carpenter could see the tree, an ancient oak. It had cracked and fallen into the cemetery.

At Point Clear, on Mobile Bay, Lory Campbell, a retired physician, counted his losses.

“The house fared well,” he said. “But my pier, boathouse and boat lift are totally demolished. It’s a great emotional shock; these are extensions of your home. It kind of feels like you have an arm cut off.

“I’ve never seen a day as rough as today, never seen such turbulence in the bay. In my area, everybody is wiped out: life preservers, fishing tackle, roofs of boat houses are floating by. There are piers and pavilions at every property, every 50 to 100 feet. All are gone. The fun part of living on water is gone.”

Campbell spent the night in a shelter. “I was inconvenienced,” he said, his voice rising, “but I still have my home.”

Residents View Destruction

At the Orange Grove housing project in Mobile, a pale blue Buick sat silently in water up to its tail lights.

Stanley Payne, 23, looked at it grimly.

“There’s a lot of people who’ve lost a whole lot,” he said. “Most people lost their cars. Most people say they’re going to run across the scale at the junkyard tomorrow and see what they can get.” A scale, he said, was how the junkyard determined what to pay.

A truck plowed past, carrying National Guard troops. In its wake, water washed up onto the concrete porch of a first-floor apartment. The water carried a plastic bag and a sneaker.

Shedrick Perry, 25, surveyed the damage.

“The weather can really set you back,” he said. “Whether you’re rich or poor, it can set you back. But especially poor people in the projects.” He said few of them had insurance.

Could anything have been done to avoid this?

“Maybe the drainage system could have worked a little bit better,” Perry said, dryly. “It takes something like this to get them to do something.”

Times staff writer Richard E. Meyer in Los Angeles and researchers Lianne Hart in Houston, Edith Stanley in Atlanta and Anna M. Virtue in Miami contributed to this story.