Past Times by Terry Jones
August can be cruel. In modern times, it has spawned hurricanes Camille, Andrew, and Katrina that devastated Louisiana and killed hundreds of people. An equally destructive, but lesser known storm, was the 1856 hurricane that destroyed Last Island.
Last Island, or Isle Dernière, was the western-most, or “last,” island in the Gulf’s Timbalier barrier chain.
It stretched more than twenty miles long and had beautiful white sand beaches, gaming establishments, and a village of about one hundred houses. Last Island also was home to the Trade Wind Hotel, a swanky resort frequented by New Orleans’ upper class.
In early August 1856, hundreds of guests were enjoying the island when the Gulf began acting strangely. People noticed the water seemed to have a bulge on the horizon, and that the “bump” was moving closer to shore.
The bulging horizon was caused by a hurricane and it was moving north. As the storm approached, the seas around Last Island became heavier.
The ferocity of the waves fascinated the vacationers, and they stood for hours watching them crash onto the beach. Robert McAllister, a young Presbyterian minister, wrote, “We did not know then as we did afterwards that the voice of those many waves was solemnly saying to us, ‘Escape for thy life.’”
One man reported that on August 9 “a roaring noise was heard in the distance, and the cattle continued for hours walking nervously to and fro around the enclosure, and lowing in a plaintiff way.”
A blood red sun set that evening, and the sky had a strange greenish hue.
According to legend, the guests of the Trade Wind Hotel ignored the warning signs, and enjoyed a dance that night. By noon the next day, the wind and waves had increased in fury, and rain was pounding the island.
The Star, a ship that serviced Last Island, was scheduled to dock that day, and a number of people decided to take it back to the mainland. But the Star was unable to reach the island, and the now-worried vacationers realized they were trapped.
When the unnamed hurricane slammed ashore about 4 p.m. on August 10, a storm surge swept over the island and began carrying away most of the people and buildings.
One survivor wrote, “Men, women and children were seen running in every direction, in search of some means of salvation.”
McAllister and his friends sought shelter in a house, but the roof suddenly flew off, and the four outside walls gave way. Surprisingly, no debris fell on them. “Nothing could fall,” McAllister explained. “Everything that was in motion went horizontally.”
Realizing they had to escape the rising waters, McAllister’s group crawled on all fours across a wooden walkway to a nearby levee, where they held tight to the wooden frame of a derelict windmill.
They spent the long night dodging logs and other debris that rushed toward them in the swirling water. On one occasion, a waterspout touched down and spun the wooden frame on which they clung around the windmill’s metal pipe.
By dawn it was over, and McAllister and his fellow survivors began walking toward the village. The scene that greeted them was shocking.
“The jeweled and lily hand of a woman was seen protruding from the sand, and pointing toward heaven; farther, peered out from the ground, as if looking up to us, the regular features of a beautiful girl. . . . And, more affecting still, there was the form of a sweet babe even yet embraced by the stiff and bloodless arms of a mother.”
The entire island, including the Trade Wind Hotel, had been swept clean. Of the 100 or so houses, McAllister reported, “Not one was left, nay not a sill nor sleeper, not any part of their foundations to indicate that buildings had once been there.”
It is believed that the Last Island hurricane was a Category 4 with 150 mph winds. Estimates of the Last Island dead range from 140 to 320, and some bodies were found six miles inland. Among the dead were the state’s lieutenant governor and speaker of the house.
The Last Island hurricane also dumped more than thirteen inches of rain on New Orleans, flooded Plaquemines Parish, destroyed every house in Abbeville, and sank the steamer Nautilus with eighty-six people onboard. The sole survivor managed to cling to a cotton bale and float ashore.
When the water drained off Last Island several days later, rescuers found that the powerful storm had split it into five smaller islands (today’s Isles Dernières). The storm surge also stripped away the vegetation and left the islands as barren sandbars.
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