AN APOLOGY
In our article, Frenier Beach - Hurricane Storm Surge revisited, Volume 39, Number 4, July/August 1996 of the Consultant, Mr. Landry neglected to include his bibliography with the story. The article was based in large part on an interview by Wayne Norwood with Mrs. Helen Schlosser Berg just prior to her death as well as newspaper articles from the 1915 Times Picayune.
It was in the late thirties that I first heard of Frenier Beach. My memory is vague, but I remember weekend picnics there with my family. Frenier Beach, located on the Western shore of Lake Ponchartrain, three miles north of Laplace Louisiana, wasn't a beach at all. As I recall, there was an old pavilion there, a wood structure painted green, a dilapidated pier with a bathhouse, and not much else except swamp and cypress knees. The surrounding land between the swamp and the lake shore was shaded by large cypress and live oak trees and was covered with a luxurious carpet of St. Augustine grass. Gentle breezes off the lake, together with the shade, made the area an ideal place for weekend family picnics.
Memories of Frenier Beach and those idyllic outings faded as I grew older and became enmeshed in my engineering education and practice. Occasionally, I would come across the name, "Frenier" or "Frenier Beach," while studying maps and charts of Lake Ponchartrain, and I wondered why such a minuscule landmark would assume such prominence on a U.S. Coast and Geodetic survey map of the area. Curious and wanting to rekindle old memories, in 1988 my wife and I drove out to the site of the old resort. We traveled on U. S. Highway 51-North about three miles out of Laplace, then turning east on a poorly maintained asphalt road, crossed the Illinois Central Railroad main line, finally reaching the road's end at Frenier on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain. The view of the lake and the picturesque cypress swampland might have been breathtaking except for the piles of trash, debris, and garbage strewn about. The pier with its bathhouse and the pavilion were gone.
It is a place that seems unable to make up its mind whether it will be earth or water, the remnants of a once pristine swamp of stately cypress trees, silent and foreboding, and cloaked in Spanish moss. The area is a part of the Isle of Orleans, a finger of land, bordered by Lake Ponchartrain, Pass Manchac, and Lake Maurepas. The land was explored in 1698-99 by a Canadian-born Frenchman, Pierre le Moyne, Sieur d'Iberville, during his journey through the Lower Mississippi River Delta. While coming down the Mississippi River, Iberville was told by a Manchac Indian of a short cut to the Gulf of Mexico. Pass Manchac, of course, is named after this Indian tribe.
Economic development of the area began in 1807 when William Donaldson, a New Orleans businessman, set up a small saw mill on the eastern shore of Lake Maurepas at Pass Manchac. After only three and one-half years, the enterprise was extremely successful, even though big-time lumbering did not begin until late in the Nineteenth Century, when more modern and efficient methods of logging had been developed.
Largely because of its inaccessibility, the peninsula remained uninhabited until 1850 when Martin Schlosser, a German immigrant, settled there and made his living making wood staves. Later he obtained cabbage seeds from his homeland and, thereafter, thrived by growing cabbages, prized for their size and flavor, in the mineral-rich, black virgin soil.
Martin was soon joined by his nephew, Adam Schlosser, who with his wife and twelve children also set up a cabbage farm. This family prospered, too, and in about 1845, they were joined by the families of M. M. Schlosser, another Adam Schlosser, John Frederick William Windecker, the Ulriches, and a French family named Grant.
The year 1854 marked the completion of the New Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern Railroad through the area. The fare was three cents per mile with initial depots at Kenner, Frenier, and Galva. Planning for this road had begun in 1852 when James Robb and some other Orleanians, along with the State of Louisiana, pooled their resources and organized the endeavor which culminated in the construction of this new railroad. The line began in New Orleans at the intersection of Calliope Street and Carrollton Avenue, then known as Canal Avenue, where it curved to the west and continued straight to Kenner.
Following the Civil War, the original Louisiana investors sold their collective interest in the road to Henry S. McComb who, in January 1883, sold the line to the syndicate forming the Illinois Central Railroad. Construction of the rail line was difficult due to the "trembling prairie," underlain by extremely soft clay and decayed organic material to a depth up to twenty-five feet, which extended westward along the lake shore from the proximity of the New Basin Canal to Bayou Labranche. Instead of making an embankment, the railroad was built upon timber cribbing, which was elevated on cypress piling above the swampy terrain. Unfortunately, the top of the timber cribbing was constructed to an elevation below the flood-plane of the area.
In 1863, during the War Between The States, in order to secure the railroad on the southern side of Pass Manchac, Colonel Edward Bacon of the United States' Sixth Michigan Volunteers, was forced to march his troops on the railroad track all the way from Kenner, Louisiana to Pass Manchac. The march was difficult due to the hot, humid weather, and many of the soldiers broke their ribs and suffered other serious injuries falling through the spaces between the ties.
Following the Civil War, the area prospered, and wood stave manufacturing and cabbage and other vegetable farming became the main economic activities of the settlers. Construction of the railroad had given birth to six small communities along the route between Kenner and Pass Manchac: Labranche on the southern shore of Lake Pontchartrain, then north through the swamp to Frenier, Wagram (later known as Napton), De Sair Station, Ruddock, and finally, Galva on the south side of Pass Manchac. In time, Ruddock became known for its lumber industry. In the other villages, farming predominated.
In 1887, the Burton Lumber Company and the Ruddock Cypress Company, Ltd. were organized, and following a timber "cruise" of the peninsula in July, 1888, William L. Burton estimated that the area held about four million linear feet of cypress logs.
These vast timber reserves could not be fully exploited, however, until feasible methods were developed to allow the removal of the timber from the alligator and snake-infested quagmire which faced the lumberjacks. Fortunately, in 1891, the pull-boat and overhead skidder, invented by Joseph Rathborne of the Louisiana Cypress Lumber Company of Harvey, Louisiana, were introduced to the logging industry. The labor savings, resulting from the use of these machines, caused an immediate boom in the logging business, and by 1894, the Barton Lumber Company and the Ruddock Cypress Company, Ltd. had become the two largest suppliers of cypress timber in Southeast Louisiana.
At the height of its prosperity, Ruddock was a progressive, booming community built on stilts above the black waters of the swamp. Stilt-supported wooden sidewalks ran the length of the village with walkways branching out to two-story houses on each side. Most of the structures, particularly those located track-side, were painted "railroad" gray. The village also boasted a community center, a blacksmith shop, a locomotive repair shop, an office and commissary for the Ruddock Cypress Lumber Company, a one-room school house, the Holy Cross Catholic Church, and a railroad depot with a two-story rooming house attached. The Owl Saloon, specializing in men's entertainment, was discretely located about a half-mile south and down the line from the town.
At Frenier and the other small communities, the economy centered around barrel stave manufacturing and cabbage farming. The prized vegetables were harvested, packed in locally made barrels, and then shipped via the railroad to Chicago, Illinois and other northern cities. Most of the residents in these villages prospered and were able to live comfortable lives. Like other farming communities, because of the hot, humid climate, workers came in from the fields at lunch time and returned to their work at three o'clock in the afternoon. There were no grocery stores, and housewives would stand track-side to wait for the daily train to New Orleans. The train would stop, and the housewives would give their grocery lists and money to the engineer who would drop them off in New Orleans. The engineer would then pick up the orders and deliver the groceries by train a few days later.
About 1914, Philomene Louviere, then about twenty-one years old, married Ernst Paasch, an agent for the Illinois Central Railroad, and settled in Labranche, a small farming community about twenty miles from New Orleans. The Illinois Central used Bayou Labranche as a stopping point for refilling their engine boilers. They had constructed a windmill here, and by 1910, had added a bunkhouse and a station. The couple lived in the bunkhouse where she recalled cooking for her husband, four section hands, and nine dogs.
Mrs. Helen Schlosser Berg, born in the village of Wagram in 1901, told of a wonderful life. "We raised our vegetables and would kill deer, rabbits and other game for our meat. Once a month, on a Saturday night, we would have a party. It would be held at a different person's house each month. We would play music, dance, and sing songs from late afternoon until morning." Some of the boys "would put alligator oil on their hair to hold it down. They smelled so bad that the girls didn't want anything to do with them. We had no cars and no roads. We knew about Laplace, but a five to ten-mile walk through the swamp to get there was too much. We had no doctors, and all the babies were delivered by midwife. Our mothers treated us when we were sick. We had no electricity, and our drinking water came from cisterns.
"We had a Catholic church and a school. A priest would come from New Orleans once a month to hold Mass. School was held whenever we could get a Sister from New Orleans. The Sister, a Dominican Nun, would catch the train in the morning and return to New Orleans in the afternoon after school. We were having the time of our lives," she said.
The year was now 1915, and the weather had been generally balmy and dry in the months of August and September with summer breezes, when there was one, out of the south or southeast. As is characteristic for this time of the year, the warm anticyclone, known by meteorologists as the Azores-Bermuda High, was stationary over the Gulf States, and as a result, there had not been much rain for the past few months.
There had been a few hurricanes that summer. The first, a tropical storm, had struck Daytona Beach, Florida on August 2nd; the second, a hurricane with maximum winds of 120 MPH, had made landfall near Galveston, Texas on August 17th; the third storm, which remained in the Atlantic, had crossed over the Isle of Bermuda on September 3rd; and the last and fourth storm, had hit Apalachicola, Florida with winds up to 85 MPH on September 4th. That this might prove to be an active hurricane season was no cause for anxiety to the villagers. They had been through storms before, and everyone remembered the hurricanes of 1868 and 1908. There had been damage, but the communities had survived.
Unbeknown to the townspeople along the western shore of Lake Ponchartrain,
a wave in the Easterlies had slipped off the African Coast into the warm,
tropical region of the Atlantic Ocean, known as the "inter-tropical
convergence zone" or "equatorial trough," and was traveling
west at about 20 MPH. Nearing the Isle of Martinique in the West Indies,
the transition from tropical wave to tropical depression took place as
the system became better organized and narrow, spiral-shaped bands of clouds
developed around the center of rotation. The depression strengthened, and
by September 22nd, had grown to tropical storm intensity, and had crossed
the Isle of Martinique with maximum winds of up to 70 MPH. A few days later
on September 27th, the storm, now a hurricane, had been guided through
the Yucatan Channel by strong steering currents and was in the Gulf of
Mexico moving northwest at 12 MPH. The hurricane, a Category II storm on
the Saffir-Simpson scale with winds up to 110 MPH in the eye wall, was
headed directly toward the Central Gulf Coast and the city of New Orleans.
The storm was 610 miles from Frenier, and assuming a direct path, was approximately
fifty hours away.
Early in the week of September 27th, Adam Schlosser, Helen's father, got a copy of the Times-Picayune newspaper from a conductor as the daily train passed through. There was an article telling of the approach of the hurricane, and Helen recalled that her father mentioned that "one day a storm would really hurt their town." Still, no one seemed concerned except for a few superstitious residents in Frenier who were upset over the death of "Aunt" Julie Brown.
Julie Brown, who owned much property in the area, had been the town oracle in Frenier for many years. In the early evenings, Julie would sit on her front porch singing and playing her guitar. One of her favorite songs foretold the destruction of the town, and the lyrics of the song included, "one day I'm gonna die, and I'm gonna take all of you with me."
Tuesday, September 28th, dawned a little warmer than usual with plenty of hot, tropical sunshine. A strange stillness had settled over the marsh that morning. Leaves and the ever-present palmetto fronds barely moved, and then only occasionally. Not a bird was seen or heard. There were no high or middle clouds, only a few fair-weather cumuli, and no sign of a cooling shower anywhere. The sun that hung over the marsh that morning was red, blood red, giving credence to the old adage, "Red sky in morning, sailor take warning!" As the hours passed, the weather felt unusually oppressive and sultry, and the wind had grown variable and fitful with occasional calms. The barometer was normal. By now, the storm in the Gulf of Mexico was a Category III hurricane moving northwest at 10 MPH. The winds in the eye wall had reached 115 MPH, and the center was located approximately 480 miles from Frenier. Assuming a direct path, the storm would reach Frenier in approximately two days.
Lena Windecker did not notice the strangeness as she awoke that morning. Lena was in a happy, joyful mood since it was her 16th birthday, and she, her mother, and two sisters had risen early in order to make cookies and cakes for a birthday party that night.
By mid-morning fine wisps of cirrus clouds had appeared in the southeast, and by early afternoon they had passed the zenith, moving swiftly toward the northwest. Cirrostratus clouds were solid and milky in the east and southeast. Frenier villagers now glanced frequently toward the lake shore at the heavy swells and surf. By mid-afternoon, gentle breezes had begun to rustle through the foliage, and the sound was somewhat different than usual. In the late afternoon, as darkness settled over the town, smooth altostratus clouds obscured the sunset. The wind had shifted to a direction out of the southeast and was gusty. The barometer had begun to fall. The hurricane was now 315 miles from Frenier and moving steadily on a north-northwest course at 14 MPH. The winds near the eye had reached 115 MPH, and the storm center was approximately two days from Frenier.
In the Windecker living room that night, as an accordion played German folk tunes to the sound of dancing feet and happy laughter, the party goers played games and celebrated Lena's birthday. About 10 o'clock in the evening it had begun to rain; the wind had picked up; and the party began to break up so that the revelers could get home through the rising wind and rain squalls before the weather turned worse.
Toward midnight, the wind was blowing from the east and increasing with every passing squall. By now, the surf on Lake Pontchartrain was wild and noisy. The sea was tremendous, and scud clouds were moving rapidly overhead. The pounding of rain showers was thunderous, and even when a squall had passed, the rain did not completely cease. Lamps began to flicker weakly from the windows as worried neighbors arose from bed to check the security of their homes, and in the flaring lightning, a few houses could be seen disintegrating. Waves rushing in from the lake rose higher and higher, and water began to sweep across the floor of the Windecker residence. Suddenly, as though ripped off by an explosion, the Windecker's roof disappeared. Then the walls collapsed and floated away into the angry night, with the roaring of the wind and the crashing of the thunder drowning out the screams and shouts of the occupants those walls had protected. Members of the Windecker family, who were not struck by flying debris, climbed into trees and clung there for the remainder of the storm. Lena's birthday had ended.
When Helen Schlosser got home from Lena's birthday party, she, her sisters, and brothers were put to bed by her mother. Helen recalled that, "Before daylight, the rain was so hard that Daddy got up and lit the oil lamps. The wind was blowing so hard it just whistled through the large cypress house and made the oil lamps flicker. You could see the waves hitting against the water breakers." By now the storm, nearing landfall at Grand Isle in Louisiana, was a Category IV hurricane and 165 miles from Frenier. It continued its north-northwest course at 13 MPH. The barometric pressure in the center of the storm had reached a low of 27.61 inches of mercury, and winds in the eye wall had reached 130 MPH. At Frenier, the barometer continued to fall, and the storm center was only about 12 hours away.
It was early Wednesday, September 29th, in New Orleans, and construction crews of the Illinois Central Railroad were gathering to be sent to Frenier. The section of main-line track from Frenier to Ruddock had always been considered a dangerous stretch and bore watching. Soon the wires were down all along the route, and the main office in New Orleans could get no word from any point up the line. Huge waves were rushing in from the lake, and the raging wind was uprooting trees and tossing them across the track. As far as the eye could see the land was inundated.
At Labranche, Philomene and Ernst Paasch had become trapped by the storm surge and huge waves rolling in from the lake. They finally had to swim for their lives as the station was tossed about by the surging flood and finally wrecked.
By nine o'clock the situation was growing serious at the Adam Schlosser residence in Wagram. Helen recalled that "water was all around the house and all the way to the railroad tracks. The water had now risen about ten-feet, and waves were hitting against our house. Daddy told Mother to get the kids ready. 'We are going to have to leave the house. I think it is going to wash away.' We had Daddy, Mother, and five kids in the house, and all of us kids were crying and scared to death, Daddy and Mother kept saying that everything would be all right. 'It is just some bad weather,' they said.
"All we had was one small cypress boat, and Daddy knew he couldn't take everyone in one trip. Daddy put us kids in the boat and then just stopped for a moment and looked at Mother. I know now that, when he looked at her, it meant, 'I love you, and I hope to be with you again.' The wind was blowing toward the railroad, and it took us there in about a minute.
"We thought it was going to blow us all the way across the track, but Daddy jumped out and held the boat. 'Wait here,' he yelled over the wind, 'I have to go back and get Mother.'" The rain was slashing down now, "so hard that it was hurting us. We huddled together and put a table cloth over us so the rain wouldn't hurt, but the cloth blew away.
"We could see the large waves hitting the house, and it was starting to move. We knew that if Daddy didn't make it soon, Mother would be killed. Daddy tried and tried and finally got to the house. After they were in the boat, the wind just blew them back to the tracks. We all huddled together and walked and crawled down the track to the school house.
"We went into the small school, and it was dark and cold, and the wind whistled through the cracks. Daddy and Mother knelt on the floor and started praying. The school house was behind the railroad track, and Daddy thought this would stop the water." The water had now risen to twenty-feet and had started coming over the track. Waves began hitting the school.
By this time, the storm, having made landfall at Grand Isle, had decreased in intensity to a Category II hurricane. The center, bearing down on New Orleans, was 90 miles from Frenier and still on a north-northwesterly course at 12 MPH, and the wind velocity had decreased to about 100 MPH in the eye wall. The barometer at Frenier continued to fall, and the storm center was only seven hours away.
In Frenier, mourners had gathered to attend the funeral of "Aunt" Julia Brown. The funeral had been scheduled for four o'clock that afternoon, and "Aunt" Julia's body had been placed in her casket which, in turn, had been placed in the customary wooden box and sealed. By four o'clock, however, the storm had become so violent that the wind surged in gusts emitting that infamous "hurricane wail," that unreal "scream of the devil." The sound alone was horrible enough, but mixed with breaking glass and crashing debris, it utterly terrified the guests who panicked and vacated the house in a stampede.
At Wagram, Helen Schlosser and her family had been joined at the school house by her uncle and his family. Waves were buffeting the school, and the building was starting to move. Helen recalled that her daddy ordered, "We have to leave the school," and again he loaded his family into the small boat and pushed off. Mr. Schlosser swam alongside the boat as they headed into the swamp.
"Daddy thought that if we got far enough into the swamp, we might be safe," Helen said, "We just knew we were going to die. We had gone way out in the swamp when we heard a train whistle blowing. It was Train No. 99 bound from Hammond to Harahan. The engineer knew where everyone lived and was stopping at each home and blowing his whistle so that they could get on the train. As the train got near the school and church, we were afraid it would leave us, and everyone began waving their arms and shouting, hoping that the engineer would see or hear us. We paddled that little boat as fast as we could with our hands, and just as the train was about to leave, they saw us.
"We boarded the train and headed south, stopping at each house along the way, picking up people. I was barefooted. I only owned one pair of shoes, and they had gotten lost in the swamp."
After going a few miles, the crew found that a section of the track had washed away, and began backing the train. Soon they were back to the place where the school had been located, but the track had washed away there, too. Now they were stranded, and waves fifteen-feet high were crashing against the cars.
Helen remembered that, the "water was about two-feet deep in the train now, and we could do nothing. Everyone in the train knelt in the water and prayed for hours." Over twenty persons took refuge in the caboose of Train No. 99. A. M. Russell, brakeman for the train, recalled that the women and children became hysterical as the water rose to the floor of the car. At this time, the hurricane had decreased to tropical storm intensity with 70 MPH winds in the eye wall. The storm, now passing through New Orleans, was still heading north-northwest at a speed of 12 MPH. As the eye of the storm passed over Tulane University, a barometric pressure of 28.11 inches of mercury was noted. At this time, assuming that the center of the tropical storm was about twenty-five miles in diameter, the edge of the eye wall was only about eight miles from Frenier.
In the meantime, about fifty people had crowded into the train station at Ruddock and were on their knees praying when the building blew away, and they were hurled into the raging torrent.
On Wednesday morning, R. L. Hazlegrove, Roadmaster for the Illinois Central Railroad, had arrived in Frenier from New Orleans, and G. M. Becker had come from Hammond. Together the two men took charge of the track repair. The track near Frenier was regarded as the weakest section in the Louisiana Division, and there was a standing rule in the Illinois Central Maintenance Department that section gangs would be rushed to this point to save the tracks from washout in the event of a storm.
In the afternoon on Wednesday, when the storm had become severe, Becker and Hazlegrove took refuge in the section house occupied by Peter Elardo, a section foreman, and Mr. and Mrs. Louis Berg, a few hundred yards from the depot. The howling wind, the rushing and roaring tide, and the awful surge of water which swept in from the lake, thundering like an artillery barrage, made a picture which was, at once, appalling and terrible, the likes of which Hell could scarcely equal. As the storm grew more and more violent, everyone in the house knelt down and began to pray. At 5:30 P. M. a great gust of wind destroyed the front of the building, and the occupants, no longer safe, were forced out into the storm.
In the teeth of the wind, Mr. and Mrs. Berg started down the track to the depot. Hazlegrove, to prevent their one-year-old child from being torn from her mother's arms by the wind, insisted upon carrying the baby. He helped Mrs. Berg onto the tracks and then returned to the house for the child. He was last seen coming out of the house with the child in his arms, but the wind caught him, hurling both him and the baby into the swamp.
Peter Elardo, apparently realizing that it was useless to resist the elements further, bade all in the house goodbye before they went into the storm. While he was assisting the last person out, the waves took the house, and Elardo was killed. He had saved everyone else.
At the height of the storm, a party of railroad workers at Hammond organized a rescue party to assist some marooned storm victims stranded at Pass Manchac. They went down with an engine and caboose and collected forty-two survivors who sought to escape to higher ground. While the crew was engaged in the search for others, much valuable time was lost, and the water rose until the flood reached the fire box on the engine. Thus, they were left helpless on the track as the water rose over a foot above the floor of the caboose.
At this point, one of the train crewmen crawled out on the engine, perched on top of the boiler, embraced the iron dome, and said, "Baby, I know you won't leave me." In spite of the storm's fury, the heavy engine remained faithfully on the track, and took the group to safety as soon as steam could be raised.
George Schlosser and his family had been warned early in the afternoon to vacate their home and seek higher ground. Even though the house was on the lake shore, and water was rising all around it, they refused to leave. The Schlosser's house was hurled from its foundation and wrecked. George and his twelve-year-old daughter, Lizzie Belle, were swept inland on the crest of the flood, straddling a dog kennel. Mrs. Schlosser saved herself by getting in an old boat. Lydia, ten years old, rode out the flood on the roof of a chicken coop and was later rescued. Frank Schlosser, found floating on a piece of debris, was also rescued.
There were thirty people in the depot when it collapsed at about 6:00 o'clock. Just before the collapse, Train No. 99, which had been standing alongside, moved north to avoid the rising water. The occupants of the building were thrown into the frothing, raging flood and swept into the swamp beyond. The water was full of debris, and many were able to cling to flotsam until they reached the safety of the trees and could hang from the branches. They were found later that night by rescuers some 2,000 yards inland. Adam Schlosser, Helen's uncle and a brother of George, was buried under the depot when it collapsed. His wife saved herself by holding onto the gutter on the second story of the building.
Mary Jane Wilson, her husband, Hadley, and their nine-year-old son, Arthur, took refuge in a gondola car. Although the water poured in over the top of the car, and the wind and current battered it with wreckage, the family endured the storm without a scratch.
By nine o'clock that night, the storm center was passing just a few miles to the East of Frenier, and it was still on a north-northwest course. The barometer had begun to rise, and the maximum winds, now from the north, and later from the west, were still 70 MPH, but the worst was over.
It was time for the crew of Train No. 99 to venture forth to see what destruction the storm had wrought. They knew nothing of the disaster which had befallen those in the station, but the groans and screams of the victims hanging in the trees soon became evident even above the fury of the wind. The marooned victims could see their rescuers' lanterns and called repeatedly for help.
The plucky crewmen started rescue work at once. "We forgot ourselves, and the danger we were running. No one could have resisted those heart-rending appeals for help," said S.G. Story, conductor of the train. A skiff was found, and emergency flares were lighted and held by one crewman while others explored the swamp, guided only by the cry of marooned victims. In many instances, immediate action was necessary to save lives, and the trainmen, not waiting for the return of the lone boat, swam to the victims. The flickering red light of the emergency flares, by which the rescue team worked, reflected upon a scene of moss-covered desolation which begs description.
Conductor Story was a modest man, and while he praised the work of his train crew, he declined to talk about the part that he had played as a rescuer himself. Mr. Story was crippled with rheumatism and was well-advanced in years. His men begged him to stay on the tracks, but he refused to heed their appeals and personally rescued several children by swimming out to trees in which they were stranded.
The vivid story of little ten-year-old Lydia Schlosser is told by Flagman A. M. Russell. "I heard a little girl calling for help in the darkness, and I recognized her voice. 'Where are you?' I asked. 'On a piece of board holding on to a tree,' she replied. 'Is your sister, Lizzie Belle, with you?' 'Yes, she's drowning.' 'Can't you hold her hand until I can get to you?' 'No,' she replied, 'She's got away from me.'" George Schlosser, who had floated away on the dog kennel with his daughter, Lizzie Belle, had relinquished his hold on it and had vanished.
The crew of Train No. 99 proved to be real heroes. The trip made that afternoon to pick up people along the tracks was conducted over a roadbed which had been washed away in several places. Only the engine crew had remained on the train when these treacherous places were crossed. The attention of Engineer West Graves, a Hammond resident, was directed to the danger. "May as well not have an engine, as one we can't use," he told his fellow trainmen. He never once flinched during the ordeal. Besides West Graves, the engineer, A. M. Russell, the flagman, and S. G. Story, the conductor, the other members of the brave crew of Train No. 99 were L. T. Addison, brakeman, Tom Finck, brakeman, and T. Kendall, fireman. All were Hammond residents.
One little girl, Ethelyn Woodsen, was taken by the train crew out of a box car which had been carried by the flood some 3,000 feet from the track. She was holding on to a beam in the ceiling with one hand and to her two-year-old brother with the other. The child had been hanging in this position for an hour before she was rescued. Her little brother was dead.
Helen Schlosser Berg recalled that the next morning the weather was beautiful. "The water had gone down, and the lake was as smooth as glass. The sun came up, big, red, and warm. It was one of the most beautiful days that I had ever seen," she said. "People started to come out of their hiding places and looking around for their families. We could not believe our eyes as we looked around. We saw only one house left standing. It was the home of Theodore Grode. It was kind of sideways, but it was there."
Trees were washed away, and of the ones that were left standing, the bark was washed off every one of them. The refugees had only the clothes on their backs, nothing else, for everything they owned had washed away into the swamp. At the time of the storm, the Illinois Central switch was full of empty box cars, and when the storm surge occurred, it lifted the cars off their wheels and scattered them all over the swamp.
At Labranche early Thursday morning after the storm had passed, Ernst and Philomene Paasch, having spent the night in a tree above the flood, commandeered an abandoned, "Heaven-sent" skiff as it drifted past. Paddling vigorously with their hands, they were able to reach the track embankment and safety.
At 11 A. M. on Thursday, Frank T. Mooney, Superintendent of Terminals for the Illinois Central Railroad, arrived in New Orleans from Chicago. He had come in on a fast train which, in order to bypass the washed out track, had been detoured to the Y. & M. V. mainline at Baton Rouge. He at once took charge of the situation and sought to ascertain the conditions along the line between New Orleans and Pass Manchac. He went as far as Labranche on a wrecking train, but there the train had to stop, since water, driven in from the lake, covered the double tracks and made further progress too dangerous.
Mooney took soundings and found that the water had reached a depth of four to five-feet above the rails. He was told by "swampers," who were paddling about in pirogues, that the water depth was even greater further up the line.
At about two o'clock in the afternoon, Mooney was standing on the cowcatcher of the engine considering the situation when his attention was attracted by a loud cry from one of the section gang. The workman pointed to an object far up the line. The rails were under a sheet of water, and bobbing up and down on the surface of the flood was the head of a man walking and swimming in turns. Several pirogues were dispatched, and soon the man, weak and exhausted, was stretched out on a flatcar.
Mr. Mooney questioned the man at length. "Good God, boss," the man groaned, trying to catch his breath, "Up dar it's awful," and he pointed in the direction of Frenier. The stranger gave his name as Milton Brown, of 441 South Liberty Street in New Orleans. He said that he worked for Frank Tarrant and was a cross tie maker. He was at Frenier when the storm broke.
Brown reported that there had been a gang of men repairing the tracks at Frenier. When the storm was upon them, they had abandoned their work and fled for their safety. There was no safe place to go, and Brown, who had sought refuge on an uprooted cypress tree, saw six or seven of the fugitives literally swallowed up by the waves.
Brown declared that the howl of the wind was so loud that he was unable to hear the shrieks and cries of drowning men and women. He said that outcries could be heard all through the afternoon and far into the night. Brown kept his perilous place on the floating tree until Thursday morning when he started his difficult trek down the track toward New Orleans. The tracks were submerged to a depth of eleven-feet, he said, and he had to swim most of the way. He found temporary rest periodically on floating trees, but there was always danger from the trees as moccasins and other poisonous snakes, seeking safety, writhed and hissed about him in the branches. Mr. Mooney, upon hearing Brown's story, hastened back to New Orleans to make arrangements to send relief back to Frenier.
In New Orleans, Mooney contacted P. J. McMahon, the undertaker, who promptly put his luxurious yacht, Lurline, at the service of the Illinois Central Railroad Company, and the Lurline left West End at seven o'clock on Thursday night, bound for Frenier. On board the Lurline, Special Agent Young of the Illinois Central was in charge of the relief expedition which included Doctors Leake, Kostmayer, and Brown of the Illinois Central staff and a number of trained nurses. Mr. Mooney also sent huge hampers of provisions and medical stores on the yacht.
Later in the evening, Mr. Mooney contacted Mr. Ernest Lee Jahncke and asked him to send a rescue boat to a wharf just north of Frenier. It was feared that Ruddock, too, had been destroyed by the storm and hurricane wave since that village was even closer to the lake than Frenier. Mr. Jahncke agreed to dispatch the tug, Walter Jahncke, to Ruddock on Friday morning.
Helen Berg remembered that "a man had left Ruddock after the storm and had spent two days walking, swimming, floating on logs, and fighting snakes in the swamp until he reached Hammond. He contacted Dr. White who formed a rescue party to help us," she said, "While we were waiting for help, we had no food, so we ate the dead chickens which had drowned during the storm."
People just walked around in a daze, some hoping to find their homes, some looking for their loved ones. There was a graveyard located on a shell Indian midden about five miles north of Frenier in Wagram, but it was too far to carry the dead. The men made rafts and boxes, and the dead were floated in the shallow waters of the lake to their place of eternal rest.
On Thursday morning, a relief train left Hammond for Frenier to render first aid to those injured in the storm. The train got as far as Pass Manchac from where the relief party had to walk the remaining twelve miles from there to Frenier. Illinois Central Superintendent Hill also went to the scene of the disaster on a special train, which was run out of McComb City, Mississippi.
Dr. E. L. McGehee, of Hammond, Louisiana, road surgeon for the Illinois Central, who had lead the party of rescuers to Frenier and Labranche, reached New Orleans on the steamer, Jessie, docking at West End at two o'clock on Friday morning. The Hammond party had found a number of persons injured, twenty-three dead at Frenier, and thirty-five at Labranche. Dr. McGehee, together with Mr. C. C. Carter also of Hammond, brought one injured woman with them, but since the streetcars were not running, they had no means to get her to the city. They were about to make the journey on foot when a party of "automobilists" made up of Messrs. M. Brandt, J. G. Augustin, Sam Barrilleaux and Thomas McNamara, came to their rescue and rapidly conveyed the injured woman to the hospital. Dr. McGehee reported that they had found about seventy-five refugees in a box car at Frenier, and he had hastened to New Orleans to find relief for these unfortunates.
On Saturday morning, October 2nd, while clearing the railroad tracks at Labranche, railroad workers found the bodies of four additional storm victims buried beneath the wreckage of the station. The bodies were so bruised and mutilated that it was impossible to tell who they were, and they were buried at once at Labranche. What happened to the Paaschs' nine dogs is not recorded.
Helen Schlosser went back to New Orleans on the yacht, Lurline. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. She was so embarrassed because she was still barefooted and would cry whenever she thought about losing her only pair of shoes. When the Lurline docked at West End, Helen said that she "caught the streetcar to her aunt's house on Liberty Street."
Helen's family survived, and the Schlossers moved back to the only house that had survived the storm. They were the only family there now, and it was heart breaking. They no longer had their parties once a month. Their friends and relatives were gone, and it was lonely. Helen said that she relived that day of the great hurricane many times, and every time they had stormy weather she would be afraid. Mrs. Helen Schlosser Berg finally moved to Laplace where she lived until her death in 1990 after falling and breaking her hip.
Oh, yes! In the aftermath of the storm, the corpse of "Aunt" Julie Brown was found washed up deep in the swamp, along with the customary cypress outer box in which she had been sealed that Wednesday night. Her casket, however, was never found.
Many persons were hurt; some were never found; and some died. Twelve miles of double track between Kenner and Pass Manchac had been washed away, and the Illinois Central trains, bypassing the washed out section of track, temporarily ran over the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley main line between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The Illinois Central Railroad, however, put 6,000 men to work and restored the tracks in record time.
Following the storm, the population and economy of the little farming villages steadily declined. Ruddock was rebuilt, and logging of cypress timber continued there, but by the mid 1920's, the cypress supply from the swamp was exhausted. In 1926, the massive mill, which had been supplied by logging operations at Ruddock, closed down due to a shortage of timber, and the post office which had first opened on November 12th, 1891, finally closed in April, 1922. By 1936, all that remained of the Ruddock Cypress Lumber Company were a few scattered ruins.
In the late 1920's and early 1930's, Frenier functioned as a lake side resort on the western shore of Lake Ponchartrain, and fishing and recreational camps were built. In 1926, Prentice Keating, whose family owned land at Frenier, built the Peavine road from U.S. Highway 51-North to the lake. Then, in 1931, Keating built a pavilion and a pier with a bathhouse at Frenier Beach. These facilities were used for many years for picnics, dancing, swimming, and fishing.
Today the pier with the bathhouse and the dance pavilion built by the Keating family are gone, the remains, buffeted by the hurricanes of 1947, Betsy in 1965, and Camille in 1969, have finally been reclaimed through coastal erosion by Lake Pontchartrain along with the remainder of Frenier Beach. At this time, there are a few private camps on the lake shore at the end of Peavine road, and a public boat launch is under construction.
Interstate No. 55 parallels old Highway No. 51-North, and there is an interchange at Bayou Ruddock connecting to the old U. S. Route where there is a lighted public boat launch, a popular recreational facility for boating, fishing, and other water sports. There are also a few private camps at the intersection of Bayou Ruddock and what is known locally as "the 51 Canal." Only a few decayed trestle piling are evident marking the old Ruddock Cypress Company donkey railroad line, mute testimony to a bustling community once there some eighty-odd years ago.
At Labranche, some of the structures were rebuilt, and in the late 1940's, one of the buildings, abandoned by the Illinois Central Railroad, was acquired by the Duck Hunting Section of the Bonnet Carre' Rod and Gun Club.
I suppose it might be said that the people of Frenier and the other little villages had no adequate forewarning of the hurricane. Yet the storm was reported in the newspapers, and although the news media in 1915 weren't as efficient in getting the word out as they are today, Adam Schlosser and others, it would seem, were forewarned. Adam had gotten a copy of the Times-Picayune telling of the approaching storm.
The problem was that human nature in those days was the same as it is today. The people of those little villages along the Western shore of Lake Pontchartrain had been through hurricanes before, and all remembered the storms of 1868 and 1908. They had survived. As a result, instead of evacuating to higher ground, the townspeople, having been lulled into a sense of false security, elected to ride out the storm, and it cost many of them their lives. Furthermore, had it not been for the bravery of the Illinois Central trainmen and section hands, the survivors would have had no place to go, and many more of them would have been killed.
All too many of them failed to consider the disastrous effects of the hurricane tide combined with the hurricane wave, sometimes erroneously called a "tidal wave," but more usually described as a "wall of water." In this instance, an enormous storm surge advanced with great rapidity upon the western shore of Lake Pontchartrain well ahead of the eye of the hurricane which very nearly struck Frenier head on. As the storm came ashore in the New Orleans area, fifty people drowned as a thirteen foot storm surge swept the Rigolets railroad bridge away. It should also be emphasized that damage and destruction to homes and property were occurring even as the eye of the hurricane was 165 miles from Frenier. Two-hundred seventy-five Louisianians lost their lives as a result of the "Great West Indian Hurricane of 1915."
(Reprinted with permission from The Consultant, published by Waldemar S. Nelson & Co., Engineers & Architects, Inc.)
Samuel P. Landry, Jr. (Dunn-Land@msn.com), the author of this article, is a vice president and former head of the Civil Engineering Department at Waldemar S. Nelson and Company. He is a versatile writer who has done several articles for our newsletter, the Consultant, including "The Hurricane Storm Surge" which appeared in the November/December issue of the Consultant in 1995. Sam felt that after such an intense hurricane season last year, it would be well to remind our readers again this season of the disastrous effects and horror typical of the hurricane storm surge. In 1960 when Sam was married, he and his wife rented an apartment from Mrs. Philomene Paasch in Kenner, Louisiana. Mrs. Paasch, the lady at Labranche who fed the nine dogs, was the aunt of Mrs. Jean Marie Louviere Cambre of 555 Pine Street in Norco, Louisiana. While his latest writing has been relative to hurricanes and their effect, his experience and knowledge is not limited to weather phenomena. During his forty-year career with W. S. Nelson and Company as a civil engineer, he has gained broad experience and knowledge in the field of civil engineering problems and their solutions. Sam, who received a heart transplant last year, is now back working part-time writing for the Consultant. We are pleased that he has reduced some of these experiences to prose and are privileged to publish them in our newsletter.