Today’s AJC Deja News comes to you from the Wednesday, September 5, 1979, edition of The Atlanta Constitution.
With Hurricane Debby heading north from Florida, Gov. Brian Kemp issued a State of Emergency and warned Georgians to batten down the hatches in preparation for what the National Weather Service says could be a “potentially historic rainfall” of 10 to 20 inches.
Debby becomes the latest in a spate of hurricanes to hit the Peach State. Hurricane Michael barreled up into deep southwest Georgia from Panama City in October 2018, bringing wind gusts as high as 115 miles per hour in Donalsonville. Hurricane Dorian, which blew past Georgia quickly in 2019, brushing the state’s outer coastal areas. Last August, Hurricane Idalia left wind and flood damage in the southeastern part of the state.
Now, Savannah is predicted to feel Debby’s effects almost 45 years after Hurricane David powered past the Hostess City of the South on its way to South Carolina after killing over 1,000 people in the Caribbean.
"The Georgia coast was spared a direct hit, and instead was lashed by weaker, tropical-storm-force winds farther from the storm's center," a team of AJC writers assigned to cover the hurricane reported. Dennis Jones, Chatham County's emergency management director, told reporters his office received no reports of injuries or fatalities due to Dorian and damage to the community was minor.
LEARN MORE>> What are some of Georgia’s worst hurricanes?
Credit: AJC Print Archives
Credit: AJC Print Archives
But Hurricane David “lashed [Savannah] for nearly five hours … before heading north across the South Carolina border toward Columbia,” reporters Chester Goolrick and Jim Merriner wrote in the September 5, 1979, edition of the Constitution.
“The storm tore down tree limbs, caused an undetermined number of minor injuries and left residents without power,” the story continued, adding that while “there were no immediate reports of deaths or serious injury inflicted by the storm two swimmers were reported missing in the surf off St. Simons Island.” The pair proved David’s only fatalities in Georgia.
Over 3,500 people holed up in makeshift shelters in local schools and churches as David made its way along the Georgia and South Carolina barrier islands. “About half of the 5,000 residents of the offshore islands fled to the mainland before the storm hit,” the Constitution reported.
“As the leading edge of the storm blew into Savannah about 5 p.m.,” Goolrick and Merriner reported, “winds at Travis Field, the airport west of the city, were reported at a maximum of 65 mph, nine miles below hurricane strength.”
MORE DEJA NEWS>> Check out what we’ve covered before (and again)
David’s rough winds left many in the area without power for up to two weeks. Coastal areas flooded when a reported 5.13 inches of rain fell in Savannah over a 24-hour period.
Ed Fogerty, head of the Savannah area civil defense office at the time, said the storm parked itself over the city, taking on an ominous countenance.
“It just sat there — as if it was looking at us,” he said.
In the U.S., David claimed 15 lives and resulted in $320 million worth of damage.
Residents along or near the Atlantic coastline know they face the prospect of future, and perhaps even stronger, storms. That could happen due in part to absences of El Niño systems, which “typically suppresses Atlantic hurricane activity,” according to Gerry Bell, Ph.D., lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.
Credit: Minla shields
Credit: Minla shields
FLASHBACK PHOTOS>> The 1940 Savannah hurricane
State officials monitored the storm’s progress toward Georgia over the 2019 Labor Day weekend.
“[Gov. Brian Kemp] ordered evacuations for residents east of I-95 in six coastal counties, then traveled to Brunswick and Savannah to urge them to leave,” the AJC’s Greg Bluestein wrote in a Sept. 3 report.
In that regard, not much has changed since 1979 when Bill Clack, then the state’s deputy civil defense director, told Constitution reporter Sharon Bailey that his office had been tracking Hurricane David for three days before the storm hit Georgia.
“We can sleep when the emergency’s over,” Clack said.
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