Watery Blast from the Past: Camden County’s Worst Hurricanes

Hurricane Ian has reminded us it is that time of year again. We all know the drill: stock up on food and water, be ready to lose power, prepare for flooding, and even leave town if necessary. While we have seen our share of destructive hurricanes, we have not witnessed near the devastation our predecessors did. In Camden County, the nineteenth century was bookended by violent and catastrophic storms. Discover their harrowing details below.

Several major hurricanes slammed the Georgia coast in the first decades of the 1800s.The Great Coastal Hurricane of August 1806 remained offshore, but its winds reached Georgia’s southern coast. Near Cumberland Island, these winds lashed at the schooner LT, which sank rapidly, forcing seventeen passengers to escape to a lifeboat. Maria Osborne, daughter of St. Marys founder Henry Osborne (after whom Osborne Street is named) was aboard, travelling to see her mother. Before reaching the lifeboat she lost her footing, was washed overboard, and drowned. Her body was never recovered. Although Maria’s was the only casualty, the passengers’ woes continued. After the hurricane passed, they had no means to propel their lifeboat and drifted for eleven days until they finally were saved by a ship headed to Charleston.

In mid-September of 1813 a hurricane heavily damaged St. Marys, blowing down seven inhabited houses and some under construction, clearing the harbor, and destroying ships and trees. Three U.S. Navy gunboats were sunk in St. Marys’ harbor, one of which went down with twenty men. On Cumberland Island, the hurricane blew the copper roof off Catharine Miller’s Dungeness Mansion. Fortunately, no civilian lives in St. Marys were lost, even though the town’s oldest inhabitants noted they had never seen a storm of this magnitude.

It was in the 1890s that St. Marys saw its most destructive gales. The Georgia coast was buffeted by a hurricane in 1893, a tropical storm in 1894, and a severe hurricane in 1896. This hurricane, which wreaked havoc from the Gulf of Mexico across Florida, hit South Georgia on September 29, knocking over stores, small hotels, schools, and homes across Camden County and killing several people.

The close of the century saw a “Killer” hurricane and tidal wave strike Northeast Florida. On October 2, 1898, this hurricane’s twelve-foot storm surge and high winds devastated Fernandina, and by late morning it made landfall on the Northern tip of Cumberland Island. The pilot boat Maud Helen became stranded on a bluff twenty feet above high water, demonstrating the hurricane’s powerful storm surge. Then a “tidal wave” rushed ashore, flooding Dungeness and badly damaging the Carnegies’ yacht. As it traveled North along the Georgia coast, the tidal wave gathered force and produced a storm surge as high as twenty feet across Georgia’s barrier islands and lower coast.

St. Marians received warning of the storm on October 1, allowing them to prepare and keep their ships in port. Although the less dangerous Southern side of the hurricane hit St. Marys, it was accompanied by what some called the greatest tidal wave in the history of the town. The wharf and riverfront houses were washed away or broken into pieces. River water in the streets reached waist deep and flooded homes and stores.

Meteorologists recently estimated this 1898 hurricane reached Category 4 strength, with winds between 130 and 155 miles per hour. In a National Weather Service ranking of the most destructive United States hurricanes between 1851 and 2004, this one ranked fourteenth out of 65. It is the strongest hurricane on record in Georgia and was especially destructive because it hit during high tide and a full moon; it caused $1.5 million in damages in the state and killed 179 Georgians.

Clearly, damaging and even deadly hurricanes are simply a part of life in this area, but we should count our blessings. Although Camden County is low-lying and exposed to winds from the east, our mainland is protected from wave action by Cumberland Island and marshes, even if they do not stop heavy flooding and strong winds. We are thankful Hurricane Ian was not more destructive; let us hope it marks the end of our 2022 hurricane season!

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