Local Perspective on Opal, please?

[Franny]

was born here in 83 however, i have pics dating back to the 70's at least. if not earlier. after opal all the high schoolers rode the big jet boat out of choctawhatchee bay to fort walton beach to go to school because the roads were out. Water transportation is never out of style.......................

I remember reading about your mode of transportation in the paper and thinking how cool that must have been, but it probably got pretty old after a while. Does anyone remember the Destin Harbor? Boats stacked on top of one another five at a time...as if someone had placed them on top of one another..really bizarre! Who is the guy from LA that owns/owned all the chicken fast food? Anyway he had his first mate stay aboard his yacht during Opal docked in the harbor. This guy stayed throughout and had videos of refrigerators and furniture flying by. I believe it was CNN that showed the video on the news. Scarey times!

 

[Beach Runner]

I found a photo of our beach access from 2002. Only that little patch of dark green in the lower left-hand corner remains. From there it is now a vertical cliff down to sea level.

I don't have any pre-Opal photos. We hadn't discovered 30-A yet.

 

[beacheart]

I uploaded a pre- Opal photo from 1976 to the members photo gallery. If anyone is interested they can see it there. The Santa Rosa Beach Club is the building nearest to the camera. Hurricane Eloise came through Walton Co. the year before but I really don't know how much damage was done to the beach. Historically the large storms hit Walton Co. about every 20 years.

 

[bsmart]

I was in the eighth grade when Opal hit. Like Kurt said, I too remember the storm surge being much worse as compared to Ivan and Dennis. I have some pre-Ivan photos in the member's section, and will be sure to look for some others to post there as well. My mom and dad came down two days later to check on our condo at Seamist. My mom found the largest seashell which we have ever found on our many vacations to SoWal. As the storm passed over North GA, it was picked up by a low level jet, racing it northward so that it did not have much time to lose strength, and so heavy rain, tornadoes and very strong winds--80mph measured at Dobbins Air Force Base, were the story of the evening. This was quite scary and exciting all at the same time. I remember being out of school for two days, and not having electricity for just as long.

 

[DD]

I don't live there, but have a couple of memories of post-Opal. mr. dd's family has two houses on Okaloosa Island. Both houses were severely damaged. When his cousin went down to survey the damage, she found a Sony TV in the yard. Washed up from who knows where. She took it inside, cleaned it off and danged if the thing didn't work like a champ. Then, the following year, when we were visiting, his same cousin was there working on the other house. We were in Destin that day, and she had a seizure and fell off a ladder and hit her head on the window sill. When she came to, she staggered to the bathroom and then called 911. They took her to the hospital. When we returned, and went to look for her, there was blood EVERYWHERE. Looked like a murder scene. He raced to the hospital--she was fine. I tried to clean up all the blood, but she ended up having to re-paint some of the walls she had just painted. Then, she drove 17 hours back home!

 

[ShallowsNole]

My son was not quite 3, so even though we were living south of Freeport at the time, we evacuated. In context of an evacuation, "we" means my son and I - hub can't go as he is supposed to protect and serve. We went to Jacksonville, which was much too far, but we were safe. A 5 hour drive that took 12 hours. Lights were on when we returned the following evening (advantage of living just off 331!).

If we had been living where I live now: we found driftwood against the front door. That is never a good sign. Since I was tending to a baby, I had not been able to clean out my mom's house after she died. Opal made the decision on what to keep and what to trash very easy.

Hubby did call me from the top of the 331 bridge to alert me that I very nearly collected on his life insurance. After the wind had died down and the surge receded, he and another officer headed for SoWal. They were between the small bridge and the large bridge when the bay came BACK up over the road. They could not tell where they were in reference to the road, the bridge, the bay...fortunately the officer behind hub had a spotlight and found the reflector at the base of the bridge. Four WCSO cars stuck on the bridge until the bay went back down, but thankfully safe.

To this day, he will tell you that being in that car and not knowing if he was on the road or headed for deep water is the most frightened he has ever been in his life.

 

[Beachlover2]

I for one am glad we are reading these stories from over 10 years ago and not from some current storm.

This is going to be a calm season!!!!!

 

[Franny]

My son was not quite 3, so even though we were living south of Freeport at the time, we evacuated. In context of an evacuation, "we" means my son and I - hub can't go as he is supposed to protect and serve. We went to Jacksonville, which was much too far, but we were safe. A 5 hour drive that took 12 hours. Lights were on when we returned the following evening (advantage of living just off 331!).

If we had been living where I live now: we found driftwood against the front door. That is never a good sign. Since I was tending to a baby, I had not been able to clean out my mom's house after she died. Opal made the decision on what to keep and what to trash very easy.

Hubby did call me from the top of the 331 bridge to alert me that I very nearly collected on his life insurance. After the wind had died down and the surge receded, he and another officer headed for SoWal. They were between the small bridge and the large bridge when the bay came BACK up over the road. They could not tell where they were in reference to the road, the bridge, the bay...fortunately the officer behind hub had a spotlight and found the reflector at the base of the bridge. Four WCSO cars stuck on the bridge until the bay went back down, but thankfully safe.

To this day, he will tell you that being in that car and not knowing if he was on the road or headed for deep water is the most frightened he has ever been in his life.

Wow!!