Nature's Day of Reckoning

When hurricane forecasters first named Hurricane Opal, it was basically a formality in the second-most active hurricane season in history. Opal seemed like just another weak, underdeveloped late-season storm.
But on the night of Oct. 4, 1995, Hurricane Opal cut a wide swath of destruction in the Wiregrass, pounding the area for more than five hours with winds in excess of 80 mph, before heading north and causing more than $200 million of damage in Alabama alone.
The more than $2 billion of damage Hurricane Opal left in Alabama and Florida made it the third most costly hurricane in history, behind Andrew in 1992 and Hugo in 1989.
Today, The Dothan Eagle remembers the impact the hurricane made on the Wiregrass during the first week of October 1995.

The first week of October 1995 began like any other autumn week in the Wiregrass.
The announcement of the O.J. Simpson Trial verdict on Tuesday, Oct. 3 competed for some of the usual fall conversation with football, festivals, and school. But mostly, people were just busy with their own lives.
Jim Dennis and his wife were anticipating the birth of their first child and Lenard Windham was trying to help organize Ozark's first rodeo scheduled for the weekend.
A Dothan country radio station was gearing up for Wednesday night's Country Music Association Awards. Jeffrey and Paige Dulac had just remodeled their kitchen.
No one gave much thought to the storm making its way through the Gulf of Mexico and quietly mustering unprecedented strength.
By Tuesday afternoon, Hurricane Opal had taken precedence over everything, rudely changing thoughts, schedules and plans a day before its 80-plus mph winds, altered area buildings and landscape, turning the week upside down for Mrs. Dulac and everyone else.
"I was hearing reports the storm was going to hit, and I felt kind of silly because I had never experienced anything like this," Mrs. Dulac said.
"I told our cleaning lady I had to run to the store because I needed more ice and things like that, and I came back and really felt foolish."
Literally overnight, the hurricane had picked up its forward speed in the Gulf of Mexico and dramatically dropped its barometric pressure.
The drama began Tuesday as the storm continued its path toward the Florida Panhandle.
Wiregrass American Red Cross chapter director Mary Turner calls her volunteers.
At Flowers Hospital, Randy Taylor checks the parking lot to remove any loose objects that could become flying debris, while Dennis does the same at Extendicare Health Center.
The Extendicare assistant administrator has other concerns: his wife is eight months, three weeks pregnant and her doctor tells the couple that the drop in barometric pressure that accompanies a hurricane can sometimes cause premature labor. Kaitlyn Dennis is born nine days after the hurricane on Oct. 13, a day after her parents attended Bob Dylan's hurricane relief concert in the Dothan Civic Center.
Meanwhile, Windham makes storm preparations on his 2,500-acre Skipperville farm. He feeds the cattle early in the day, so they will be on safer ground among the trees during the storm. He also puts all loose objects in the barns and nails down the roofs of his chicken houses.
The real fun begins in Wednesday's early morning hours when a 1:45 a.m. telephone call interrupts Mrs. Turner's sleep, summoning her, disaster services director Irene Hearn and other officials to a meeting at Dothan-Houston County Emergency Management Agency at 2 a.m.
At 8, the first shelter in the area opens at Westgate Recreation Center and the first evacuees begin arriving at 11.
At 9, Hot Country 96.9, which one day earlier had been planning a major promotional contest in conjunction with Wednesday night's Country Music Awards, begins broadcasting hurricane updates every 15 minutes.
By early afternoon, store shelves begin to empty as residents were snatching all the fresh water, batteries and other supplies needed to ride out the storm. Lines of cars are on the highways, especially U.S. 231 South, and at gas pumps.
Emergency rooms are busy during the day, treating accident victims trying to get as far north as possible ahead of the storm. Hospital activity decreases as the hurricane draws closer, said Janie Powell, Marilyn McKissack and Jennifer Johnson, patient care services director, emergency room manager and manager of labor and delivery, respectively.
Meanwhile, the weather had deteriorated. A tornado touches down in Cottonwood and another funnel cloud is spotted near Daleville at Cairns Army Airfield.
At 3 p.m., 96.9 plays its last record and begins wall-to-wall hurricane coverage.
A second shelter opens at 4 p.m. at the Dothan Civic Center. The city's two main shelters - the civic center and Westgate - sheltered more than 700 people that night.
The eye of Hurricane Opal hits Hurlburt Field, near Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., at 5 p.m., packing wind gusts of up to 144 mph. The storm still has much of that punch when it hits the Wiregrass.
By 7 p.m., Opal knocks out electrical power in the area and begins a five-hour assault on the Wiregrass with winds in excess of 80 mph.
In downtown Dothan, as power is interrupted across the Wiregrass, The Dothan Eagle's presses start printing Thursday morning's edition - some five hours earlier than normal in an effort to beat the possible power outage. As the winds and rain pound the area, the newspaper is able to successfully complete its entire press run and newspapers are delivered with few delays across the area as residents survey the damage at sunrise.
Not long after the heaviest winds hit the area, the Dulacs lose one of their two trees at their Girard Avenue home in Dothan. Later that night, they find an oak tree had crashed on top of their carport.
In Headland, a tornado dropped a pecan tree on Dennis Daughtry's mobile home while he's sleeping in the back bedroom about 8:30 p.m. He rushed outside to disconnect his electricity, gas and water and rode out the rest of the storm at a neighbor's home. For months after the hurricane, Daughtry would live in a tent while awaiting FEMA assistance.
During the worst of the storm, the only connection to the outside world is the radio and only two stations were able to continue broadcasting throughout the night. WDJR uses the services of Tom Nebel (then at WTVY and now the station's general manager) and begins taking calls from residents throughout the Wiregrass reporting conditions and damage in their area.
"I'm in Dothan," one of the station's more than 500 callers that night tells WDJR's Jerry Broadway and Mitch English. "It's raining really hard. The wind is blowing. There are trees down. I can tell the power lines are down."
After WTVY was knocked off the air for what is believed to be the first time in the station's 40-year history, Nebel started doing full-time breaks with WDJR. After 7:30 p.m., he remained on the line for the next five hours.
Three or four times during the night, Broadway braves the winds to re-fuel WDJR's generator.
"You haven't lived until you've poured gas in a generator with the wind blowing 90 mph," Broadway said. "But it was scary enough just being in here listening to the wind howl and when our heavy, metal back door blew off between 10-11, it sounded like someone had fired a shotgun at the end of the hall. I thought the roof had caved in on us.
"It was the longest night I've ever spent with the exception of the night my first child was born. It was just a wild night. I'm glad I had the opportunity to do it and I hope I never have the opportunity again."
The next day, crews are busy on the streets with clean-up as residents do the same at their homes. There is little damage to Windham's and wife Bonn's home.
His farm is another story. When he inspects the damage at 4 a.m., following the hurricane, Windham finds one of his 300 cows has been killed, along with almost 2,000 of his 9,000 chickens. There was damage to the roofs of all 10 of his chicken houses. Windham later found a hay barn had been blown into the highway.
"That night, sitting at the house listening to the wind, I had absolutely no idea it was that bad," Windham said. "We had hardly a limb fall out of our pecan trees there. But everywhere else, it was just devastating."
In the shelters, people no longer in fear for their lives now turn their anxieties toward their homes and loved ones.
It was now a matter of cleaning up the damage and trying to get life back to normal. High school football games were played that Friday night and Ozark held its jamboree and rodeo that weekend.

WANTED: Foster Parents Willing to Open Their Hearts, Homes

One by one, the young man picked up starfish and tossed each one back to the safety of the ocean. When told he couldn’t possibly make a difference because of the numerous starfish on the beach, the man replied, “It made a difference to that one.”

Foster parents know that saving children is like saving the starfish in this famous fable. It’s done one child at a time with love and patience – one day at a time.
Those days start early for United Methodist Church Wiregrass Children’s Home foster parents. Bearing such a responsibility isn’t easy.
These children in the custody of the Alabama Department of Human Resources exhibit identifiable special needs, whether psychiatric, emotional or behavioral. Almost every child in foster care has had some type of traumatic experience.
As required by the state of Alabama, therapeutic foster parents must meet Alabama Department of Human Resources guidelines and undergo 10 weeks of training in group preparation and selection.
But the education of the foster parent is only beginning when the child enters the home.
“We learn every day,” foster parent Ruby Howell said. “There’s not a day that goes by that we don’t learn something. Every child is different, and you learn every child’s needs are different.”
There are ups and downs, a fact that becomes evident while taking a look at these families’ daily lives. Yet the rewards – a gaping smile, a big accomplishment, a warm hug – are enough to make these foster parents ready to tackle another day.
Life at the Barber House
It’s only 5:30 a.m. at the Barber residence, but already Doris Barber is awakening her 14-year-old foster son Emory.
He has his Cap’n Crunch cereal with fruit and orange juice, and rides with his mother to her job at an elementary school, where he stays until his bus arrives.
“It gives me a chance to find out how his day is going to go,” said Barber, who has two children of her own – a daughter in her third year at Auburn University, and a son, who has already earned a degree in marketing and now lives in Lincoln, Mo.
About 2:15, Emory is back with his foster mother. Barber spends her planning period at the Ashford school helping her foster son with his homework.
“Since he’s been in my home, he’s really improved,” Barber said. “When I first got him there, I couldn’t get him to do anything. He though he was running the show.
“He would say he needed some money, and I would tell him I wasn’t going to give him any because he didn’t do something he was supposed to. So he found out that if he wants something, he has to earn it.”
Not long after Emory gets home from school, he’s off to the boys club for basketball, the highlight of his day.
“If I want to get his attention,” Barber said, “I just say I won’t let him go to the boys club.
“Sometimes, I try to get him to eat when he gets home, but usually he says he’ll eat when he gets back.”
Emory will sometimes help his mother with dinner and set the table. Whatever he does, Barber tries to make sure she gives him encouragement.
“They need a lot of verbal praise,” she said. “They may do 100 things wrong that day, but you have to find that one thing they do right. And it might just be pouring the ketchup without spilling it. Whatever it is, you praise them for it.”
After dinner, Emory usually retires to his CD player and listens to his favorite music.
The day might be long, but every once in a while comes those moments with foster children that make it worthwhile. Some moments come in a rush – like when Barber is riding to Ashford with her foster son.
“On the way, he was talking about his mother and how she gave him away when he was a baby and of his previous foster parent who passed away,” she said. “He was thinking about death quite a lot and asked, ‘Miss Barber, you’re not going to die, are you?’”
Just Like Any Other Day
Chris and Don Paulson wake their foster children – 12-year-old Scott and 11-year-old Shania – at about 6 in the morning. Like many other families, the group gathers to eat breakfast together at about 7.
After taking their medications for attention deficit disorder and brushing their teeth, Scott and Shania are off to meet the bus.
The Paulson kids get home at about 3:15. After their afternoon snack, Chris Paulson takes Shania to art camp. On another day, Shania would be headed to her soccer game while Don Paulson helps Scott with his homework.
When Shania returns home from art school, she and her brother finish their homework, and later their foster father leads them in family Bible study.
One of the children’s treatment plans calls for listening to the Bible on cassette tape, Chris Paulson said.
Making a Child’s Life Better
It’s early morning at Don and Ruby Howell’s home in Ozark, where Ruby wakes her 10-year-old foster daughter Tootie.
While Tootie gets dressed and cleans her room, the aroma of grits, eggs and buttered biscuits waft from the kitchen. After breakfast, Tootie hops on the school bus, and Ruby gets herself ready for work at the Magnolia Manor assisted living center.
At the day’s end, Tootie comes home from school to her family. Ruby Howell is usually waiting on the front porch swing with the dogs, Sugar and Abby. After a snack (usually a soft drink and potato chips), Ruby and her foster daughter sit outside and talk about their day.
Next comes either homework or Tootie’s chores. Today, she’s sweeping the front porch.
In the Howell house, teamwork is the order of the day. While her mother prepares dinner, Tootie usually sets the table and fills the tea glasses. Later, family time is then spent watching a movie, usually one from the home library, and the TV news.
“We’re supposed to always view a movie ourselves before we let them watch,” Howell said. “Sometimes, our children are more educated on a lot of the negative stuff than a lot of us are.
“So much of the stuff you see on the news has happened to her. She sees she’s not the only one.”
Eighty percent of the children who come into the foster care program have been physically or sexually abused, said case worker Elizabeth Duke. But with the help of therapeutic foster homes like the Howells, these children can get a second shot at life.
Yes, the Howells know the responsibility of helping troubled youngsters is a challenging one, but they say it’s a labor of love.
Tensions dissipate in the stolen moments at around 9:15 – bedtime at the Howell home. These rewarding moments come in more quiet times, like just before Tootie goes to sleep.
“She always asks the Lord to bless her, her mother and her brother,” Howell said. “And she always says she loves us, too.”