Dauphin Island mayor reflects on Hurricane Ivan and Sally anniversaries

DAUPHIN ISLAND, Ala. ( WKRG ) — Twenty years after Hurricane Ivan and four years after Hurricane Sally, Dauphin Island Mayor Jeff Collier said his town is still working to be better prepared for future natural disasters.

With 100-mile-per-hour winds, down trees, power lines and cosmetic damage to homes, Hurricane Ivan left a trail of destruction for Dauphin Island to recover.

Collier was on the island and watched as the slow-moving hurricane came through.

“We had so much rain at that particular time,” he explained. “The trees just couldn’t sustain that. And so, we had a lot of trees toppled over, which ends up on people’s houses, on power lines, blocking the roads. And so that’s what I’ll always recall about Sally. It’s just the longevity, you know, the fact that it took so long to come in and get out of here.”

Even though Sally was more recent, Collier said the most destructive hurricane he’s seen as mayor of Dauphin Island was Hurricane Ivan, which came 16 years before Sally.

Hurricane Ivan made landfall in Gulf Shores, but the strong category three storm caused chaos on Dauphin Island on the west end.

“Hurricane Ivan was devastating to Dauphin Island. Even though it took a bit of a jog right before landfall, we still got a good bit of that storm, and we had quite a bit of damage to structures on the island, particularly on the far west end,” Collier recounted. “We lost quite a number of houses at that particular time.”

After dealing with the aftermath of Sally, Collier was presented with another hurdle: dealing with another hurricane within a month.

“Zeta came in, at least for us, just 30 days or so after that, and that kind of doubled up on us as well,” he explained.

Collier said the town has enforced stronger building codes since Hurricane Sally.

“We require an additional two feet of elevation up by above the base flood elevation,” he explained. “So we tack on an extra 2 feet to get properties in structures more out of harm’s way when it comes to flooding. Also, we’ve adopted some new the fortified homes, which were some additional regulations, which strengthens the roofing, the windows, doors.”

Collier said the town is working on enforcing those new codes onto the older properties and homes to ensure they align with the latest code.

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