Hurricane Audrey (1957)

Holly Beach had been destroyed once before. In 1957, Hurricane Audrey hit the night BEFORE local newscasters said residents should leave, tragically catching the local populace by surprise. Five hundred people were killed when hurricane Audrey slammed into the Louisiana coast. Even though it was decades ago, the power of Audrey will never be forgotten. -We knew we were kind of in trouble. It was too late to go by automobile anywhere. One road in, one road out. - The waters coming, the waters coming, and then it just kept rising...and then it was like a wall of water with pile of telephone posts, trash and everything in front of it, just rolling. A relative of ours, she survived in the window frame. She used the window frame to float the 15 miles from her house to where they picked her up. -The water had picked the hospital up and it was floating it heading south to north, and it came to a levee area and we just watched it rise. It was one long prayer session. - It was very traumatic for me as a teenager, my Dad and I went down to McNeese where they were bringing the refugees, he noticed a gentleman standing off by himself who was barefooted. He, his wife and granddaughter had somehow made it to their small boat, the winds capsized the boat, and that was the last he had seen of his wife and granddaughter. I am very grateful now for the high tech pre-warning systems that we have. (Narrator) If there is a small silver lining in the story of Hurricane Audrey it is that the way in which hurricanes are forecasted was changed and improved. Accurate advance warnings now allow plenty of time for evacuation.