Hurricanes Flossy and Betsy; Riding out storms in the Coast Guard station
Russel Crosby by Earl Robicheaux, 2009; 4700.2025
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United States Coast Guard Station, 1960. USCG.
TEMPESTS:
Storms in the Archives
Russell Crosby: The first hurricane that I can really remember was Hurricane Flossy which was
'56 or '57. It wasn't that bad a hurricane. We were in our house and the water kept coming up, the
wind kept coming up. So we moved from there and went stayed with an aunt who had a more substantial
house that was right next to the Coast Guard station. It's now the town hall, but back in the 1950s
it was the Coast Guard station. As the water came up, the Coast Guard came over with one of their
big old fashioned rowboats. The Coast Guard was out wading in the water pushing the boat and we had
several people, a lot of them were really elderly people. We got them in the boat and the Coast
Guard waded back and pulled us back to the station and we all rode the storm out in the Coast Guard
station. That's the first . . . first real storm I remember.
For Betsy, I was . . . Kind of ironic, I was serving in the Coast Guard at the time and I was
stationed in New Jersey. I was being discharged and Betsy was in the Atlantic. The day I was
discharged, I was in Cape May, New Jersey. I was married at the time and I remember telling my wife,
"That's one storm we don't have to worry about, honey!" [laughing] So we came back and her parents
lived on the West Bank in New Orleans. We got there and about a day later here comes Betsy tearing
through there. And Betsy hit Grand Isle real bad. That's probably the worst storm we had there since
the 1893 storm.
Earl Robicheaux: So wasn't it some sort of tradition that if you stayed on the island, you
got into the Coast Guard station?
Crosby: Yeah, that was the place to go because it was the most substantial building here.