Surviving Sally
Hurricane Sally blew out the gas pumps at the Marlow Shell station, ripped the canopy and flooded the store with a foot of water, destroying the renovations Rob Byrd had been working on for six months.
But that also started the week that he came to understand his purpose as far as the business he inherited three years ago, after his dad died of cancer.
“I wondered at times if I was in the right place, doing the right thing, then this happened,” Byrd said. “I now understand a gas station is not meant to just take money from the community. We are here to serve and to be a part of it. A woman swam out of her house on Fish River, and this is the first place she came. We have been sharing the resources we have to help our community through this crisis.”
Employees of the station at the corner of Baldwin County 32 and Baldwin County 9 said Byrd’s sharing and helping the community through the hurricane started on Tuesday night as the winds started up. He stayed open until 8 p.m. to help employees and customers get everything they needed.
“He filled every employee’s tank and also filled tanks for some people who couldn't afford it,” employee Gina Hall said. “Sally hit us hard, but Rob opened up as soon as he could to give away food and everything in the store that people could use. He also brought in a load of water and ice and handed that out.”
Marlow, an unincorporated area 20 minutes from Fairhope, is called Summerdale on the map. It’s the former site of the Marlow Ferry that was used by Andrew Jackson to get his troops across the Fish River during the War of 1812. It was also used by the Union Army during the Civil War and by Baldwin County farmers to take produce to Mobile.
Byrd said he’s worried about the people who live in the Marlow and Fish River communities -- especially the veterans and the senior citizens living in mobile homes.
“The devastation is bad out here,” he said. “Trees cut through the middle of some of those mobile homes, and we put on tarps, trying to protect what’s inside. I bet 30 to 40 percent of the people out here had trees on their car. They are pulling into the station with dents and busted windshields.”
Byrd said transportation will continue to be a problem for the community simply because some lacked any kind of transportation before the storm hit and may be unaware of available resources.
“The resources are in Foley, Fairhope and Robertsdale, but those are far away places for some people out here,” Byrd said. “They can't just hop in the car and go. We need resources such as FEMA and the Red Cross to come here. They can set up in our parking lot.”
Byrd said Marlow was struggling from the Coronavirus before the hurricane hit. The gas station served 1,000 people a day, and Byrd and his employees saw what was happening in the community.
“Many lower- and middle-income families lost an earner during COVID,” Byrd said. “Mom or dad had to stay home and care for the kids when there was no school. They lost the income that helped them make ends meet. We helped some who didn’t have money for gas. We cooked and served meals from the station when COVID first started. We didn't know what else to do except to help them eat. Now they are working through damage to their homes, and we will find ways to help.”
The community is also helping Byrd. One customer cut trees from the power line and another cleaned up the red dirt that washed into the store.
“A man I didn't know brought a backhoe to clean out the dirt and took it to another property that washed out,” Byrd said. “I still don't know his name.”
Stacy lives down Baldwin County 28. She was in Las Vegas throwing her dad a surprise party for his 77th birthday when Sally hit. She and her husband had moved to Marlow from Las Vegas and bought an acre of land because it’s “beautiful here, and the people are nice.”
The couple’s house flooded 2 feet while she was gone and “destroyed everything.” Both are diabetics, and Stacy’s insulin needs to be refrigerated. Her husband also has COPD. Stacy’s monthly disability payment is $700, and Medicare and other bills come out of that.
“Losing everything is too devastating to think about, so I just throw things out the door,” she said. “I can talk matter of factly, but I can’t let myself feel anything. I need someone to help me take the walls down, rip out the insulation and repair the floors. Our deductible is $9,000, and we don't have anywhere near that much money. We didn't expect this.”
Picking out food from the pantry at Marlow Methodist Church, she is grateful for canned vegetables to go with the peanut butter and jelly they have been eating for days. “We are going to make it through this,” she said. “I just don’t know how.”
In nearby Rainbow Plantation, neighbors replaced shingles on a home.
“No one was hurt during the hurricane, but that could change during the recovery,” one neighbor said. “I am in my late 70s, and I’m the youngest one on this roof. The others are in their 80s. The man on the roof across the street is 89. We are old military and police officers. This is what we do.”
Across the Marlow community, trees smashed onto roofs above beds, sofas and pool tables. They trapped two women in a trailer for four days without food or power until church volunteers found them and had the trees removed.
A flooded Fish River that rose almost as high as the historic flood of 2014, left mold and mud behind. As residents on the banks shoveled and power washed, they said Sally took them by surprise. Still without power almost a week later, they didn’t know it would be this bad.
Immediately following Hurricane Sally, officials with Baldwin EMC estimated that about 95 percent of the more than 77,000 of the company’s meters were without power. They also estimated there were more than 2,000 broken poles, 4,100 miles of line down and about 4,300 trees on the power lines.
Mark Baggett, a lineman with Baldwin County EMC, was helping to restore power in the Marlow area. He said he had never seen it that bad.
“It was a lot of rain that sat on top of us,” he said. “It has been a while since a hurricane came through here, so there was nothing to knock down the weaker trees. When the wind kicked in, the trees took down the power lines. That’s what killed us.”
Baggett also had damage to his own home and power lines on the ground, but he was working 15 hours a day with no time to make repairs at home.
“My wife and kids are doing the best they can,” he said. “We have a roof over our head, a generator and a fan. We are OK.”
Sally didn’t just damage homes, it also devastated family pecan farms, including Geci’s Orchard on Baldwin County 32.
“This was my grandpa's farm,” said Tammy Atchison, who built a house and raised four children on the farm. “He planted every pecan tree and built the barn and house in the ’40s. He planted more trees each year with the money he saved. He grafted every tree and put down the irrigation system that is now in a twisted heap.”
Atchison said she was 11 years old when Hurricane Frederic hit. Her grandfather wiped away tears as he stepped over trees back then.
The farm had 240 trees before Sally tore through, and they were still counting the losses.
“My uncle said he had 62 trees on his side of the farm before Sally, and there are only 16 left,” she said. “It looks like a tornado came in and twisted the trees.”
Atchison said last year was a bad one for pecans, but this was going to be their best harvest in years. “Every time we hear the pecans crunch under our tires, that is money we lost,” she said. “I can’t think about what we lost. I am just trying to clean up. It’s going to hurt to look out and see the emptiness where the trees used to be.”
Up the road from the Shell in Marlow, trees also hit the commissary where Chris Redd makes the relish for Redd’s Hot Dogs. The business started 31 years ago when his father, Clyde “Buddy” Redd, a retired boilermaker, wanted to serve the guys he worked with. The hot dog stand has been parked between Wendy's and El Rodeo on Alabama 59 in Robertsdale ever since.
Chris Redd was a nursing assistant for the state of Alabama and was an owner of a tackle shop when his father got sick.
“I sold my part of the business so I could take over Redd’s Hot Dogs from my dad and keep his dream alive,” Chris Redd said. “We worked together for six months before he passed away in 2010. It was one of the best times of my life.”
During storms and bad times, Chris said, his father gave out hot dogs across the street at the volunteer fire department in Marlow.
“When I heard that Rob had been hit by Sally like the rest of us but emptied his store giving food and hugs to the community after the hurricane, I had to come here and help the way my father did,” Chris said as he handed out a hot dog. He told the customer there was no charge, just pay it forward and help someone else.
“It gets to you when people break down over a free hot dog, saying they never thought they would ask for food, especially the older people,” he said. “Some said they haven’t eaten in a couple of days. We didn't realize the scope of the devastation until we came here and started hearing the stories.”
As Byrd stood in his parking lot, watching as hot dogs were being handed out, a man with bandages on his hands and hot dogs lying in the passenger’s seat of his car pulled up. He told Byrd, “There are trees and roots all over, and my house flooded. But we are fighters and grinders. We will make it alright.”
Byrd said people set up in the Marlow Methodist Church parking lot earlier in the day, handing out water and cleaning supplies. People he doesn’t know have parked at his station to hand out milk or give away gas. “So many people are trying to help people at their lowest points,” he said.
Byrd knows life's lowest points. He is the former co-owner of a business in Mobile and said he was arrested for theft of property.
“I went into business with the wrong person,” he said. “I went to jail for eight months. It was all over the news, and there was a lot of public criticism. I went through a dark time and didn’t know if I wanted to live. God turned my life around and gave me a beautiful family and a father-in-law who became a father to me. They know what I did, but I work every day to make them proud. This gas station became my second chance. I hire people who need second chances too.”
In the aftermath of Sally, Byrd said he's proud of his gas station becoming a corner of second chances for the community.
“God took something that could have destroyed me and turned it into an opportunity,” he said. “It's overwhelming happiness to see people serving the community from this gas station parking lot. People at their lowest points need to know they aren't alone and aren't by themselves.”
