Hurricane Isaias struck the Gulf Coast on the night of Friday, Oct. 9, hitting Destin, Florida. However, Baldwin County managed to avoid the worst of it despite power outages and trees collapsing across the county.

With the Baldwin County community having weathered the storm, newly elected officials within the county are thankful that no significant damage occurred.

Despite what Spanish Fort Mayor Brad Bass said was anxiety surrounding the storm during his first term as mayor, he was “glad it wasn’t worse than it was for our area” while sending prayers to people living in the Florida Panhandle region who were hit much more severely.

“It helped us identify some gaps,” Bass said. “I think we were prepared, both police, fire, public works and of course our partners with the utility companies, but you know, much easier finding those gaps when it’s a storm that doesn’t have quite the damage that the other folks the east of us had.”

Bass said they “dodged a bullet” with the storm, recalling that he was eating lunch with the other Eastern Shore mayors when the storm was projected to come up toward Mobile Bay at a high tide of around nine to 10 feet, which he said would have been the worst-case scenario for the area, including Spanish Fort and the causeway.

Despite this, Bass said the only major damage he knew of was six large oak trees that fell, all of which were cleaned up the next day. Bass said one tree fell Sunday. He said it had termite damage and believes the wind from the storm Friday contributed to it coming down, with public works cleaning it up quickly.

“I know talking with Riviera and Baldwin EMC in Spanish Fort, we had around 700 people that lost power, but I think all of those had power back by Saturday afternoon, so we were obviously very fortunate the damage wasn’t any more than it could have been,” Bass said. “We’ve got good friends that live over in the Panhandle and they were struck pretty hard by the storm, so continued prayers for them as well.”

In Central Baldwin, Robertsdale Mayor Ruth Campbell said the city started preparing at the beginning of the week as the forecast came in, with the Robertsdale City Council declaring a local state of emergency Thursday, Oct. 8.

Robertsdale Electrical Foreman Scott Bankester said two of the city's six power circuits went out sometime after dark Friday, Oct. 9, but were back up within 24 hours after the storm passed. City Engineer Evan Davis said there wasn’t much structural damage that officials knew of and little debris to manage beyond some fallen trees.

Campbell, who is serving her first term as mayor after previously serving on the Robertsdale City Council, said her experience on the council helped prepare her for Isaias, as she was on the council when Hurricane Sally came through.

“So proud of our city, all of our city employees, how everybody works together and everybody’s prepared,” Campbell said. “They’ll have classes and we have department head meeting and the different meetings with the departments and the employees themselves to where when the incident came up as it did, everybody knew what to do and everybody was prepared. We were set and ready and just very grateful that it wasn’t any more damaging than what it was.”

Campbell was particularly worried about the community in Brewton, Alabama, in neighboring Escambia County, where families and officials are still assessing the damage left by Hurricane Isaias.

“Our employees have (several times) mentioned and are praying for our neighbors in Brewton, Alabama and the surrounding areas around Brewton that took the hard hit,” Campbell said.

In Bay Minette, Mayor Joshua Brown, who is serving his first term, said the community was fortunate, telling GCM that no flooding or damage to city property occurred. The only structural damage he recalled was to a privately owned building whose roof collapsed. He said the damage may have been tied to preexisting structural issues affected by the weather.

“On Saturday afternoon, more than 1,000 residents were without power, but utilities worked quickly, and service to all customers within the city limits was fully restored by Sunday evening,” Brown said. “Once conditions stabilized, City staff returned to normal operations on Saturday morning.”

As the first major storm under his tenure, Brown said “a strong emphasis was placed on clear communication and coordinated operations across all City departments,” adding that the city’s Public Works, Police and Fire departments began preparations early. Standardized reporting procedures were established so every department was providing updates on the same page. He added that multiple coordination meetings were also held before, during and after the storm.

“Our departments did an exceptional job,” Brown said. “Their experience and professionalism were evident throughout the event, and the coordinated effort among Public Works, Police, Fire, and our EMA partners made the biggest difference. Even though Bay Minette avoided major impacts, this was a valuable opportunity to strengthen our communication systems and reinforce how we operate as a unified team.”