Island in a storm

On August 10, 1856, a ferocious hurricane swept across Isle Derniere, a long, sandy barrier island about a hundred miles from New Orleans. It was not an uninhabited island. It was an exclusive summer resort in the Gulf of Mexico where hundreds of affluent planters, merchants, and their families spent the warm, humid summers to escape yellow fever epidemics that ravaged cities like New Orleans. After the hurricane had passed, killing at least two hundred people, Isle Derniere was left barren. The island was greatly reduced in size by the hurricane and what was left was never to be inhabited again.