de Luna y Arellano, in his unsuccessful attempt to establish a permanent colony for Spain nearby at Pensacola in 1559. Although Spain's presence in the area had been sporadic, in 1702 French colonists created a deep-sea port at Dauphin Island and founded French Louisiana's capital at Mobile, a few miles north of Mobile Bay on the Mobile River. Following a series of floods, the original settlement of Fort Louis de la Mobile was relocated in 1711 to the head of Mobile Bay. Role in wars During the American Civil War Mobile Bay was used as a major port for blockade runners bringing in badly needed supplies for the Confederacy. On August 5, 1864, Admiral David Farragut led a Union flotilla through Confederate defenses and sealed off one of the last major Southern ports of the bay in the Battle of Mobile Bay. A number of Civil War-era shipwrecks remain in Mobile Bay, including American Diver, CSS Gaines, CSS Huntsville, USS Philippi, CSS Phoenix, USS Rodolph, USS Tecumseh, and CSS Tuscaloosa. Mobile's role as a seaport has continued to the present day, though the commodities have changed through time. Cotton was the chief commodity in the nineteenth century. During the Second World War, Mobile's shipbuilding industry expanded, and the city's population surged as both black and white migrants moved there for work. Growth has been rapid since then. Natural disasters in the area The city has endured several devastating hurricanes in its history, the most recent being Hurricane Frederic in 1979 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Areas of low elevation, including the downtown business district, have been flooded repeatedly in hurricanes. However, much of the city is at an elevation exceeding above sea level, which is unusually high for the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. On September 13, 1979, Hurricane Frederic entered the bay with winds reaching , destroying the bridge to Dauphin Island. On August 28–29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina pushed a massive storm surge into Mobile Bay; it measured high at Bayou La Batre (Alabama), with higher waves on top, and high at Mobile, at the far northern end of the 31-mile-long Mobile Bay. Thousands of boats, piers, and beach houses were damaged by waves exceeding high, and the battleship was pushed off her moorings, leaving her listing to port (tilted to the left). Downtown Mobile was flooded several feet, and the south-end towns of Bayou La Batre and Bon Secour