WESTPORT - A half century to the day that Hurricane Carol cut a swath through Westport, veterans of that great storm gathered down by the harbor at the Paquachuck Inn to share memories and tell tales.
Outside, the sun set on a picture-perfect Westport day. Inside, in a room where water stood five feet deep on Aug. 31, 1954, guests passed pictures about, watched storm videos, shared laughs and remembered friends no longer there.
Harbormaster Richie Earle, who did much of the organizing, said his hope was to help preserve history.
"There are some amazing stories from that storm and the people who went through it are right here. We don't want to lose it."
To that end, Westporters Beverly Schuch and Mike Cushing teamed up to capture the stories of a dozen or more key participants on video. Mr. Earle said he hopes to have the package added to the late Al Lees' "Memory Lane" collection of Westport history.
Many were like Norma Judson who said she really hadn't talked much of that day's events over the decades. It was a day of stunning loss, she said, not the sort of thing one tends to bring up often.
But once asked, the stories flooded out.
Out on the causeway
Walter Vincent said he drove out to Gooseberry Neck at about 8 a.m. "to see what was what," and it wasn't too bad at first, just some wind and clouds. But within 20 minutes the wind started to go crazy around the Quonset hut where he and others were sharing coffee. He felt the hut begin to shake and said, "this place isn't going to make it (it didn't). We've got to get out of here." With a friend's family aboard, he started "very carefully back across the causeway." Part way across, the force of the wind and rising water was so strong he doubted they would get through. He told his passengers to roll down the windows to reduce wind resistance and duck down. "We made it." Several years later, one of the girls who had ridden in the car that day got married. Right in the middle of the ceremony, they stopped and she came over and said, without you I wouldn't have this day. "That really meant something."
"I spent the whole week after the storm pumping out wells — all full of salt water.
"There were no heroes that day. Everybody did what they had to do without thinking much about it."
They day's highlight — "We came across a freezer, full of beer, still good and cold."
Splintered swordfish boat
Cukie Macomber owned a seaplane with three other people and when he heard a storm was coming, went down to fill the floats with water so it wouldn't blow away.
"We all met down there and got that done ... Our swordfish boat was on a mooring out front. We took a look and it was OK so we were going to come home but couldn't because the water was too deep. We backed up as far as we could into the dunes but there were two cars ahead of me and I was last in line which meant that my car was under water.
"The wind was blowing 100 miles per hour out of the east. Just peeking around the corner was terrific because the sand would almost cut your skin.
"We saw a huge wharf float up the river and it cut our mooring line. The wind was blowing from the east at 100 miles per hour and yet the current was so strong that our boat went up river doing about 20 knots and hit the granite pier of the drawbridge and it just, boom, pieces went flying in all directions.. You couldn't believe a boat could break up so fast.
"Meanwhile, the Broadbill was out moored in front of us ... After they saw out boat go, (the owner) started his engine up and with that engine going wide open you could hear it roaring, George could not undo the mooring line because it was so tight. So he went below and got a hatchet and cut the line off ... He was going backwards but was also coming ashore. That current out of the river had to be going 20 knots but by Cherry and Webb Lane was absolutely calm." The boat made it to shore and they tied it to a telephone pole.
Meanwhile the water came up over our seaplane.
"I was 29 years old. and my car was underwater, my swordfish boat was gone, my seaplane was wrecked. I sat down and bawled my head off."
Moby Dick sets sail
Norma Judson brought pictures of her father's Moby Dick Restaurant and adjoining businesses which stood down by the waterfront on the harbor's south side that morning. "This was 1953, when all was well," she said, pointing to one photo. "This is all that was left after Carol," she said, pointing to another.
One building landed atop an island, the big 100-footer. They had floated beautifully.
"My father (Pappy Judson) didn't see them go ... someone told him the Moby Dick was gone. He was devastated. "I was down here but you couldn't see across the river so I didn't see it go even though it was a white faced building — it stood out. Later in the afternoon, a whole pack of people were out looking for the building and couldn't find it. It sat down just as nice and pie in an open field but on top of a stone wall and broke its back. It was looted."
Eventually, "he brought the buildings back from upriver in pieces." They were rearranged and eventually put back to work. "We move things around."
Boatyard takes a beating
Bill Tripp was at his boatyard that day as usual and had no notion of the storm to come — until water quickly rose to four or five feet deep in the yard. "We were trying to get the cars out of their. Someone said they heard we're going to get a hurricane. I said, 'Thanks a lot for telling me now.'"
"The water came up I'd say five or six feet over the docks — that was the problem, the boat's lines slipped right off the pilings. Nobody ever thought it could happen." They watched as a main shed simply folded up and disappeared with most of its contents." Most of the boats landed up in the marsh but many more tangled up against the bridge. "There were more boats on moorings but moorings don't do too well when the water rises that much and the current — you wouldn't believe how strong it was. Some boats did make it but a lot were lost."
How many boats were there? — "I don't remember exactly but later there weren't as many on them as before."
"We went up in dunes to get away from the water. There were a whole bunch of people up there (also 20 or 30 pigs that used to live out near Cherry & Webb Lane).
Car flattened
Like a few others, Bill Hart drove over onto Gooseberry for a look at what was going on. "Well it became pretty clear I shouldn't be staying out on Gooseberry. I was going across the causeway, the waves were breaking right in the middle. There was a car stalled in the middle of the road. I immediately tried to back the car up, panicked, and stalled the engine. The waves were hitting the car good and I said to myself, 'This is no place to be. I ran like a -----."
The only clue they'd had that a storm was coming had come from Psyche----'s brother who worked for the airline. He'd heard that there was a hell of a storm off Cape Hatteras the day before.
"Taking (Walter Vincent's) advice, I decided to take the motor off my skiff too and put it in the trunk of my car to be safe — and that's where it was when my car went off the causeway." The car was found later, entirely crushed by rocks.
Rescuing the bartender
"I was down here when Laura's broke loose and began to float away." There were two girls out there still in one part of it. "They went out and got the two girls out of that building. The bar portion had already broken away. When the girls came in they were screaming away - 'The bartender is still out there!' ... So Bill White, who lives right here, said, 'We've got to go out and get Jim Hickey.' So he looked around and there were about 15 guys standing around just like this with their hands in their pockets. Bill looks at me and says, 'Get in the skiff.' We went out and we had this Boy Scout ax, dull as hell. Bill said, "Chop a hole in the roof,' I'm hammering away on it, sitting on the roof. I could hear him (Jim) in there, hollering away, carrying on. Nothing was happening (with the ax). So we went overboard, pushed the window in to reach in and grabbed him like a 200 pound swordfish. The water was right up to his chin, rats were jumping out all over. I couldn't have gotten him in but Bill was this rugged guy ... So we get him in and they're taking him away to the hospital and I say to Bill, 'Hey Cap, how come none of those guys standing around would go out there?' He said, 'Bar tabs.' They didn't want him or the bar tabs back. When we were out there, he kept trying to save this box, probably records with the bar tabs, but I said Jim, the building's sinking. Leave it"
Flooded out
Michael McCarthy, Westport's long-time emergency management director, lives in the last house down by the harbormaster shack, right on the water. Built in 1790, the house has survived every storm since but has taken many a pounding. In the 1938 hurricane, the front end and back ends were blown out and it was tipped over.
Mr. McCarthy was in the house the morning Carol hit.
"I remember watching TV that morning and Dave Garroway on the Today Show said it was going to hit Long Island Sound at 3 p.m. It was already blowing 50 here. I walked outside and the water was up to my knees."
"This (the street) end was blown out but it held on ... the building next door lifted up and floated up the road. Everything I knew at 12 years old changed that day.
When we got back the whole house was full of mud from the river. For years, every time you painted the walls, (moisture) would come through. The house was a mess but my grandfather put it back together.
Milk truck rescue
Three of us were over at the causeway, said Roger Reed. I had an old 37 Ford. I was 18, just going out see if there was any sea on. Somebody said, 'Oh look at that, that wave just went over the telephone pole.' We decided maybe we'd better get out of here."
"The car wouldn't start so we pushed it around the parking lot. One of them said, let's open the doors. With the doors wide open, the wind was pushing it right up the road the way we wanted to go but then we lost the wind. Then here comes a milk truck so we had sense enough that we wouldn't let him by so we made him push us - all the way down the beach till we got to the first big parking lot. He gave us a hardy shove and then slacked off so could get around us. Finally I got it started up.
Back at the harbor, "There was lobster boat out on a mooring. They took my boat out there, it was only two years old." When they got to the lobster boat, "they took my motor off and put it on the big boat. They hung my boat off the stern. Within a few minutes, my boat filled up with water, the line parted and (my) boat hit the bridge. Later, we went looking for it. Found about six feet of the bow about two miles up this river (East Branch), and six feet of the stern about two miles up that river (West Branch) almost to Adamsville. Old Roger Hart was a carpenter. I gave him the bow half. He sawed it off even, nailed a stern on and floated it around in the pond for years.
A fine time to broadcast
"My brother George and I owned WALE in Fall River," Roger Sisson recalled. "I didn't get any days off except one day, that was the day of the hurricane ...We had a cottage down on the West Beach. A guy told us we'd better get out of here.
Mr. Sisson and family drove across the bridge and stopped by the Paquachuck for some chowder. "The storm was terrible — I said, 'I've got to make a report to the radio station.' Jackie (his wife) said, 'Oh for God's sake.' I told her 'I'll only be a minute.'"
Went into the Paquachuck and there was nobody in here ... First thing you know, we saw the Evinrude building next door float away. Next thing you know it was Laura's Restaurant." Inside the Paquachuck water rose up chest deep in the bar area.
By Bruce Burdett