With all the news about Hurricane Irene working its way toward the US mainland and the entire coastline bracing for possible disaster, I’m reminded of a couple of hurricane experiences of my own:
THE FIRST WAS HURRICANE DONNA IN SEPTEMBER OF 1960.
I was attending school at the Main Street School in Denville, New Jersey and the hurricane was making itself known in town with heavy rains and gale-force winds. Apparently the school officials felt there was a real danger to the building, students and faculty and the weather was continuing to worsen as the day wore on. They closed school early and sent us all on our way to get home to safety before all the roads became impassable.
I didn’t live the required two miles from the school to qualify to ride the bus (our house on Morris Avenue was 1.9 miles away), so I walked. From the Main Street school, I walked through town, along Route 46 and out Franklin Road (or was it Savage rd? I don't remember much these days!) to the Little League field by the river (Gardner Field?). It was not a pleasant or easy walk, what with the wind and rain.
Anyway, when I came to the bridge that crosses the Rockaway River just past the baseball field, I couldn’t help but notice the river had risen to within a few feet of the bottom of the bridge. In the summer, we all jumped from the railing to the river beneath but it was probably a good ten or fifteen-foot drop to the water then. A very few, very daring kids climbed to the top of the bridge for the jump. I wasn’t one of those. I was afraid. This time, however, I realized, with the water level so high, it was ten or fifteen feet from the very top of the bridge to the water!
I walked out onto the bridge, which had that metal-grated surface that hummed when driving across, took off my socks and shoes and placed them neatly with my books along the railing. I could see the brown water through the grating below my feet. Then I climbed to the top of the structure, stood there for a brief moment and leaped out over the railing and into the storm.
As soon as my feet hit the water, they were swept out from under me as though I had just landed on the top of a speeding truck. I was thrown on my back, then pulled straight down in the churning, angry, muddy water. I fought with all my strength to get back to the surface, then with all my might to get to the bank. The problem was, the bank was a lot farther away than usual and the water was moving so fast! The river was wide! Very wide and racing full-speed with me in its clutches. I kept swimming in the direction of shore until I finally managed to reach the bank and crawl out of the mess. I must have gone under, over or around the bridge at Diamond Spring Road (although I don’t remember how) but when I did crawl out of the water, I was on the other end of town. I think it was the parking lot for a place called Norell’s (?), along Route 46 and across the river from the hospital and the old St Francis hogs where I found myself.
I had to walk barefoot through the flooded streets of Denville, wade the length of Riverside Drive, then swim and wade across the fields just below the main Little League field to get back to the bridge. The water had risen since I first jumped but it wasn’t above the bridge surface…yet. I picked up my shoes and books and walked the rest of the way through the trail to Morris Avenue and home.
THE SECOND WAS HURRICANE ALMA IN1966.
I was working on the Felicia, a scallop boat that made its home at the Fulton Fish Market, in New York City. The captain and crew were all Norwegians and considerably older than I was at the time. The captain spoke English well but the others, only barely.
Oddly, the first time I ever worked on that boat was the first time I had ever been on any kind of boat at all that was longer than a car. This one was 95 feet! When I first set foot on the old wooden hulk, I was aware that I was the only one sober enough to walk a straight line. The crew promptly passed out in a unified, drunken stupor while the captain gave ME instructions to get us out of the harbor, under the Verrazano Bridge and into the Atlantic. He said to wake him when I go under the bridge. Then he passed out, himself. I had no clue. I was still sixteen (or seventeen) years old! Fortunately, it was daytime and I could actually SEE the Verrazano Bridge. Other than that bit of good luck, I was at a near total loss. I knew nothing of proper navigation…which buoys meant what, what to avoid, what maritime laws were. Eventually, I woke Captain Finn as we slid under the bridge and he took over the helm from there.
Anyway, about the hurricane…we had worked our way about seventy-five miles off the coast and (maybe) as far south as Virginia when Captain Finn realized there was a hurricane heading toward us. It was time to head back. In fact, it was already past time to head back. The weather was getting worse by the minute as the afternoon wore on. The crew had already stowed all the gear and gone below as evening neared. The wind, rain and seas were all rising. Frothy ocean water sloshed back and forth across the deck and blended with the torrential rain. Wind and water came from all directions as Captain Finn maintained course, heading north. We were losing the race with the leading edge of Hurricane Alma.
It only got worse as darkness fell upon us. Yes, the weather was worse but there was more to it. Captain Finn brought me up to the wheelhouse, showed me what compass heading we were attempting to maintain…and went to sleep in his bunk. He went to sleep and left me there in the wheelhouse by myself. Everyone else was asleep. It was pitch dark. The wind howled, the rain came from everywhere and the seas swept over the deck as though we weren’t even there.
The Felicia had one of those old-fashioned steering wheels…huge, with gnarled wooden handles all around. It takes a physical effort to spin the thing all around a few times to just make a turn of a few degrees. The compass was about two feet in diameter and was mounted on the floor next to the wheel where I stood, unprepared. There was no point looking outside the wheelhouse. Everything was as black as death out there. The waves buffeted the boat, smashing against the elevated, wheelhouse windows, the door rattling open and closed, water rushing in and out of where I hung on to the steering wheel while staring at the compass. Each time the boat was pounded from one side, the compass indicated we had been turned as much as 90 degrees. I frantically spun the wheel to get back to the correct heading on the compass, only to be hit again and turned in a different direction. Side to side we all traveled that night with the relentless roar of the hurricane bearing down on us. I turned that steering wheel twenty times one way, then twenty the other, then ten back and twenty again. Spinning the wheel, soaked with rain, seawater and sweat, I fought all night long, alone in the wheelhouse, as Hurricane Alma didn’t care if the Felicia ever made port again.
As daylight approached, Captain Finn reappeared and assumed the helm. I was totally spent. We had made some progress through the night, putting some distance from the hurricane…somehow! Also, Alma seems to have headed a bit eastward rather than smashing directly into New York City. (It had also lost a lot of its strength by then.) We eased under the bridge to safety in the late afternoon.
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