Remembering Two Hazels

As Hurricane Harvey batters the Texas coast this morning, my thoughts and prayers are with those in its treacherous path and also for those folk, who, in these next few days, will be caught in its aftermath.    

On October 15, 1954, Hurricane Hazel, the deadliest and costliest hurricane of that year, made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane near the border between North and South Carolina.  The hurricane was expected to move off-shore, but instead moved northward at 60 mph, spanning the distance from North Carolina to Ontario in just 12 hours.  Upon reaching the mid-Atlantic states, Hazel interacted with a cold front from the West and was suddenly transformed and reborn as a ferocious, extratropical storm. It wreaked havoc in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, and is still remembered in Toronto (where 81 people died) as the “storm of the century.”

I was 11 years old at the time.  No one expected the storm’s rebirth and the “Weather Channel” was non-existent in those days.  A friend joined me for a bike ride that October day.  We were totally unaware of the encroaching storm.  When we were about two miles from home, Hazel was re-born and came into northern New Jersey with a vengeance—strong winds and lashing rain.  We sought shelter in an old barn (more like a shed) in a nearby field and there we hunkered down to wait it out.  I remember the roof boards of that old barn being blown off over our heads and the wind and rain seeping in through the shuddering walls.  We huddled there for what seemed like ages—and when the storm abated, we jumped on our bikes and made a beeline for home through the wind and the rain.  

The wrath of Hazel (the storm) however, was out-matched by the wrath  (and worry) of Hazel (my mother).  She had no idea where I had gone—I forgot to tell her I was off for a bike ride! I remember two Hazels this morning.