“Hazel”
Everyone has memories that were so mind boggling that they will never forget. Other than family events, I have five: Hurricane Hazel in 1954, President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, The collision of the two 747’s in 1977, The Challenger explosion in 1986, and The attack on the Twin Towers in 2001. There are other significant events that I remember, but these never fade.
But the one I wanted to talk about with you is Hurricane Hazel. To joggle your memory, we lived on a rented farm in rural NC. Our house was ventage 20’s or 30’s built on pillars, with 4 rooms. We did not have running water and our restroom was an outhouse. Our only electricity was a twisted cord hanging from the ceiling with a pull-socket attached to the end. There was usually a 100-watt light bulb screwed into the socket that was the source of light for the room. My mom cooked on a propane stove. Our water source was a pump in the kitchen. Needless to say, we lived a simple life.
I remember our house was surrounded by five or six Chinaberry trees. They were huge and offered an abundance amount of shade around our house—the only drawback was in late summer; the ground would be covered with Chinaberries. We always went without shoes in the summer and the balls would squish between our toes. This felt kind of weird and the odor from them was horrible.
Across the street was a dairy run by Neil MacDonald. His dad owned the home and Neil’s younger brother still lived there named Hugh. Their home was surrounded by tall pine trees. Hugh had just bought a new 54 light blue Ford. He was so proud of that car—most cars back then were black.
It was a Friday morning like any other Friday. We got up, had breakfast, and went outside to wait for the bus. It was a beautiful fall day with unusually high temperatures forecasted to be almost 90 F.—hot for a fall day! The bus came and we boarded saying hello to our friends before settling in for the 30-minute ride to school.
Back then, the blacks had their own schools and buses—we would pass each other on the narrow dirt road and our driver always deployed the stop sign on the left side of our bus and the black driver would do the same, creating a loud “bam-a-lam” as we passed. We could see the black students and they could see us. Every time we passed, we exchanged a gesture that I had no idea why until I shared it in class and got in trouble. I later learned that it was the call “Flipping the Bird”, and it was ugly!
We arrived and went to our classes. I was in the second grade. Things were going as they usually did until about 11 am. Our teacher was called into the hallway by someone and then she returned with a frightened look on her face and informed us that we all needed to pack up and hurry to our buses. We were being sent home!
The halls were abuzz with chatter about being sent home. I heard the word “Hurricane”, but it meant nothing to me. Back then there was no TV for us, no weather channel, and no radar to warn us of storms coming. However, the new word did not sound pleasing, and we knew it was bad if they were sending us home.
At that age, I could take a fear of the unknown and turn it into a monster. We attended church every Sunday and based on what I had learned, I assumed the worst and thought that we were experiencing an apocalypse.
In my fear, I got on the wrong bus thinking it could get me home faster than mine. Where that rationale came from, I can’t explain except that I wanted to get home to my parents and the safety of my home as soon as I could. Soon I was the last one on the bus and I started crying. The driver asked me where I lived, and he was kind enough to take me home. The catastrophe (I didn’t know it was a storm) had not yet hit, and both he and I got home safely.
When I went inside, my dad was already home from work, and he and my mom were talking about the “herrikin” as they pronounced it. I asked, “Dad, what is a herrikin?” He proceeded to explain, a herrikin is a huge storm with lots of wind and rain. It has an eye in the middle and when it arrives, the sun comes out and it is calm until the eye passes, then the storm resumes. He explained that the winds changed direction after the eye passed. I have already mentioned that I had a vivid imagination and that was just enough to send my mind in a frenzy!
I already knew that anything with one eye had to be a monster! And with the wind blowing in one direction before the eye, and then the opposite direction after the eye with it being calm while in the eye had to be the work of the devil! I was frightened at what was coming, but I kept it inside. I wasn’t sure if this was the end of the world or not.
It wasn’t long before the sun was covered by black clouds and the rain began to pour. The winds slowly built into a whistling song as it whipped around and under our house. We all sat at the kitchen table not saying much and waiting for something bad to happen. After an eternity, the howling winds died down and blue skies appeared. I thought we had survived the onslaught of the wind and the rain, but my dad reminded me that we were in the eye. I had figured out that the storm was just that and not a monster which relieved my fear a little. I still did not know what to expect.
In less than an hour, the clouds rolled in again, bringing stronger winds and heavier rain. The stronger winds were accompanied by gusts up to 110 mph. Our house would shudder with each gust and I would think that out house was going to be lifted from it pillars and blown into the sky like I had seen at the movies. It seemed like the rain was falling in buckets.
Then suddenly, the Chinaberry trees started to topple one by one. They have a shallow root system and the saturated ground could no longer hold the trees in place against the wind. They looked like dominoes falling one after the other. Luckily none hit our home, but the last one fell across our power lines from the street and plunged us into darkness inside our home. My mom broke out the Hurricane Kerosene lamps so that we could see.
By then, it was getting dark, and the storm passed. It was eerily quiet and there was no movement or lights to be seen from our windows. We could not do much in the dark, so we went to bed.
Saturday morning brought the sun and blue skies. We ventured out to see what damage there was and we found it. Debris and trees lined the yard around our house. Mom told us not to go near the downed power lines. Amazingly, there was not any damage to our house, our barn was intact, and even our outhouse was not harmed.
Unfortunately, the brand-new blue ford that I mentioned earlier was t-boned from a pine tree that snapped during the high winds and fell across the car. Other than that, we were all pretty lucky considering the strength of hurricane Hazel.
We got our power back in about a week, but we hardly missed it. No TV, no appliances, no phone, no electric water pump, and nothing else that needed electricity except a radio and lights. We had our hurricane lamps and mom cooked on her propane stove, so we moved on usual.
However, other parts of North Carolina were not as fortunate as Hazel killed 19 people and injured more than 200 in North Carolina. It destroyed 15,000 homes and structures and caused an estimated $136 million in property losses in the state that would be worth $930 million today.
So Mort, I know you guys have a lot of hurricanes and a lot of damage here in Florida, but for one day in October, 1954, I was hypnotized by the worst hurricane to ever hit North Carolina!
Thanks Jim for your well-written memories. Mort
