HURRICANES WHEN I WAS A KID

I have no personal memories of the September 21, 1938 hurricane except what I was told by grandma and grandpa.

Pop was at work in New York City so clearly the weather wasn’t too bad when he left to take the train to the city about 7 or 7:30 in the morning. In those days, with no TV and none of the excessive interest in weather that we have developed over the years, there was no warning that a storm was coming and no information about what to do or how long it would last, all things that we take for granted now.

Amityville was on the western side of the eye so the greatest damage was to the east. But I can assure you that the damage in and around our house was extensive. Pop spoke about 50 to 70 trees down in and around our yard. I’m not sure how much you remember about the old house, but there was nothing but woods to one side and two house spaces to the other, and the property was very deep over 350 feet.  By the time you guys got to see it there were three houses on the side with the big woods in two houses on the other side.

Mom always talked about the storm stopping and, since lights were out, she and I walked next door to go play with a friend, only to discover the rain and wind returning in earnest and scampering back to the house.  Historical records of the storm indicate that the eye was about 50 miles across. The center of the eye crossed Long Island about 20 miles east of Amityville at a town called Bayport, so mom and I were well within the eye wall.

Evidence of the passage of the eye across our house could be seen in the way trees were destroyed and knocked down.  Imagine the wind coming from one direction for a long time and then within minutes changing 180°. This is what happens when the eye wall passes over. The stress on the tree causes the trunks to break off 10 or 20 feet above ground just like you would break a matchstick.  For as long as I could remember there was a foot and a half diameter tree trunk right outside the breakfast nook window cut off flat about 10 or so feet above the ground. Damage like I have described only occurs when the eye wall passes over.

Mom and Dad had moved to the country in May of 1937 so they had only been in the house less than two years and had never experienced anything like the 1938 hurricane. In fact I can remember in Amityville’s old-timers talking about the hurricane years later and saying that they had no memory of anything like this going back to well into the 19^th century.  It is obvious that no storm since the 1938 hurricane has been as strong or caused as much damage. Just north of Amityville were several airfields, airfields that played a major role in building fighters for World War II. A wind meter at one of the airports registered 140 mph before it was destroyed by the wind.

Electric and phone were down for weeks. In my experience in later years when any storm came, big or small, the lights when out and the telephone went out since all the wires were above ground.

Pop spoke about looking out the office window is in lower Manhattan and seeing big waves crashing up on the waterfront. I have no idea how he and mom reconnected. But I also have no recollection of any great ‘story’ about that, so I guess Pop managed to get home somehow that evening.

You remember that the house was on the lake. In fact the house was on reclaimed land and the lake had been a great deal wider than it was when these houses were built. In almost every major storm the lake overflowed onto the street and our basement flooded. I can remember being told I couldn’t go downstairs to the basement because I couldn’t swim.

Since mom and dad were born and bred city people they did what city people do when confronted with country calamities, they got in the car and drove back to the city. We stayed for at least three weeks at my mother’s folks, grandma and grandpa Winckler. Pop must’ve spent a good deal of time going back and forth from the city to the house because there would have been a considerable amount of damage caused by the flooding as well as the downed trees, although no tree hit the house or the garage. In fact during the several hurricane storms that we experienced there no trees ever hit the house or garage.

You can get a lot of details  about the 1938 hurricane at a SUNY Suffolk CC website – www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/38hurricane.

Although Amityville took a real hit in 1938 the incredible damage was to the barrier islands and to the east of us. Hurricanes rotate in a counterclockwise motion and the highest wind speeds and therefore the greatest damage occurs between five o’clock and one o’clock if you look at the hurricane like a clock.

I can remember years later when we used to spend a good deal of our summer time over on Fire Island and Gilgo Beach that the damage from the storm was still readily apparent. I particularly remember an open air dance pavilion at Ocean Beach on Fire Island. The surge wave came through smashed the bottom of the pavilion into the bay and dropped the roof down on the foundation. It lay like that for years. We used to tread for clams barefoot, feeling with our toes to find a clam and then reaching down to pick it up. You couldn’t do that on the inland side of Fire Island is because of the glass, the silverware, and dishes and other assorted junk that had been washed into the bay by the ‘38 surge wave.

I do have vivid memories of the hurricane of 1944. It came over our house at night and mom and dad and I sat in the staircase in the middle of the house while trees crashed down around us. I don’t think we went back to grandma and grandpa’s in 1944 because, by then, mom and dad had supplied the house with hurricane lanterns and portable radios and we got water out of the lake to be boiled and to use in the toilets.  Carrying a bucket of lake water to the house was my job.

All the downed trees were a wonderland for us kids. This storm just keeled the trees over so there was a great big circular mat of roots maybe 10 feet in diameter with a great big hole dug out of the ground and the long trunk and branches and leaves laid out on the ground. What fun.  I’m sure the grownups were terrified because they were electric wires down everywhere and I can remember electric wire crews repairing the damage in our backyard and mom giving the man drinks of water.

I think the hurricane of 1938 downed a lot of the trees and caused so much damage that makes the 1944 hurricane a little less memorable historically. But looking at maps of the path of the hurricane it does appear that Amityville was on the east (worst) side of the eye.

We experienced another big hurricane in 1954 as well as any number of storms which just missed us but created a lot of wave action.  As young men we couldn’t wait to get over to the ocean to ride in the surf created by these big tropical storms. Now days the cops prevent you from going over there.  I remember 1954 for sure because I had just bought a 1949 Ford convertible with my summer work money and I was sure that a tree was going to smash through the canvas roof.  I tucked the car up beside the house to keep it safe, and it survived untouched.  Whew.

During the tropical storms, hurricanes and such, when we guys were older, we used to hire ourselves out to boat owners on a particular Canal off the Great South Bay. Our job was to keep the Lines taught or loosened as the surge waters came in, two or three of us on each side of the canal to keep the boats in the middle of the Canal. I remember getting $100 apiece for this work, an absolute fortune in those days. We would happily run through the backyards with water up to our chests rearranging the lines to keep the boats from drifting onto the land or smashing onto the sides of the Canal. We never lost a boat that I can remember.

 My kid memories recall hurricanes as joy and moments creating wonderlands for kids to play in. But as a grown up I worried each year about the Amityville house being destroyed after all the good luck we experienced in those earlier years.