Hurricane

I see that Hurricane Ophelia is menacing the shores of North Carolina this morning. And that brings to mind my own memories of a North Carolina hurricane, a hurricane named Donna.

It was September 11th in 1960 and I was stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

“By the time the storm reached the beaches of North Carolina on the evening of the eleventh, it was racing toward the northeast at over 30 mph, and maximum sustained winds were up to 115 mph. During the afternoon, several small tornadoes touched down in coastal South Carolina, causing much damage and several injuries. Even though the hurricane regained intensity before it struck the North Carolina coast, its eye had expanded to become a broad, diffuse area of calm, ranging from fifty to eighty miles in diameter. It made landfall around 10:00 p.m., inflicting extensive damages from Topsail Beach to the Virginia line. Donna was particularly destructive from Morehead City to the Outer Banks, where it was considered worse than any of the severe storms of the past decade.”

I remember that we were instructed to secure all loose objects around the barracks and to open the barracks windows just 6”, top and bottom. That was to allow for equalization of pressure and would avoid windows being blown out by the surge of wind. I also remember looking out of the window near my bunk and seeing small trees flying through the air. And I was going to take a car over to the hospital for my evening shift, but when I pulled the car out from between the cars where it was parked, the wind got beneath the car and began to shake it violently. I pulled the car back into the parking space and ran back to the barracks. I would take the bus. And I can never forget the sight of the eye of the hurricane as it passed over us. It was as if we were at the bottom of a huge well. The next morning, I drove to the beach and saw that the brand new, concrete pier was gone. Not a sign of it anywhere.