CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO—HURRICANE HAZEL SIDESWIPES CONTINENTAL VILLAGE

  

Track of 1954 Hurricane Hazel copied from Wikipedia.

     According to the National Weather Bureau, Hurricane Hazel was the deadliest and costliest hurricane of the 1954 hurricane season and was the strongest and only Category 4 hurricane to ever hit the North Carolina coast. It hit the coast of South Carolina-North Carolina border in the morning of October 15 with maximum winds of 150 mph. Wind gusts about 100 mph were reported from several locations in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York as Hazel raced northward. Wind gusts of 90 mph were recorded in northern New York, and a peak wind gust of 113 mph was recorded at the Battery in New York City.

      During the evening the storm reached Pennsylvania and then it temporarily weakened. A transformation of energy between an incoming front and the dying storm reignited Hazel to form a freshened hurricane over New York State. It passed through Syracuse but sideswiped most of the state. I remember torrential rains and winds blowing about 80 mph when the effects were felt in Continental Village and Peekskill overnight. The next day all was calm. There were tree branches down everywhere and small pools of water in various places including the dirt roads and driveways. Telephone and electric lines were down in various places. At the nearby Salt Box house one of the two ancient maple trees lost a huge branch, the size of a regular tree trunk, which lay on the ground.

     My brother John and I got permission from the Boyd family to cut firewood from the broken maple tree. We used an axe and a cross-cut saw with a handle on each end. It took us about three hours to cut all that was fallen. Mrs. Boyd and her young daughters Janice, Maris and Paris were watching us. I noticed that Mrs. Boyd had dark brown hair but all of the cute little girls with rhyming names had blond hair. We shared the logs with the Boyd family and helped clean up the yard.

     There were several limbs down in the old apple orchard nearby. John and I went into the old orchard and cut up several large apple limbs for firewood. The grass in the field was still wet and there were puddles of water here and there. We got wet feet, wet shoes and wet socks—all soaked with water from the storm. We noticed pools of water in Putnam Road, which was still a dirt road at that time.

     The following day I met my friends Paul Kuty and Cliff Holmes and a few other boys. I think Raymond Kuty, Paul's younger brother, and Wayne Matthews were with us. We walked to Spy Pond to see if it had flooded. There were several deep pools of water outside the perimeter of the pond and many of the orange-colored carp were trapped by overflows. (These carp, possibly koi carp, may have been stocked by the Cinnabar Ranch owners prior to 1947.) We went home separately and returned with an empty wooden box, one fish net and several fishing knives and began to harvest the carp for crab bait. Pants rolled up above the knee, shoes and socks safely stowed on dry land, we waded into the pools of water dipping the net or slashing the carp with knives. Often we cut the fish in half. Within an hour we had enough bait for a cash crabbing enterprise at Annsville. We had to return home to get our bikes and crab nets.

     When we were fully organized, we rode down to Annsville on our bikes and set up at the small white bridge over Sprout Brook on the Old Albany Post Road. The muddy water in the brook was higher than I had ever seen it and the water was moving along much faster than usual. We had to weight the crab nets with a few stones to get them to drop close to the bridge. The crabbing enterprise proceeded normally and we caught many lively, scampering blue and red claw crabs as the tide was coming in. I remember that not one passing motorist stopped to buy any of our crabs that day. Lacking pocket money, we skipped the usual candy and soda at Kornfeld’s store and tavern. We divided the catch evenly, with Paul and Raymond getting a double share because they had two nets.

     We brought our crab catch home. There had been a lack of appreciation by motorists along the highway, but we reckoned that there would be considerable appreciation at home. Wayne's father actually gave him some money for his catch.