Oceanside, NY

August 31, 1954 was a day like any other day, or was it? Mom had to be at work, and we were being hustled off to our friend Mary's home because her mother would be a home that day.... Dad had left for the construction site to secure the equipment and building supplies and our older brother Joseph went with him. Our younger brother, Larry, was at Grandma's house in Massapequa for the week while Mom was at work. We were due to start school in a few more days and Mom needed to take us shopping for school clothes and supplies.

It was a gray and cloudy morning and it was raining, but it rains a lot on Long Island. We were living in Oceanside at the time, a township of Hempstead, in Nassau County, New York. I was seven years old and my younger sister Lynn was five. Mary and I were classmates.

Mary, our friend, was still in bed when we arrived, so we waited in the kitchen for her to come down for breakfast. Her mother, Alice, was really nice. She was a tiny woman and seemed to love having kids around. Mary's father, Frank, had already left for work in the city.

Because it was raining, we could not go outdoors. We girls thought it might me nice to go out on the front enclosed porch, but Alice told us that we could not be out there because of the glass windows. "What's with her?" I wondered, because we had been on the front porch in other storms. Then Alice told us what all of the fuss was about. "Hurricane Carol is coming!" and she returned to the kitchen to make preparations in case we lost the electricity. "Ah hah! That explains why there are candles and lanterns on the sideboard." I didn't know what a hurricane was, but it must be some big deal or Alice would have been at work, too.

We girls played dolls and kept ourselves occupied until we began to hear the wind howling. I mean, it was a loud howling noise. I was pretty scared by the awful sounds that the wind was making. Mary was scared, too. My sister began crying and Alice held all of us on the sofa. We could hear things bumping into the house now and then, but nothing broke that we knew of.... The lights went out, came back on, went out again and stayed out. Then after awhile, the wind was quiet. I mean really quiet. There wasn't so much as a breeze moving outside the windows. There were no bird sounds, but there wasn't any other sound either.... The sun came out! I shouted, "The storm is over! Look! The sun is shining!"

Alice looked out the window at the side of the living room and called us to come with her. "The eye of the hurricane is passing right over us!" We all stepped out onto the front porch and looked up. What a strange sight that was! The clouds were actually pretty and they went so high! In the middle was the bluest sky I had ever seen. Wow! We were standing in the eye of Hurricane Carol! It was awesome!

We were out there for just a couple of minutes, and then we could feel the wind coming up again, so we went back indoors. I no sooner got back into the house when I thought that my nose was running. It turned out to be a nose bleed. I had never had one before, but Alice thought it might have been caused by the drop in barometric pressure from the storm. I had no idea what she meant, but I didn't like my nose bleeding either. It took awhile for it to stop, but it did stop.

When Mom picked us up that evening, my sister and I were chattering away about the hurricane. We told her about going outside to see Carol's "eye" go over the house. She was at work all day and hadn't seen too much other than all of the rain. She never did get to see the eye of a hurricane. The image of the eye of Hurricane Carol is still in my memory.

I do not know which type of experience is more anxiety producing, watching a hurricane or being in an earthquake. I live in California now, so I have been through a few of those. I think I would rather deal with a hurricane... As a child, I did not have sense enough to be afraid, only curious. As an adult, I would not want to be where a hurricane is going to hit. One experience of "riding out" one of these horrendous storms was enough for me!

Dianne Tandoi Long