Rochdale, MA

I enjoyed reminiscing with your hurricane Carol site.

I remember my twin sister and I were 3 years old; we lived at the bottom of Stafford Street, Rochdale, MA, in front of the old Carlton Woolen Mill on the French River. Our street had its road completely wiped out from overflow of the French River. My parents awakened us and showed us the flooded back yard. It was water as far as we could see in my memory. They said, 'See all that water out there? That means we have to leave, and the nice firemen are going to help us'. The next thing I remember is the firemen who were strapped together with ropes outside our front door were passing us one to another to an awaiting truck. My uncle was one of the firemen, and they lived up on the hill, so they took us to stay with them.

A few days later, our family was sitting out on the front lawn, watching re-construction of the road, and a man came running down the hill yelling "the dam is breaking, the dam is breaking!!!" He was referring to the Greenville dam (which never did break), but our parents scooped us up and ran as fast as they could up the hill. It was a couple miles to our uncle's house, but we finally made it; and stayed there a couple nights.