Conimicut, RI

I was just barely 10 years old and not into following weather forecasts. I awoke to a very windy and rainy day, disappointed that one of the last days before school would start was being rained out.

I lived at 23 Bluff Ave., a struggling section of Conimicut in those days. We had a beach at the foot of Rock Ave, with horseshoe crabs, where the quahoggers anchored their skiffs and sold their day's haul in burlap bags to the truck every afternoon. Green Island had hill and beyond that was the Providence River and Barrington.

When the rain let up I went out and was surprised to see the "Atlantic Ocean" - no Green Island, no river, no Barrington, just the Atlantic Ocean, or so it seemed to me. Conimicut Lighthouse, about a mile south of my neighborhood, marks the transition from upper Narragansett Bay to the Providence River although the water remained salty with tides. I knew the Ocean was suppose to be about 30 miles South. But there it was - roiling gray water so high with wicked whitecaps that I could not see the opposite shore. My 10 year old reasoning power told me the Atlantic was moving inland. Why I did not know. I needed to move out.

That ocean convinced me it was past time to head for higher ground. My Mom was at work and I was alone. So I grabbed my jar of coins, a blanket, and my raincoat and went up Oxford St as fast as I could to West Shore Road. I figured I would be safe and that higher ground or at least have a chance to be helped.

When my mother got home from work about 4:45 pm or so, the danger had past. Our house had no damage. I realized I panicked for 'nothing.' I learned a lesson that day. Be prudent, but do not panic until it is necessary, and always know the difference. I employed that good lesson the two or three times I felt real danger later in life.

Hurricane Carol reduced Green Island to a sand bar. My little section of Bluff Ave was a slopping hill that saved my house from my Atlantic Ocean that ate away the hill and turned it into a true bluff.

When Hurricane Diane threaten us about a month later, I sat on a beached refrigerator and required it to back me away foot by foot. A 10 year old boy can be very brave if not prudent. I was not tested because Diane veered away.

I was also the Providence Bulletin paperboy for Conimicut. I sold the special Hurricane Carol Book a few months later. Only then did I truly comprehend the damage and loss of life Hurricane Carol caused. I learned then that is prudent to NOT live in low laying areas, to always pay attention to the weather, and to be prepared to evacuate before it is too late. Daring Mother Nature to back you up foot by foot is NOT a smart plan. I checked the flood plain maps before I bought our houses in Oklahoma and Sacramento, California.

I was in Conimicut this April to celebrate my wife's birthday with her mother who lives on Steele Ave. She has stories about the 1938 Hurricane. The summer-use cottages on the bluff across from my old place are now upgraded to year-round living. The two mid-fifties year-round homes have filled in the slope and added rock walls in hope of saving the manicured grass slope should another Carol churn up again. Vehicle access to the Rock Ave. beach, where the kids and teenagers of the mid-fifties staged a bonfire every 4th of July, is no more, however. I don't know where the quahog skiffs anchor now. But a good quahog chowder is still reason enough to always come back to Rhode Island.

Editor's note: I'm a little unclear on this area of Narragansett Bay, so I asked Fred for some additional background about himself - where he lives now - and the region, particularly Green Island. He wrote:

My Conimicut wife (40 years this August 1st) and I live in Roseville, California, about 20 miles east of Sacramento on I-80, half way between San Francisco and Lake Tahoe, both great places for a weekend lunch. After a 24 year career in the US Air Force, I got my degree and now am a Management Auditor for the California State Teachers' Retirement System.

Background Comment: Carol came in with the high tide and the normally flat water had grown very tall and flooded Providence. Several years later the Fox Point Barrier was built to protect Providence from any future storm surge. A school friend lived on Conimicut Point and said they found the roof of his house lodged against the Point Street Bridge in Providence. Here is a thought: Imagine Manhattan if Carol had hit the Husdon River on an incoming tide.

I cannot confirm that Green Island was the correct name, it was what the neighborhood kids called it in the fifties. Green Island was an extension protruding south of Gaspee Point and added dimension to Occupastuxet (sic) Cove. I think at low tide it was possible to walk to it from Gaspee Point. Before Carol, I got out to Green Island two or three times by skiff. It had a hill and trees and sea grass. Carol reduced it to a small sand bar. BTW: Gaspee Point got its name when the British sloop, Gaspee, got caught on the low tide and the Colonial Rhode Islanders burnt it.

Another Editor's note: Green Island is indeed the name in use today - although a 19th Century map I found called it "Marsh Island." But Fred's speculation about Manhattan raises an interesting point about hurricanes. I can remember interviewing an expert at the Miami Hurricane Center in the 1970s and having him point out that Manhattan had never gotten a direct hit at high tide from a Hurricane and that's one of the things they worry about.

With so much of the coast built up, each new hurricane season brings thoughts about potential disasters in areas where hurricanes have come close before, but not dealt a direct blow.