Newburyport, Mass.

I witnessed Hurricane Carol '54 in Newburyport, Mass. The eye passed over us. I was 13. I remember several aspects of the storm vividly.

One was that my father had a sailboat at anchor in the harbor on the Merrimack River that was driven ashore by the high water. Some damage, but he salvaged it later. The second was that we drove out to Plum Island and saw some very high waves breaking far offshore, approx. 40 ft. high, according to my dad (a scientist and maritime buff) and some beach houses that were destroyed.

The most amazing thing was an incident involving falling trees. We lived on the main road, High Street, which at the time had brick sidewalks and two large oak trees (6 ft. diameter trunks?) on either end of our property, around 100 ft. apart. I was watching the trees sway in the wind and the brick sidewalk heave up and down, maybe +/- 6 inches, above the roots. A delivery truck came along the street, and one of the trees fell right in front of the truck. Shortly thereafter, the truck backed up, and the second tree fell right behind the truck, trapping the truck between the two fallen trees. The driver got out and ran for it.

The eye was interesting. A period of calm, maybe even sunshine, followed by more strong winds.

We had a large branch from another tree fall and damage our roof, but it was not major.

I also recall that the cleanup took a long time.

Peter Smith