I was just a young boy during hurricane Hazel so I don't remember much about that. What I do remember was Mamma yelling for me to get inside, the family getting in Daddy's car to go into town after the storm and when we got to the bridge the road was under water with the top of the bridge showing. It was almost dark then and Daddy turned around and went the long way around. I think we stayed in town that night (the Methodist Church had gas) because the next time I saw the bridge it was daylight and we were at the opposite side. The water had left the road on the side we were entering from but it was still on the other side. The bridge was built with a rise in the middle so a small boat could get under it. Daddy backed the car up and said hold on. The next thing I knew we were airborne and over the bridge. Storms have excited me ever since and I spent a lot time scaring my younger brothers and their friends jumping that bridge as a teenager.
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Most of the pictures here were before and after on the Coan River and Lewisetta in particular. The Coan River is a river that feeds from the lower Potomac. I am especially fond of this area and the people that live there. |
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Billy Trigg, who was the postmaster at Lewisetta, and I use to fish trap from there. Billy passed on a few years ago and I really miss him. His wife Elizabeth is still a live and she is like a momma to me. You will never enter her home that she doesn't offer to make her table your table. |
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On the other side of the river the Cowart Family lives. Their roots go back a long way. Captain Lake's father had the store over there and he remembers the old steamboat days. Today they process seafood, mostly oysters. I use to dredge oysters for them back in the eighties. |
It was around 3 o'clock when I got down to Lewisetta. The tide was still coming in. I have seen the tide come up this high quite a few times on a Northeaster but high tide wasn't expected until after 7. In my lifetime I have seen more damage come from a northeaster than all the hurricanes that come up the coast. I grew up thinking that Hazel had come up the bay. In later years I learned that she actually came ashore in South Carolina and ended her path in upstate New York.
| On a dare one of Randy Harding's boys starts to walk out on the gas dock but decides it is safer on shore. The white structure at the end of the dock is a NOAA weather recording station. At the time this picture was taken the end of the pier was rising up every time a wave would get under it. Needless to say the the NOAA station suffered its damage too. |
| The other day NOAA divers were there working on it. When it is working you can see the real time conditions at Lewisetta along with other locations along the bay by going to http://co-ops.nos.noaa.gov./ports_screens/cbscreen.shtml |
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It is about 4 o'clock now and the Potomac River is starting to come over Lewisetta. |
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A few minutes later at the village's lowest spot the water runs over the road and the Potomac River and the Coan River are actually connected. |
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Remember it is still over 3 hours from high tide. The worst of it came around 9pm.