September 2, 2011

ST. SIMONS ISLAND. Ga. -- Long before they started naming hurricanes - which began in 1950 - the Hurricane of 1938 cut quite a swath through our Long Island neighborhood. The news and weather reports last week referred to Irene as being the worst since then.

The New England Hurricane of 1938 hit us on its way north and it hit without warning. I was six years old then and my memories of that day are clear. There was little between our house and LaGuardia Airport - which did not even open until 1939 - so I remember cement trucks, steam rollers and construction equipment filling the barren landscape. We could hear them night and day as they prepared for the opening of the New York World's Fair in 1939 - within walking distance of where we lived on Ditmars Blvd.

There was absolutely no warning of any kind. I wouldn't have paid attention if there were. As I said, I was just six. However, with the advance of years and the advent of the Internet, I now know the evening news before storm date of September 21, 1938 reported Hitler's advancing into Czechoslovakia and the Yankees played Chicago at Comiskey Park. As for the weather, there was a chance of a slight drizzle.

Well, overnight, the storm came. I recall hearing loud noises and cracking branches. It was frightening to me as my mother swooped me away from the window and said, "Go downstairs with your brothers." Well, down I went and they were laughing and splashing and standing in three feet of water. The huge cement basement had flooded and the boys quickly unhooked the rowboat they kept there for those days they would carry it across the parkway for rowing on Flushing Bay. They boosted me in and we rowed in and around the beams and dodged the floating logs recently chopped and ready for the cold fall days ahead.

That was the happiest day of my early childhood and the beginning of better times. It was still the time of The Great Depression and with nine children our family was struggling. (My father was a salesman when no one was buying anything but he sold heavy equipment and with the World's Fair practically in our back yard, his jobs with Lorain Crane and Johns Manville were secure.)

The rowboat fun didn't last too long. I kept trying to stand up and one of the boys would flat hand to the top of my head, gently push me down until I was finally sent upstairs, gingerly stepping out to the bottom step and scurrying along yelling, "MaaaMaa." The rest of the day, I had races between one raindrop and another on the windowpanes all the while sniffling because of my misfortune.

Minor hurricanes came and went as I grew through World War II and the Korean Conflict until a named hurricane swept across my part of the world on August 12, 1955 and its name was CONNIE - my name. The headlines on New York's newspapers had Connie vamping through the Tri State area leaving a trail of damage in her wake. It was amusing to clip those headlines to use as bold print captions in my scrapbooks. Since the destructive hurricanes I witnessed in the Long Island region, I've prepared and prepared for reaching storms coming up toward our home in Southeast Georgia. I wrote about "Fighting Floyd" and announced "Big Bertha's Bang was a Bust." It was during those days that while we battened down the hatches with Hurricane Irene on the way we also noticed Home Depot was hiring. Our huge jobless market was being filled here on a small island in the Atlantic.

Residents weren't leaving to vacation in the cool Northeast and tourists weren't flying in for a late summer vacation on our shore. Our service industry reduced the number of employees while our home building improvement and repair establishments swelled with activity.

My thoughts go back through other natural disasters as I focus on the present day devastation in points North - Vermont, New Jersey, Long Island - and wonder how the victims will begin again. Unlike the Hurricane of 1938, the powerful storm called Irene did not come without warning. We tracked it hourly. We knew where it was and which way it was heading. We even paid attention to the news of the world as the Libyan rebels were continuing their protest in the streets to take over Libya's 40-year rule by tyrant, Muammar Gaddafi.

Every once in a while, my focus would stray from the screen and I could almost hear my joyful giggling in the water-filled basement when I was six and my big brothers were in their teens. They steadied me as I jumped up and down in the sturdy rowboat, feeling safe and secure. It's a wonderful feeling and one to reflect upon if ever being safe and secure is in question.

   

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