Hurricane Carol Wareham/Onset - August 31, 1954 On August 31, 1954, Hurricane Carol tore through Southeastern Massachusetts as a Category 3 storm, and caused significant damage to the area. With gusts reaching somewhere between 80 to 105 MPH, the storm killed 68 men, women and children while injuring over 1,000. The hurricane left behind in its wake damage totaling approximately $61.2 million in communities along the south coast of Massachusetts, with $7.7 million ($75.8 million in 2021 dollars) caused in the Town of Wareham alone. Couple surveying the damage of their Swift’s Beach cottage after Hurricane Carol struck the Town of Wareham When Hurricane Carol hit on the Tuesday morning of August 31, it was a storm no one expected. The National Hurricane Center was in its infancy. Advance computer modeling didn’t exist at the time, and satellite technology was still a few years away from developing. Hurricane reconnaissance planes routinely reported hurricane activities, and as Carol gathered strength off the coast of North Carolina (with gusts of 121 MPH), pilots could no longer stand the terrifying experience. The consensus among me- teorologists on Monday evening was that the hurricane would slide out to Cape Cod, and then drift out to sea. With the Labor Day weekend approaching the following week, many summer communities along the South Coast and Cape Cod were crowded with vacationers and summer residents. As communities began to feel the effects of the rain and rising tide water that had started around 8 AM, the Boston Weather Bureau finally issued a warning to the coastal residents to evacuate and seek higher ground at 9:30 AM. Hamilton Beach vacationer Williams Bourke of Norwood knew a hurricane was coming when the garage doors blew off of his house. He promptly left the area and headed for Town Hall. By the afternoon, businesses and resi- dences in Wareham Center saw the level of water rise as high as 7.5 feet. Most first floors and basements along Main Street were completely flooded. Additionally, the rising tide water picked up parked cars, washing them into the Wareham River. Cars were also flung into cement abutments and service poles. A fire of unknown origin broke out at Cornwell’s Department Store and completely destroyed the building. Cornwell’s was a large furniture, houseware, and flooring store at the bottom of Center Street, which was located around the area to the left of H&R Block. A photo of the blaze earned top billing on the cover of “Hurricane 1954!” a photography essay published by the New Bedford Standard Times and Cape Cod Standard-Times, describing the damage from Hurricane Carol and Hurricane Edna. Volunteer firemen battled the blaze wading, struggling, and swimming in water that was shoulder high. Wareham Postmaster John Reinhart reported to the Wareham Courier, “The heat was intense and the firefighters were forced to dowse their heads under the surface of the water every few minutes to keep their skin from cracking.” Remnants of Cornwell’s Department Store following a fire Hundreds of families were also driven out of cottages and that destroyed the entire property on Main Street homes in the low lying areas of town, which included Swifts Beach, Hamilton Beach, and Pinehurst Beach. Hundreds of shorefront cottages were either lifted off their foundations and brought out to sea, or brought further inland. Others were pound- ed by the wind and sea, and reduced to nothing more than matchwood. While the storm was in progress, a number of families climbed up to their roofs, and gripped to the shingles until the storm passed by. Police and firemen rescued scores of people as they clung to floating logs and half-uprooted trees. Others floated on makeshift rafts. The Wareham Courier reported that, “Onset resembled a ghost city the day after it was swept by the storm, with plate glass windows blown in, trees uprooted, signs down, buildings flat on nearby yards and hundreds of boats beached around Onset Bay.” It was estimated that North Boulevard was under 20 feet of water during the height of the storm. Additionally, many businesses in Buzzards Bay were victim to the waves, as several were under water. In nearby Marion Harbor, Front Street and Spring Street were strewn with the wreckage of nearly half the boat population that came in from the sea. Immediately after the storm, Red Cross facilities were set up at Memorial Town Hall in Wareham as several hundred homeless Picture of a boat that came to rest on the rail tracks at families were clothed, provided beds, and given hot meals. the Wareham Narrows after Hurricane Carol More than 50 Red Cross volunteers, some from Boston and New Bedford, worked around the clock to operate the temporary station. The September 9 edition of the Wareham Courier noted that the Red Cross was feeding 600 people daily from mobile canteens located at Swifts Beach, Swifts Neck, Pinehurst, Briarwood, Hamilton Beach and Onset. Freight and passenger trains skipped the area as several miles of track near the Wareham Center depot were ripped out of the ties. Overall, the storm put more than 250,000 telephones out of order and around one-third of the Commonwealth was without power. Hurricane Carol had also damaged or destroyed nearly 12,000 homes and buildings. Around Massachusetts, the crop devastation was significant as it caused a loss of over $15,000,0000 while winds destroyed corn, peach, 1.5 million bushels of apples, and at least 50,000 bushels of cranberries. A second hurricane hit the area less than two weeks later on September 11, Hurricane Edna, but there was enough advanced warning about that storm. The storm did bring high wind, heavy rain, and coastal flooding, but it quickly left the area, leaving very little damage behind. Later that year, Cornwell’s eventually rebuilt the building that was destroyed by Hurricane Carol. It enjoyed a successful run at this location in Wareham for the next two decades before closing its doors in the 1980s. For Further Resources About Hurricane Carol and Wareham History For Adults Hurricane 1954! (By New Bedford Standard-Times & Cape Cod Standard-Times), Call Number – WA 363.3942 HUR^^ Carol at 50: Remembering Her Fury (By Charles Talcott Orloff), Call Number – WA 551.552 ORL 2004^^ The Last Fling: Hurricane Carol 1954 (By John B. Cummings, Jr.), Call Number – 974.4 CUM 2011 The Last Fling (Video recording) (By John B. Cummings, Jr.), Call Number – DVD 974.4 LAS A Brief History of Wareham: The Gateway to Cape Cod (By Michael Vieira), Call Number – 974.4 VIE 2014 ^^Located in Stone Research Room. Patrons can view in library with special request Books For Older Children Hurricane Force: In the Path of Americas Deadliest Storms (By Joseph B. Treaster), Call Number – J 551.55 TRE 2007 Inside Hurricanes (By Mary May Carson), Call Number – J 551.55 CAR 2010 Chapter Book - I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005 (Lauren Tarshis), Call Number – J SERIES TAR Chapter Book - Magic Tree House #30: Hurricane Heroes In Texas (Mary Pope Osborne), Call Number – J SERIES OSB Books for Younger Children Eye of the Storm: Book About Hurricanes (By Rich Thomas), Call Number – JE 551.55 THO 2005 Hurricanes (By Nathan Olson), Call Number – J 551.55 OLS 2006 Picture Book - Numenia and the Hurricane (By Fiona Halliday), Call Number - JP HAL All pictures courtesy of “Hurricane 1954!” (By NB Standard-Times & Cape Cod Standard Times), New Bedford, MA: Standard Times, 1954. .