By Stephen Roberts
Just weeks after Hurricane Helene hit the Western part of North Carolina, we are remembering a devastating storm from 70 years ago.
The National Hurricane Center established what is now known as hurricane season in 1965. That was about a decade after Hurricane Hazel ravaged communities from the North Carolina coast to the Piedmont.
This season commemorates the 70th year since the storm made landfall in the Carolinas. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration lists Hazel as the strongest and only category 4 hurricane to ever hit the North Carolina coast.
Most North Carolinians still remember Hurricane Fran or Floyd. Both of those storms left dozens of people dead late in hurricane seasons of the 1990s. Neither were as violent nor late coming as Hazel.
Without modern access to detailed forecasts, people in the storm’s path were near oblivious in the days leading up to Hazel’s landfall on October 15, 1954. For a handful of families who lived then on the islands lining North Carolina’s coast just above the state’s southern border, Hazel has never been forgotten.
W.J. and Sibyl McLamb live near Ocean Isle Beach to this day. At ages 93 and now almost 90, W.J. and Sibyl still have vivid memories of Hurricane Hazel. Their small community took the full brunt of the cyclone’s 140-mph winds and 18-foot storm surge.
“We had the clothes on our backs. We lost everything we had,” said Sibyl.
The McLamb’s new home on Ocean Isle Beach was one of two houses that remained after the storm. There were a few more than 30 before the storm. Her husband and father-in-law would find it, afterward, nearly two miles away, where Hazel had washed it from its foundation. Almost nothing they owned was left intact.
“Our little house had been lovingly built by my father. I believe he probably put more nails in this one because he knew who would be living in it,” Sibyl once wrote in a letter to a newspaper’s editor. “All the walls were cypress paneling as were the cabinets. The floors were knotty pine.”
The young McLamb’s and their 18-month-old daughter Teresa moved into the house only months before the storm. Her father had built it on the first row, facing the Atlantic Ocean. Days before the storm, Sibyl remembers salting local-caught fish to prepare for winter. They were starting a family and a life. But fate was about to step in.
Sibyl says she saw fishermen the morning before the storm working on a calm ocean. It was a warm, sunny October day.
With little thought of the coming storm, W.J. drove his young wife and daughter to his mother’s home a few miles inland before heading off to work. The ladies had plans to make curtains for the new home on the beach.
W.J. says after work, he stopped by a friend’s hardware store and had a light-hearted chat about the warnings telling people to evacuate the beach as the storm bore down on them. The last-minute decision to stay overnight with family likely saved their lives.
“People I knew very well had died, that could have been me,” said W.J. “If it hadn’t been for my wife helping my mother.”
Others living on Ocean Isle Beach were less fortunate than the McLambs. Sibyl and W.J.’s friend Robert Bellamy passed away in 2015. Their daughter Teresa published a short article about him in 2008, recalling his experience during the storm. Bunky, as his friends knew him, had just returned from basic training to visit his young wife, Sonja, and her family who lived in one of the other beach homes.
The evening before landfall, Bunky said the Coast Guard warned people still on the island to leave. They planned to catch the two-car ferry the next morning, if it seemed things were bad. It was the only way to the mainland.
However, by 6:00 a.m. when Bunky and Sonja went to check, the ferry was already under water. It was too late, and 11 people remained behind on the island. Including Sonja’s parents, Sherman and Madelene Register and her 10-year-old brother Buddy.
In a last-ditch effort after things worsened, everyone piled into a truck in hopes the group could make it to the high dunes. But the truck was picked up by the water and overturned. Bunky told Teresa he never saw his in-laws again.
He and his wife somehow managed to survive as the waves pushed them to shore. A couple from High Point, North Carolina who were also in the truck survived as well. The other seven all perished in the waters.
Another man, Joe Dock of Southport, also drowned during a heroic attempt to rescue those stranded on the island with a rowboat.
In the aftermath of the storm, the American Red Cross spent more than $630,000 to help people in North and South Carolina recover. That would be $7.3 million dollars in today’s money.
The organization set up disaster relief headquarters in Wilmington, North Carolina with offices in Tarboro, Shallotte, Southport and Morehead City. In total, nearly 2,000 people reached out to the American Red Cross for some kind of aid.
Over the next days and weeks after the storm, W.J. says his family and friends came together, using borrowed boats to scavenge for scattered belongings. He says times have changed. The McLamb family relied on their tight-knit community alone to get by.
“If it hadn’t been for our parents, we would have been really lost. We have a different society today. There’s all kind of potential help.”
These days, many people can be unaware what resources are available to them after a disaster. And major storms can wreak havoc far inland. 70 years ago, Hazel sustained windspeeds as high as 100-mph, walloping areas as far inland as Raleigh and Chapel Hill. Torrential rains flooded waterways along the storm’s path. Hazel finally dissipated after it crossed the Canadian border.
“If another Hazel came, it would be a catastrophe. If they tell you to get out. Get out. Don’t risk your life because the water will get you,” Sibyl said. “Listen to the authorities, don’t play around. We didn’t know it was coming, but it came.”
The McLambs left the island after the storm for the safety provided a few miles inland. But the home her father built was moved and still stands today, with some renovation, and expansions. Decades later W.J. and Sibyl moved back in for a short period to their beloved Ocean Isle Beach. She says that time provided emotional closure.
In the seven decades since Hurricane Hazel, The American Red Cross has streamlined operations by employing modern data analytics and digital platforms. Real-time data is now used to manage logistics, track resources and coordinate with local and national partners. Technologies like the Disaster Response App help victims, volunteers and staff manage tasks and communicate more effectively.
Red Cross leadership is still working to extend mass care response and disaster mental health and health services. And the organization is always looking for new volunteers to provide assistance at relief shelters when disasters strike.
Remember, hurricanes also bring the threat of tornadoes that can spin off from the storm’s outer bands. Are you ready for a big storm? The Red Cross has several resources online to help keep you safe during hurricane season.
There’s plenty of information at RedCross.org. Whether you plan to stay home or evacuate, make sure you know what to do. Use the Red Cross checklist to prepare before a storm hits.
If a disaster does strike, and you or a loved one need help, the Red Cross of North Carolina posts a map marking open shelters with plenty of details on what to bring, and who can use them. Hint: you’re included.
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