20 Years Later, Hurricane Bob Lessons and Memories Are Far From Lost

Editor's Note: Today marks the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Bob, a category 2 storm that caused 17 deaths and approximately $1.5 billion in damages. Due to the destructive nature of the hurricane, one of the costliest hurricanes in history, the name Bob was retired and was replaced with the name Bill. 

It was the summer before my freshman year in high school when Hurricane Bob hit.

There had been other hurricanes that hit Middletown in my lifetime, but this was to be the first one to hit while I was with my family on Easton’s Point at our summer home. Despite the inherent danger of any hurricane, there was also a level of excitement in anticipation of what the ocean would do. I’d grown up hearing numerous stories about the hurricanes of 1938 and 1954.

What stories would we have to tell after this one? Many, it turned out.

Our family’s home sits on the inland side of Shore Drive. It is close enough to watch the action of the ocean when there is a storm, but it always seems impossible that the ocean would ever reach the road, so it appeared safe to us. Our cousins’ summer home is at the other end of the street on the waterfront side and it was not unheard of for waves to splash on their lawn as it was, so there was little doubt that they would end up at our house to ride out the storm.

Two evacuations and one broken leg

If I recall correctly the police tried to enforce a voluntary evacuation, particularly at the end of our dead end street where the homes had little protection from the water, but few people left the street.

One of my cousins, three years younger than me, says that she remembers feeling their cottage start to “shake and shimmy” and so they quickly “evacuated” to our house—an evacuation plan that she notes may not have been so well thought out.

Moving across the street and five houses down isn’t exactly evacuating.

There were lots of card games and board games that kept us busy, but it was hard to tear our eyes away from the wild ocean. We spent most of the afternoon watching it from our deck. Because it’s an L-shape we were able to stand on one side while the house blocked the wind from the other. We watched as giant logs, inflatable boats, and all sorts of other large debris headed into First Beach.

After a while, my dad and two adult cousins decided to cross the street and peek over the fence, which runs perpendicular to the sea wall and divides the yards of two of the cottages across the street. Just as they did this, a huge waved crashed onto the lawn, washed out the fence, and flowed up to the edge of the street. We were all aghast that the waves would come so far as to reach the road.

My sister likened it to a Godzilla movie the way they all started running.

When I asked my family what they remember about that day, that’s the first thing that comes to everyone’s mind.

That was soon followed by an ambulance visit to the end of our road, followed by the arrival of the National Guard.

It turns out that a neighbor at the end of the road had merely taped off his sliding door in hopes that would be enough to protect his home.

But a wave crashed right through his house.

He broke his leg.

Stink Beach scares up second evacuation

Garages were washed right out from other homes at the end of the road, right on the little beach which we still call ‘Stink Beach’ because of the rotting seaweed odor that collects there.

The combination of that wave reaching our road and the arrival of emergency personnel to address those washed out garages down the road gave the adults in our house enough of a scare to prompt another evacuation to a family friend’s home further inland.

Our next move was to a home near the Second Beach end of Tuckerman Avenue. This home was only 100 yards further back from the ocean than ours, but it was on much higher ground. We figured the water would have to come over Purgatory Chasm and across Tuckerman Avenue to reach us, so it would be safe.

The only problem was that getting there wasn’t!

‘The worst decision he made that day…’

It seemed that the safest route would be to travel down Tuckerman Avenue, but we quickly found downed tree limbs that we couldn’t get around and downed power lines on other roads.

Eventually, we were able to maneuver around all the fallen debris and make our way to their home.

My dad says that deciding to go anywhere was probably the worst decision he made that day.

Aftermath

But it wasn’t long before the bulk of the storm had passed and we made our way back to our home. The neighbors all made their way out of their houses.

Everyone was walking up and down the Esplanade to see how much damage had been done on Easton’s Point and the beach.

The giant rock at the end of First Beach that is a popular spot to climb was nearly underwater still.

At the other end of our road, furniture was scattered across the street where the waves had crashed through homes. The National Guard stood by to prevent looting, although I don’t think there really would have been any.

We were lucky that we didn’t have any damage to our house and my cousins saw only basement flooding in theirs.

After the water had receded the next day, we walked down the boardwalk of First Beach where we saw mangled bathhouses, lifeguard chairs, and beach chairs.

Flying lifeguard chair

My husband, who lived on Tuckerman Avenue at the time, had watched the storm from the third floor of his sister’s home on Champlin Place in Newport and recalled seeing a lifeguard chair fly across Memorial Boulevard and land in the reservoir during the storm.

Memorial Boulevard was covered in sand. One friend recalls trying to ride her bike up Memorial Boulevard and her tires getting stuck because the sand was so deep.

There was also no power for several days or even maybe as long as a week. My bike-riding friend said she and her sister rode through town looking for ice cream stores that were giving away free scoops—since they didn’t have power and wouldn’t be able to keep the ice cream frozen anyway.

I recall spending many hours doing things by candlelight during those days and nights.

Bob’s lasting impressions

Besides the memories, there are other long-standing effects that came out of Hurricane Bob for my family. My sister was taking advantage of the big waves before the storm and body surfing with a friend when she chipped a tooth. She says, “I've never let the dentist grind it down, beg though he might to even out the ridges.”

My husband was down on the boardwalk at the beach when they were grinding up the washed up wood. He asked if he could take a piece of it.

He turned that into a family tree, marking the rings in the tree.

I have to admit that there is something exciting about hurricanes to me.

While I don’t wish for the damage to anyone’s homes or businesses, if we have another one I will want to be standing on that deck again watching the wild ocean.

But now that I live here fulltime, own a home, and have small children, I’m pretty certain that I will be sitting in our house at the top of the hill, at a safe distance from the water, with my fingers crossed that no trees fall or windows blowout.

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