My father was a volunteer fireman with the local fire company when the storm hit. For reasons beyond my understanding, he felt it was best for all of us to stay on the Island. At the time there were four of us children: my older sister, who was ten, me, and two younger sisters who were one-and-a-half and four months old.
The first day of the storm was a blustry, sunny day, but oddly, the water kept rising higher and higher. My sister and I sat at our picture window and watched things float past our house: picnic tables, boats, garbage cans. We listened to the wind howl and watched as tree branches flew by. That night we lost electricity and heat. The next morning water was coming into the house.
My father and grandfather came to rescue us during low tide, but because the tide never really went down they couldn't get to us. So they waited up the street in a parking lot, in a fire truck. We had to walk up that long block in knee-deep water for my mother, waist-deep for us girls. I was sure we were going to die, and how we made it I don’t know. My mother carried the baby, who was wrapped in blankets. My older sister and I took turns carrying the other baby. I remember carrying my sister on my shoulders and trying to keep her out of the water while at the same time trying not to drown myself. She felt so heavy. I remember how terrifying it was, transferring her back and forth between my older sister and me – terrifying because we were afraid we would drop her and lose her in the water.
My mother’s greatest concern was to get her tiny baby into the fire truck safe and sound. She handed her up to my father, who dropped her. All of a sudden the baby disappeared. We were all in a panic. My grandfather quickly grabbed my sister off my shoulders and put her in the fire truck. My mother was absolutely hysterical as she screamed and sifted through the water. We were all crying and screaming and my father and grandfather were yelling.
And then something hit my leg. I reached down and it was my tiny baby sister. I pulled her up by her ankle and she was sputtering, coughing, and screaming. My father grabbed her, put her in the fire truck, undressed her, and checked her over. Aside from being startled and scared, she was fine. There was an old rag of a towel in the truck and my parents wrapped her up in. I remember being terrified, and I’m sure now that I was in shock. I remember crying. A lot.
I know now that all of this took place in a matter of seconds. But back then, to me, it seemed like hours. When it comes into my mind today, it’s in slow motion, and I don’t remember anything else from the rest of that day except hugging my tiny baby sister ... a lot!
On the third day of the storm we had to stay on the second floor of my grandparents’ house because the water was beginning to seep into their downstairs parlor. Luckily we had plenty of food because my grandparents owned the Island Supermarket, but we had no power and no water. I remember the adults talking about how it was too late even if we wanted to leave because many parts of the Causeway were washed away.
My mother came and went because she was helping my father and the fire company, who were trying to rescue as many people as possible. They didn't succeed in saving everyone and some people died, overcome by a large wave that washed them all out to sea. But at the time, more important to my young mind, my mother came home with a big gash on her leg. She had fallen and had almost been swept away too, but my father managed to grab her and pull her to safety.
I remember the nightmares I had that night (and for many months after) about my mother being swept away by the sea. I remember talk about the possibility of a bad infection setting in to her leg because the water was so dirty and there was no doctor who could come to look at it. I was afraid someone was going to come and “chop her leg off.” I remember her not being able to get warm. She was shivering and shivering. All she kept saying was “The water was so cold. The water was so cold.” And I remember her being very, very angry with my father. I heard them arguing and she told him that he had put his family in danger and she didn’t think she could ever forgive him. (She ever did. They divorced a year later.)
On the fourth day the wind stopped howling and the water receded. The sun came out and it was a spectacular new day. I remember Army helicopters landing in the grade school playground. I can still hear the woosh, woosh, woosh of the blades. We had a bird’s-eye view of all the action since there were no houses between my grandparents’ house and the school at the time.
I remember watching as supplies and Army jeeps were unloaded from helicopters. I remember watching medical personnel get off the helicopters and being told that we would have to get shots. I was terrified of shots! We were the first to get them. All of us girls cried! Maybe the shots were for hepatitis. I’m not really sure. I just remember that it had something to do with the dirty water.
I remember going for a ride with my parents after it was safe for us to go out. So many parts of the Causeway were gone. Sand was everywhere, making some roads impassable. Houses were in pieces on the beaches at the northern end of the Island. Our house was full of sand and jellyfish. We “lost” the heater in the back part of the house (it never did work again).
I don’t remember cleanup efforts and I don’t remember how we all got back to normal. I do remember playing in a big field where a pile of storm rubble was being burned. I saw something sticking out of this smoldering pile of rubble. I reached in and grabbed it. It was a hand-carved statue of St. Francis that stood about four inches high.
The statue belonged to the nuns from a convent on the northern part of the Island. A few nuns came to our house to look at it. They let me keep it because they believed it was “divine intervention” that had caused me to “save” it. I still have it after all these years. To me, it still smells of smoke and salt water. To others I’m sure it does not.
I don’t live on the Island anymore. I don’t even live in New Jersey. But every March, as the weather changes from day to day - sunny one day, torrential rains the next, cold and hot - it’s as though I’m back home again and eight years old. And the memories of the ’62 storm are still alive in me, working their way to the surface. I haven’t really dwelt on them. I haven’t tried to figure them out. I haven’t tried to get anything more from them than what they are ... my memories. Rather, I let them wash over me like gentle waves upon the shore.
Sometimes, though, I find myself asking, “Are my memories true?” Maybe, maybe not. But it’s what I remember. Was I really the one who found my tiny baby sister in the water? Probably not. I was, after all, only a young child. Perhaps it was my mother, or father, my older sister, or even my grandfather who grabbed her. I don’t know. I never will. In all the years past I never asked anyone. All of the adults who were there are now gone. I’ve counted on my own memory and the stories I still hear in my head. Anyway, who is to say that anyone else’s memories are more accurate than mine?
In those three days, at the tender age of eight, I learned about the awesome power of the sea. I never again “hunkered down” for a hurricane. When one was forecast I was the first to hop in the car and get to higher ground because I was one of the lucky ones to survive the March Storm of 1962.
As I think back on those days I realize how strong one can become – how strong I’ve become – because of an experience with a life and death situation. In the years since, I've learned a lot about resiliency. So maybe it's time to let my "issues" with March go. In March of 1962 I learned the March does, indeed, come in like a lion and out like a lamb. It has ever since.
Another beautiful piece!
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