Thursday, September 30, 2010

Great Gusts, Terrible Tempests, And Historic Hurricanes!

Photo of Hurricane Igor, September 2010
Each year in Chesapeake, Virginia from June 1st to November 1st, we prepare for hurricane. We never know for sure if we’ll get a “big one”…not that we want one…but we prepare for the worst and hope for the best. So as the 2010 hurricane season rushes to its seasonal peak and we restock our hurricane survival kits, our attention turns toward the Weather Channel more often than any other time of the year.

The city of Chesapeake is part of the area in southeastern Virginia known as Hampton Roads. And Hampton Roads, due to its geographic position on the east coast and its proximity to the Gulf Stream, is a hurricane magnet! Let's just say...there's a reason this area is called "Hurricane Alley."

And as I checked the weather for the progress of our latest storm, I wondered…
  • How many hurricanes and storms have passed through here since our Jamestown predecessors landed at Cape Henry and fell to their knees in thanks?
  • Is there any one storm to hit Tidewater that trumps all others as the most powerful?  
…so I started my search and found too many stories...too many reports...of hurricanes that a single blog post just wouldn’t do these storms justice!

I selected the most memorable hurricanes that affected Norfolk County from 1587 through 2009, either by their damage or by the stories that came from them, and then divided them into three installments:
  • Great Gusts! Norfolk County Hurricanes from 1587 to 1800
  • Terrible Tempests! Norfolk County Hurricanes from 1801 to 1900
  • Historic Hurricanes! Norfolk County Hurricanes from 1901 to Present

Great Gusts!
Norfolk County Hurricanes from 1587 to 1800

During this period of history, any destructive wind event might be called a hurricane. No formal standard for measuring storms was available. Tools like anemometers, for measuring wind speed, wouldn’t be invented until the late 1800s, so eye witness accounts are all we really have as evidence. In fact, the hurricane was still a mystery to us. Back then, “Wrath of God” was the logical explanation for storms like hurricanes.

1586 to 1590 – I start this first installment before the settlement of Jamestown because historians have found evidence and reports of at least four hurricanes affecting the Outer Banks and southeast Virginia during this 5-year period. Could one of these hurricanes be the reason for the disappearance of the Lost Colony at Roanoke Island? Some historians believe that it is possible.

Detail of The Tempest,
courtesy of National Archives
July 1609 – The Tempest of 1609 not only affected Virginia, but it also had an impact on English Literature. While the storm hit the east coast of North America, the vessel Sea Venture was on its way to Jamestown with fresh supplies and immigrants. When the Sea Venture ran into the storm, it was driven off course and shipwrecked in Bermuda. Stranded on Bermuda for 9 months, 150 survivors used the salvaged remains of the Sea Venture to build two smaller ships to sail the rest of the way to Virginia. Shakespeare's play The Tempest was based on William Strachey’s account of the wreck of the Sea Venture.

1667 – Known as the Year of the Hurricane. In April, while Norfolk County residents were defending against Tuscarora Indian raids, a spring gale with high winds delivered hailstones the size of turkey eggs. It damaged fruit trees and crops, broke windows and roof tiles, and killed live stock. The storm was followed by 40 summer days of rain destroying any remaining crops that had survived the gale.

To add to the residents’ troubles, Dutch warships entered the undefended Chesapeake Bay and raided tobacco ships for six days, stealing all the cargo. Local tobacco farmers watched helplessly from the shores as their labor and investments “went up in smoke”…so to speak.

And it didn’t end there! In August, a terrible hurricane destroyed crops and flattened homes. The surge was so great from the storm that it rushed up the waterways. It then took its time – 24 hours! – as it flooded 75 to 80 percent of tobacco and corn crops, killed livestock and demolished an estimated 10 to 15 thousand homes in Virginia and Maryland.

That winter in Virginia was one of the most frigid in memory, leaving surviving residents and their remaining livestock to starve or freeze.

September 17, 1713 – Grazing the Outer Banks and southeastern Virginia, a storm with a huge surge breached the Outer Banks and opened several inlets into the Currituck Sound. One of those new inlets carved out by the storm is where the Virginia-North Carolina line begins on the Atlantic coast. William Byrd, one of the commissioners who established the Virginia-North Carolina boundary, reported that Currituck Sound was not affected by tides until this storm:

"....There was no tide in Currituck until 1713, when a violent storm opened a new inlet five miles south of the old one, since which convulsion the old inlet is almost choked up by the sand, and grows narrowed and shallower everyday"

A copy of a 1794 map on the wall in the Wallace Room shows both the original Currituck Inlet and a New Currituck Inlet.

October 1749 – This tremendous hurricane grazed the east coast, bringing with it huge amounts of rain and a high storm surge. It tracked near Virginia then northeast to Cape Cod. Tides in the Chesapeake Bay rose to 15 feet above normal, flooding streets and destroying buildings near the waterfront. In Williamsburg, a family drowned as flood waters carried their house away.

Ships that were harboring in the south end of Chesapeake Bay or off the coast were destroyed, and bodies of sailors were washed ashore from the wrecks for days afterward.

The storm created a sandbar on the property of Thomas Willoughby in Norfolk County. This new land feature was known as Willoughby’s Pointe.

August 29-September 2, 1775 – Called the Independence Hurricane, this storm traveled from North Carolina to Newfoundland and triggered one of the Revolutionary War’s first confrontations in Virginia.
The storm made landfall in North Carolina and tracked through Virginia. Wharves and storehouses on the waterfront of Norfolk were devastated. Bridges were carried away and mill dams broke as a result of the raging waters. Ships were thrown ashore at Norfolk, Hampton, and York.

At Hampton, the British ship Liberty became "hopelessly stranded". A number of locals boarded her, captured the crew, secured her goods, and set the ship afire in one of the first outright acts of war in Virginia.

At Norfolk, however, the British ship Mercury ran aground in the harbor, but the captain refused to yield to demands by the patriots to surrender the Mercury. Although his ship was aground, he had her guns trained on Norfolk, and so he sent a message to the Mayor of Norfolk, indicating his intentions to fire upon Norfolk if his ship were boarded or attacked. Tensions ran high during the two-week standoff between the Mercury and the Virginia patriots as the mayor pleaded to both to refrain from hostilities. Eventually, as the Mercury was being refitted, the British ship Kingfisher arrived in assistance.

As a result of the rapid growth of hostilities, the British blockaded Hampton Roads and brought local shipping to a halt for months.

Map of the Battle of Yorktown
October 16, 1781 – During Washington’s siege at Yorktown, a storm of "unknown character" hit Virginia and helped the American Patriots win the battle that gained our independence. Lord Cornwallis and the British Army were cornered in Yorktown by the French Fleet and the Patriot Army, under the command of George Washington. Cornwallis attempted to move his army north across the York River to Gloucester Point under the cover of darkness, but a "furious storm" thwarted the plan. The storm surge and waves "swamped" his boats, ending his attempted flight. He sent his flag of truce and surrendered, ending the battle and the ultimately the war.

October 8, 1783 -- The first and worst of three major storms to strike the Atlantic Coast in October 1783 made landfall near Charleston, S.C. on October 7. All the way to Richmond, violent winds pummeled Tidewater from the northeast for 24 hours. Witnesses in Norfolk and Portsmouth reported a “25-foot rise in the tide,” but this could have been a reference to wave height in addition to storm surge. The storm moved offshore near New Jersey and continued past Providence, Rhode Island.

September 24, 1785 -- The Great Coastal Hurricane, the "most tremendous gale of wind known in this country," passed over the Lower Chesapeake Bay bringing a storm surge that flooded both Norfolk and Portsmouth. William Forrest, Historical and Descriptive Sketches of Norfolk and Vicinity, described the storm as follows:

"...This year, 1785, was noted for the highest tide ever before known to Norfolk, completely deluging a large portion of its site on the water side."

Cape Henry Lighthouses,
courtesy of Virginia Beach Library
 After the storm passed, newspapers recounted the remarkable heroism (or maybe outright luck) of Captain Smith. He kept his ship of immigrants off the coast of Virginia during the storm, rather than risk an attempt to navigate the treacherous shoals at the entrance of the Chesapeake Bay. When his ship limped into Norfolk after the storm, he issued the following statement:

“(My experience), I hope, will strike the attention of my countrymen towards erecting a lighthouse at Cape Henry to preserve the lives and property of thousands.”

The Great Coastal Hurricane prompted the building of the Cape Henry Lighthouse, the first public works building and first lighthouse commissioned by the U.S. Government. The Cape Henry Lighthouse served faithfully from 1792 until 1881, when the new Cape Henry Lighthouse was built. Both lighthouses still stand today -- at the location of the first landing of the Jamestown colonists -- and the original lighthouse now serves as a museum.

July 23, 1788 -- George Washington's Hurricane originated near Bermuda before making landfall in the Lower Chesapeake Bay, tracking north, and passing over Mount Vernon. George Washington noted the sinking of a small ship and damage to wheat, tobacco, and corn that was "beyond description". Only two ships in Hampton Roads escaped destruction, and many small vessels were "torn to pieces."

Using today’s measures, there is still some discrepancy about whether George Washington’s Hurricane was actually a hurricane. We can surmise from the written evidence, however, that the storm was at least a significant tropical event.

August 1795 – Back-to-back hurricanes hit Virginia during August. The first storm, on August 4th, didn’t impact Norfolk County directly; however, a personal account from Thomas Jefferson at Monticello indicated that both storms wiped out crops in the western part of the Old Dominion.
The second storm, however, on August 13th made landfall in North Carolina and then swept through Virginia, adding even more rainfall. Streams and rivers overflowed their banks, carrying crops and livestock away and flooding homes. There were reports of residents rowing boats among the houses in 10 to 15 feet of water.

The large amount of rain that year, along with the storm surges and swollen rivers, prompted the Norfolk County Court to order Bennet Armstrong, Nelson, Butt, and Joshua Grimes in December 1795 to “view the state of the causeway together with the wharf and butment of the Great Bridge.” The causeway was main road connecting North Carolina to the ports of Norfolk and Portsmouth in southeast Virginia, and the wharf at Great Bridge . The committee later reported that repairs would cost no less than $800.

And so as the 19th century came to a close, nature continued to assert a powerful sway over Hampton Roads and Norfolk County. These storms are, in no way, all of the storms that occurred between 1580 and 1800.

Be sure to check in a few days for the next installment of this post: Terrible Tempests!...Norfolk County Hurricanes from 1801 and 1900