Great Gusts! Terrible Tempests! and Historic Hurricanes! -- Part II

Terrible Tempests! --
Norfolk County Hurricanes from 1801 to 1900

In my last blog post, I described some of the Great Gusts! to affect Norfolk County during the 17^th and 18^th centuries and I promised to provide two more installments: Terrible Tempests! and Historic Hurricanes! 

During the 19^th century, predicting storms was still a “hit or miss” process, requiring an understanding of weather signs like the color of the sky, the shape of the clouds, or the behavior of animals. Sayings like, “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight; red sky in morning, sailor take warning” were, and still are, common ways of predicting the weather. Here’s another saying from Hurricanes and the Middle Atlantic States by Rick Schwartz:

“The Glass [barometer] is down, the gulls flocked along the shore,
the clouds low’ring fast, soon the wind will roar.”

But this method of prediction was subjective, and accuracy depended on the experience and skill of the forecaster.

It wasn’t until well into the 19^th century that weather measurements, other than barometric pressure, would be recorded regularly – and not until the end of the century until more accurate storm predictions would be made.

So here in Norfolk County, Virginia, at the opening of the 19^th century, residents looked at the sky and guessed – intelligently – at the weather. But the occasional -- but inevitable -- hurricane continued to be a surprise.

As promised, here are some of the Terrible Tempests! to hit Norfolk County during the 19^th century:

August 22, 1806 -- The Great Coastal Hurricane of 1806 made landfall at South Carolina and turned back out to sea off the coast of Virginia. The storm took a day and a half to pass through North Carolina, but the rain saved the corn crop from drought.

British and French ships, fighting off the coast of Virginia during the Napoleonic Wars, were buffeted by the storm and had to put into Norfolk for repairs. The storm continued its slow movement, causing serious erosion of the Carolina and Virginia coastlines and completing the creation of Willoughby Spit.

The Burning of Washington
courtesy of Library of Congress

August 1814 -- Burning of Washington, D.C. As Federal troops retreated from the Capitol and the British set fire to Washington, D. C., strong winds and a prolonged downpour enveloped the area. The rains inundated the area around Richmond, Virginia, bringing the James River to its highest levels. But the rains helped firefighters put out the fires in the Capitol. Historical accounts are inconclusive as to whether it was a slow moving thunderstorm or a hurricane.

September 1821 – Called by some the Norfolk & Long Island Hurricane, this storm was reported in the newspapers as one of the most violent and fast moving storms on record for the area. It traveled from Puerto Rico to Norfolk in just two days. It then traveled north past New York and New England leaving damaged towns and harbors in its wake.

Here, residents called it the Great September Gale of 1821. The storm made landfall near Wilmington, North Carolina and then passed between Ocracoke and Edenton. In Currituck, all but a few homes were destroyed and several people were killed. In Norfolk, Virginia, the front of the Episcopal Church was blown in, damaging the church’s pipe organ. The courthouse was partially unroofed. The surge traveled several hundred yards inland from the riverbanks, flooded warehouses along the wharf, and swept away the Norfolk Drawbridge.

T. C. Carrington’s poem “The Storm” seems to have been written with the Great September Gale of 1821 as the subject -- at least William Forrest thought so, when he included it in his description of the 1821 storm in Historical and Descriptive Sketches of Norfolk and Vicinity:

“The winds
Held oft a momentary pause,
As spent with their own fury; but they came
Again with added power – with shriek and cry,
Almost unearthly; as if on their wings
Passed by the spirit of the storm.”

William Redfield, in New England, plotted the direction of downed trees and cornstalks and documented the circular pattern of their direction. He surmised that the storm “…exhibited in the form of a great whirlwind.” His findings were published in the American Journal of Science and led to a better understanding of hurricane dynamics.

June 3, 1825 – This storm happened very early in the season. It moved slowly over Hampton Roads, punishing the area with “undiminished violence” for more than a day. Local newspapers compared the storm to the Great September Gale of 1821, saying that the 1821 storm was more violent. But that storm passed in only a few hours...this storm took 27 hours to pass!

Aerial Photo of Oregon Inlet
courtesy of National Geographic

September 1846 – While this hurricane caused flooding and damage to homes and waterfronts, the real damage was to railroads and telegraph equipment. Flooding disrupted rail traffic and winds knocked down telegraph poles and lines.
This storm created the new Hatteras Inlet (original Hatteras Inlet closed in 1764) and opened the Oregon Inlet in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

October 28 and November 2, 1861 – The Expedition Hurricane occurred during the first year of the Civil War. A Union Naval expedition by "the largest fleet of war ships and transports ever assembled" set sail from Fort Monroe at Hampton, Virginia. The ships of the Great Naval Expedition were buffeted by high winds in the Chesapeake Bay, making formation impossible.

After eventually setting sail, the fleet was hit again November 2 by another storm, and two vessels were sunk off the Carolina Capes. One of those ships was the steamer U.S.S. Union which ran aground off Cape Hatteras. Local Confederate militia captured the crew and discovered sealed orders indicating that the Great Expedition was headed to South Carolina. However, there was no Confederate army in the immediate vicinity of South Carolina, and the captured information proved useless. Harper's Weekly Newspapers provides lots of great detail on the Great Naval Expedition of 1861 .

October 23, 1878 – The Gale of '78 or the Great October Gale of ‘78 was one of the most severe hurricanes to hit Virginia in the late 1800s. This hurricane tracked at a forward speed of 40 to 50 mph from the Bahamas to strike the North Carolina coast. It then continued northward passing through east central Virginia, Maryland, and eastern Pennsylvania.

Roth and Cobb conducted some in-depth research on the Gale of ’78, including eyewitness accounts.

At Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, sustained winds measured 100-mph until the anemometer reportedly blew away.

Off Virginia Beach, the A.S. Davis sank with a loss 19 crewmembers, despite the efforts of the newly organized U.S. Life-Saving Service, the forerunner of the U.S. Coast Guard.

Freemason Street Baptist Church
courtesy of Virginia Dept of
Historic Resources

August 18, 1879 – Considered to be one of the most severe storms to strike coastal Virginia in many years, The August Storm tracked from Wilmington past Elizabeth City, N.C. and then southeast of Norfolk. The 100-mph winds destroyed the anemometer at Cape Henry. In Norfolk, the rainfall from the storm was 6.17 inches.

The storm blew off the steeple of the Freemason Street Baptist Church, the tallest structure in the city of Norfolk since 1850. When the storm finally passed, the weathervane from the steeple was found embedded upright in the middle of
Freemason Street, a considerable distance away from the church. According to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, the replacement steeple for the church was “less lofty” than the original.

The Norfolk Virginian newspaper called the hurricane a “red-letter” storm reporting, “It was the occasion of one of the severest storms which have ever visited this section. The severity of the wind and the extent of the rains were such as have never been experienced in Virginia, and we doubt if the hurricanes of countries subject to such inflictions as visited Norfolk yesterday, have ever suffered to a greater extent from the ravings of the storm than did our city for a number of hours...”

The storm was described by the Norfolk-Portsmouth Herald as the “most terrific storm to have visited the area in many years...”

April 6, 1889 – Though technically not a “hurricane,” since it occurred in April, hurricane force winds in Virginia Beach exceeded 100 mph at the Signal Service station at Cape Henry. The south wall of the Cape Charles lighthouse was undermined by huge waves as the tidal surge surrounded the station.

Parts of Norfolk and Portsmouth flooded when tides exceeded 8 feet.

A fire on Water Street in Norfolk consumed an entire city block, and a fire in Portsmouth destroyed a lime and lumberyard. Roofs of the Opera House, Masonic Temple, and other dwellings were ripped from their structures. The U.S.S. Pensacola actually sank while in dry dock; the surge tides flooded the dock, and the ship filled with salt water.

In the western part of the state, strong winds blew down trees and rain turned to snow, as thunder and lightning frightened citizens – an unusual weather event known as “thundersnow”. The resulting blizzard delivered over a foot of snow.

September 29, 1894 – As the 19^th century ended, two storms affected Norfolk County in September and October 1894.

The first storm struck Virginia with 80 to 90 mph sustained winds on September 29^th. This hurricane, however, did not have the impact of previous storms. This was the first hurricane to be predicted by the National Weather Bureau. The accurate prediction of the storm and the warnings provided by the Weather Bureau allowed the shipping industry to prepare. After the storm passed, shipping agents in Virginia communicated their gratitude to the Weather Bureau, “Words inadequate to express saving of life and property by your warnings.”

1903 Seatack Life-Saving Station Crew
courtesy of Old Coast Guard Station
Museum & Store, Virginia Beach

The eye of the October Hurricane of 1894 passed to the west of Norfolk County and brought severe winds that downed trees and tore the roofs off of buildings. It continued up the coast, wreaking havoc as it passed through Maryland, New Jersey, and New England.

By the close of the 19^th century, advances in science and technology improved the chances of Norfolk County residents and shipping traffic to survive “Great Gusts” and “Terrible Tempests.” More accurate weather prediction and a warning system for shipping traffic were very important to mariners and those whose livelihoods depended on shipping. But another key factor was the creation of the U.S. Life-Saving Service. Between 1878 and 1914 off the Virginia coast, over 600 incidents occurred, more than 7,000 lives were at risk, but only 102 lives were lost!