When he was 11, Michael Connolly, who lived at 111 Chestnut St., witnessed Hurricane Carol pass through Andover. In an e-mail he described the experience in the rich detail that his child's eyes observed. That description is the subject of this column.
By way of introduction, allow me remind you that Carol was Andover's last major hurricane and it happened 54 years ago. It was small in area but intense, with winds up to 125 mph. There was no loss of life in town, but the amount of damage was testimony to its strength, since in 1938 nature had pruned Andover's trees when the "Great New England Hurricane" passed through.
In the days before weather satellites, prediction of storms was as much an art as science. The United States Weather Bureau failed to warn New England of the Great Hurricane, but did a good job of warning about Hurricane Carol. Many people in Andover chose not to heed the warning, perhaps believing that Carol would peter out before finding Andover. The town in 1954 was in the middle of a growth spurt; many of its residents weren't around in 1938, and this may be why warnings were unheeded.
Mr. Connolly has lived out-of-state for many years, but he regularly returns to Andover to visit his mother, Eileen Connolly. The following are his words, with some editing.
The weather was warm and cloudy with a threat of rain that summer morning of Aug. 31, 1954.. By 10 a.m. I was standing in the backyard of my friend George Granderson's house on 19 Stratford Road when his younger brother Greg walked up and smugly announced, "We're going to have a hurricane today.".
To say my reaction was incredulous would be an understatement. I remembered a snippet from the morning's forecast that mentioned the possibility of rain from the remnants of a hurricane. I told this to him in no uncertain terms so he wouldn't construe it to mean we were going to "have a hurricane today." So there I stood, feeling smug in my response. I was in total denial, even as the most destructive storm in Andover's history was only an hour away. Soon it began to rain, so the three of us went into the Grandersons' home until the shower passed.
At the time I didn't know that hurricanes were given girls' names, but I was soon to find out that this one had a name and it was Carol.. There was nothing gradual about the storm's arrival; it was in full fury.
Outside, everything was in constant motion..The trees never stopped gyrating. What was amazing was how a tree could have its branches all moving in a different direction at the same time. There was a tree in the front yard that served us as an anemometer until it was split in half by the wind. It was like watching a 3-D movie as the falling half fell toward the house as if it would crash through the living room window where we were standing. It fell only inches short. By mid-afternoon, the storm was finally over.
Dino Valz lived next door to the Grandersons. Every neighborhood should have a neighbor like him. He would eagerly engage us in conversation, treating us more like adults than kids. He insisted we call him Mr. V., which seemed exactly the right title to use; it was proper, yet informal enough that we could comfortably initiate conversations with him. Once we spied Mr. V. in the middle of Stratford road, George's mother deemed it safe for us to be allowed out. (To Greg's credit he had every right to walk right up to me with an "I told you so," but he didn't.)
A different world greeted us from the one we'd left a few hours earlier. You could hardly recognize the neighborhood. Whole trees, tree limbs, branches, leaves, and pieces of leaves were scattered everywhere. The green of displaced vegetation so dominated the scene that the homes on Stratford Road, which then were universally white, simply retreated into the background. It appeared that nature had reclaimed the area. We joined Mr. V. in the middle of the road where others also began to gather. The others were all women and children, since the men were caught by the storm while at work (remember, this was 1954). It was amazing how the weather had changed. In perfectly calm air, a brilliant sun shone in a cloudless blue sky. Mr. V. started walking up and down the road warning everyone that this might be the eye of the hurricane, and they must be prepared to take shelter. We tagged after him, our feet never touching the pavement as it was completely covered in a layer of wet, green leaves. (Fortunately, the storm was over; the "eye" passed to the west of Andover.)
Since Stratford Road was a relatively new street, having been built only 20 or 25 years before, the trees were still young. The older trees were on Chestnut Street, and that's where the biggest tree fell. It was a tall elm directly across the street from my house in front of my friend John O'Conner's house at 110 Chestnut. It fell parallel to the street along the sidewalk, and since it wasn't blocking traffic it was simply left where it fell. We kids played in its branches all week. My mother took a black and white snapshot with her Kodak Brownie camera showing my sisters and me standing on the fallen trunk, posing like 19th-century lumberjacks.
There is a story regarding this tree. When I was 4 in the spring of 1948, I would cross the street and notice that during the night it had rained all over the sidewalk. I knew it rained snow and water but this red rain I saw was something new entirely. I questioned my mother about this red rain, but she didn't understand. One day I scooped up a handful and brought it home to show her. As soon as I opened my hand she realized that it wasn't rain but the spring flower buds from the elm tree. Her gentle response spared me any embarrassment.
Within weeks of the hurricane the Grandersons moved. Twenty years later my first cousin Virginia (Robertson) Foulds — AHS '65 — and her husband, David, bought the house, and my wife, Sharon, and I were invited for the evening. When I told Virginia how much history I had with the house she graciously offered to give me a complete tour. I jumped at this chance to recover any memories left behind, especially those by the windows where I'd watched the storm..Before we left, Virginia and David invited us to "sign the guestbook" by burning our names into a pine-paneled wall in the family room..Using a wood-burning pen we added our names to their collection of autographs.I still regret that I left without burning one more name: CAROL '54.
Although I can't.return to Andover as often as I'd like, I travel there in my thoughts, returning whenever I wish to an Andover as it once was, before the elm tree fell, before the hurricane struck, before my mother's gentle explanation, back to a time when clouds still rained flowers onto Chestnut Street.
Bill Dalton's earlier columns on both Hurricane Carol and the Great New England Hurricane of '38 appear in the online edition of the Townsman.
