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Hurricane of '38: Wind that Shook the World
(page 3 of 7)
Stan Higginbotham called home to see if his mother and dad and brother had gone back to the beach, praying they hadn't. There was no answer. He called his girlfriend Jean Meikle at the telephone company and suggested they use her car to drive to Misquamicut and check on them. His 1929 Essex was parked out at the beach cottage.
By the time the couple reached her family's house on Highland Avenue in Westerly, the Pawcatuck River had spilled over its banks and flooded downtown Westerly. The presses of the Sun were standing in four feet of water. Phones and power were out. The couple decided to wait for the raging wind to subside before heading for the beach. They hoped the situation would be better out there.
At Watch Hill during gales people sometimes gathered to watch the dramatic breakers. Harold, Irene, and Jimmy Higginbotham did just that. Their folly was compounded by a cruel natural coincidence: because of the phase of the moon, tides were running about a foot above normal. Also the storm struck on an incoming tide. Quickly realizing their mistake, the trio hurried back to the cottage behind the sand barrier in Misquamicut to gather their things and get out. On their flight for higher ground they stopped at another cottage to pick up a young woman named Alma Bailey, who was dating their third son Ken. He was at his fraternity house at the University of Rhode Island, 30 miles away, watching trees snap.
Accounts still vary on the size of the tidal wave that struck the unprotected barrier beaches that stretch from Watch Hill to Point Judith. It has been described as anywhere from 30 to 80 feet high. What is known, however, is that 500 cottages sat on or around those normally tranquil beaches. And in those 500 houses, hundreds of people were riding out the storm.
Racing to make the higher ground of what was known as Shore Road, the Higginbothams found themselves trapped when their car stalled in rapidly rising flood waters. Harold shepherded everyone out of the car and into a nearby two-story cottage. They were barely inside the door when an explosion of water chased them up the stairs. On the second floor, Harold smashed out a window. The water rose to their waists. He desperately helped Alma out the window, advising her to grab hold of floating debris. Next, he put Jimmy on a large piece of flotsam, perhaps a door. Then he turned to help his wife. Irene was nowhere in sight. He called her name desperately just as the house began to splinter. The next minute, flailing in the churning water himself, Harold heard Jimmy's terrified voice. Seconds later, Jimmy was thrown from his makeshift raft and disappeared.
In a matter of seconds at Watch Hill, the yacht club, a public bathhouse, and 39 cottages were ripped from Napatree Point and swept toward the Connecticut shore across the mouth of the Pawcatuck River. Forty-two people were inside.
Trapped in their disintegrating house, the Geoffrey Moores and their employees huddled upstairs in the attic and felt the floor begin to buckle wildly. Three of the children wore life jackets. They clutched rosaries, yet were remarkably calm. As the house slid away beneath them, however, the children began to cry. Harriet Moore reassured them. Moments later, the roof blew off the maid's room -- it was the best thing they would have for a raft, so with Andy Pupillo's assistance, all ten people clambered aboard. Clutching each other and jagged wall pipes as huge waves broke over them, the Moore party drifted toward the open water of the bay.
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