Hurricane Donna

I had just entered the second grade in September of 1960. The day of the storm was cold, rainy, and miserable. I don’t recall a whole lot, except being terrified at the moment the rising water started coming up through the first floor of our house. My mother was trying to calm me down by telling how much she knew I liked swimming and playing in the water. I was on the stairs shouting, “I do, but not in the house”. We had about a foot of water on the first floor, and the whole neighborhood resembled a lake. While looking out a window, I spotted a neighbor in rowboat heading up the street. The black and white photos I still have today present a very depressing scenario, but in retrospect, I don’t think I was traumatized by the event. It did leave a lasting impression on me to this day, though, and it easily lets me relate and actually feel the pain of those affected by today’s natural disasters. When the storm passed and the water began receding, the sun came out. The elderly lady next door was at her back door with a broom helping the exiting water as it flowed out of the house and down the steps. The sun was coming out offering that beautiful afternoon glow,  and everything was clearing up, almost making one forget what had happened just hours before. The next day, my childhood friend from next door, Ricky, and I walked down to the beach. The destruction was just about too much to fathom, especially for my 7 years. The boardwalk concessions and games were collapsed and parts of everything were scattered everywhere. The half mile long pier that jutted out into the bay where the NY steamboat “City of Keansburg”, would dock daily was in ruins. There had been these neat little trains that you could ride to the end of the pier and back to catch the boat, or in my case, for fun as a kid growing up. The engines and train cars were thrown about off the pier lying in the low tide mud, and that's really the last picture I have in my mind to this day. Although the weather was nice on the day after, the sites around me were just about too much to take. And of course, after that, life went on, but I don’t think the town ever really recovered from Hurricane Donna.