Jump to content

PHOTOS: Hurricane Carol


Cotuit

Recommended Posts

Hurricane Carol

August 31st, 1954

The Great New England Hurricane of 1938, along with Hurricane Carol in 1954, prompted Providence to build the Hurricane Barrier at Fox Point.

Hurricane%20Barrier.jpeg

The need for the Hurricane Barrier is made clear from the photos in this thread. I got these images from a special Providence Journal supplement printed shortly after the Hurricane. The booklet is almost 50 years old, so the quality of some of these scans is less than optimal, but I hope you enjoy them.

Carol.jpg

Kennedy Plaza (then Exchange Place) near the height of the storm's flooding. The Biltmore Hotel is the large building in the centre, Providence's City Hall is the building to the left.

Carol001.jpg

Carol002.jpg

Carol003.jpg

This is a view down Westminster Street towards the Turks Head Building from the foot of College Hill. In 1938 this area was called Market Square and the river was normally safely below ground. Today the rivers have been uncovered and the river normally runs through here.

Carol004.jpg

This is what is today known as the Old Hospital Trust Building. This shows water being pumped out of the building's basement. There is a car in this picture, that should give an idea of how high the water is.

Carol005.jpg

Washington Street beside the Biltmore photographed from City Hall. Yes, those are car roofs.

Carol006.jpg

Exchange Place (Kennedy Plaza) from the City Hall steps.

Carol007.jpg

Lower Fountain Street and the Bus Station (now a parking lot) photographed from The Providence Journal Building.

Carol009.jpg

Boaters in Exchange Place (Kennedy Plaza).

Carol010.jpg

Workers stranded on the steps of City Hall.

Carol011.jpg

The Providence Journal Building surrounded by flood waters.

Carol012.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites


  • Replies 8
  • Created
  • Last Reply
  • 4 months later...

We get many more numerous destructive winter storms than we do hurricanes. Hurricane Carol hit in 1954 and the other massively destrcutive hurricane to hit Rhode Island was in 1938, not too frequent.

There tends to be trends in Hurricanes. We will get 2 or 3 seasons in a row where storms come up the east coast and hit us, then perhaps decade where we don't see much. When I was growing up on Cape Cod, we had Gloria in 1986 and Bob in 1991 (which was one of the most expensive in US history). Bob was pretty bad, but we've had winter storms that have equaled or bettered it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

New England can get severe damage from hurricanes, but conditions have to be pretty special for that to happen. At that lattitude the storms are usually moving at a pretty good clip, so the damage tends to be minimized.

Nice pictures, but there doesn't appear to be any wind damage. Was this a rain/flood event or was it the result of heavy winds driving the waters into downtown? Maybe they just built stuff sturdier back then. I don't know alot about this storm.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I only scanned the city photos. In areas outside the city, especially South County closer to the ocean there was much more wind and surge related damage. The flooding in these photos was caused by storm surge which was amplified by the shape of Narragansett Bay.

RI%20Visitor%20Map.gif

As you can see from this map, the south coast of New England faces, well south. Most of the rest of the east coast faces east. When a storm (hurricane or other) comes up the coast, southern New England sticks out into the water and gets in it's way. So the storm surge hits us head on, instead of from the side. Narragansett Bay takes the energy from the surge and intensifies it magnifying the impact. The surge at the head of the bay (where Providence is) can be much higher than the surge at the immediate coast. You can also see Buzzards Bay on this map which creates similar surges.

During Hurricane Bob in 1991 the most damage from surge was found in Buzzards Bay and at the head of the Bay. We can often see Hurricane like storm surges during winter storms. The Blizzard of '78 for instance had a very large storm surge.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.