New Jersey Storm
January 3, 1914
GALE SWEEPS JERSEY COAST
Extensive Damage is Done by Terific (sic) Storm
ATLANTIC WHIPPED INTO RAGING MASS
Wireless Stations Alert for Distress Calls
Bulkheads All the (sic) Along Coast Are Washed
Out and Waters Make Great Inroads – Repair Work
Since Last Week’s Storm is Destroyed. Cottages
Washed Away – Lifesavers Patrol Shore.
New York, Jan 3. – A terrific gale, sweeping
along the New Jersey coast today, caused floods
which did extensive damage.
At Seabright, New Jersey, the Octagon hotel was
partially destroyed by the high tide, and a
number of cottages, inhabited by fishermen, were
washed away.
A tidal wave flooded the peninsula lying between
the ocean beach and the Shrewsbury river.
Members of the Seabright fire department, headed
by Mayor George W.
Elliott, worked all night to check
the inroads of the flood and to save the
abutments along the shore.
The wind increased in volume and life-savers
constantly patrolled the New Jersey coast from
Sandy Hook to Barnegat, keeping a sharp lookout
for ships in distress. At Sandy Hook, the wind
attained a velocity of more than eighty miles an
hour.
Bulkheads Washed Out.
At a number of points, bulkheads built along the
coast to protect the homes of summer residents
were washed out. At some places the waves were
fifteen to twenty feet high.
Wireless stations along the coast were on the
alert for distress calls and were in constant
communication with the life-saving stations.
Among the fine summer homes along the coast
either damaged, or threatened with damage from
the gale and high seas were those owned by
General A. H. Cales of the Missouri
Pacific Railroad;
Washington E. Connor, broker for
George J. Gould; Nelson
K. Cromer; W. Harrison Rhodes; J. M. Cornell; J.
A. Scrimser; J. B. Hoyt; C. D. Halsey
and other rich men.
The storm, which gathered off the coast of
Georgia, went out to sea then doubled on its
tracks and struck New York and New Jersey as a
“nor’easter.”
The bulkheads about Seabright had been strained
and, in some instances, washed out by the storm
of last week and all the repair work that had
been accomplished in the meantime was washed
away.
High waves, dashed up by the terrific wind, also
flooded parts of Rockaway, Far Rockaway,
Edgemere and Arverne, on the Long Island coast.
At Rockaway, families living on the beach were
driven from their homes and bulkheads were
washed away. Waves ten feet high swept the
streets.
The Marion Daily Star, Marion, OH 3 Jan
1914
Transcribed by
Cheryl.
Thank you, Cheryl!
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