It's peak hurricane season, and Island emergency managers are practicing tabletop drills and making sure they are stocked up for shelters — just in case.
A powerful winter northeaster that pounded the Island late last week with hurricane-force winds, astronomical high tides and heavy rains left town and beach managers scrambling to assess damage and begin repairs.
The Vineyard Sound lightship was lost with all hands the night of the hurricane. The luckless vessel, with a crew of eleven, was at her station off the tip of Cuttyhunk in Vineyard Sound, when she was presumably overwhelmed, with no chance to radio a message of her approaching fate and ask for aid.
“It was heartbreaking to see those boats go to pieces,” Capt. Fred Vidler, keeper of the Edgartown Harbor Light said yesterday. He was speaking of the boats, torn from their moorings in Edgartown harbor, which were carried by the current against the lighthouse bridge at the height of the storm. As soon as the craft hit the bridge they seemed to go to pieces like matchwood.
From the lighthouse yesterday afternoon it was possible to see at least nine wrecked boats from the harbor entrance all the way to Cape Pogue.
Earnest G. Friez Jr., manager, said that he thought that the Harbor View Hotel had weathered the Tuesday weather in comparatively good shape. “We were very fortunate,” he said, “compared to the trouble some were in.” One chimney fell on the ell of the main hotel, over employees’ quarters, and smashed through the roof into a room on the third floor. Other than that the damage was confined to a few chairs, windows and shutters and shingles.
