55 years ago, Hazel came to visit

Who remembers 55 years ago today? That was the day Hurricane Hazel tore through the North Carolina and South Carolina coastline and mauled its way across the state. Almost every house on some stretches of beach was blown into a new location or turned into scrap wood. I once stayed in a house that, the owner swore, Hazel's winds had moved about a mile up the coast at Cherry Grove, S.C., without disturbing a dinner plate hung on the wall.

Hazel's eye passed directly over Wilson. Folks who lived here then (I didn't) still tell stories. Among the stories are the tales of destruction. Nash Street, called one of America's most beautiful streets, was never the same, I'm told. The tall trees that had canopied the street were uprooted, and those big willow oaks remaining are a pale remnant of what had been there before.

When I went to work for The Wilson Daily Times 29 years ago, some staff members still recalled the effort to get a paper out that fateful Oct. 15, 1954. Electricity was out all over town, but the county fair — or what was left and not blown away — was in town, and publisher Elizabeth Swindell commandeered generators from the fair carnies to run her printing press. An Oct. 15, 1954, edition got out, but it was not printed until the wee hours of Oct. 16, and some of the references to "today" and "yesterday" were confused. When we published a Centennial Edition of the paper in 1996, we managed to find an original copy of that paper, although its front page had a hole torn in it. That Centennial Edition (which, unfortunately, is not available online) contained the full story of the heroic effort to get out a paper, despite all of Hazel's efforts to the contrary.

That hurricane was the "storm of a lifetime" for Carolinians until Hugo in 1989, Fran in 1996 and Floyd in 1999 set new standards for damage, destruction and flooding.

On this anniversary of Hazel, let's be thankful that this year we haven't had to batten down the hatches even once because of a threatening hurricane. Hallelujah!