Hurricane Doria

Well, for starters, it was never really a hurricane. It was almost a hurricane, but not quite. Yet, in the 1971 Atlantic hurricane season, it was the costliest tropical storm of the year. Total damage in 2009 dollars was around eight hundred million bucks.

It was the season for political storms as well. In the summer of 1971 the Nixon Administration enacted wage and price controls. Earlier in the year, in April, 175,000 war protesters marched to the steps of the Capital. But worst of all, in the same month, the American table tennis team played in the People’s Republic of China. That would be red China. Godless Communist China.

The Reverend Dr. McIntyre was beside himself.

As an employee at his hotel in Cape May, Jersey, I had a ring side seat to the ongoing political brouhahas of the day. Of course he raged about surrendering to communism. But the important thing about McIntyre was that he did more than just rage.

McIntyre did things.

To show his disapproval, McIntyre and a few hundred of the faithful marched on Washington with the intent of playing ping pong in front of the White House. The plan was for Reverend Dr. McIntyre to bat the ball around with a Taiwanese team thereby demonstrating his condemnation of the Nixon Administration pro-Red China foreign policy. When informed by the Capital police that a stationary protest was prohibited, McIntyre had the table slowly carried as they played ping pong. No mere regulation would stand in his way.

When it came to staging ridiculous protests, the man was indefatigable.

I don’t remember having an opinion about Nixon’s China policy. I had my own interests that summer and protesting the Nixon administration was not one of them.

Mostly, I loved just hanging out.

During my time off from washing dishes, I would walk into downtown Cape May and browse a bookstore I had discovered. It sold mostly paperbacks of the beach book variety. But it also sold other, less mainstream, fare. It was there where I picked up a copy of Charles Reich’s Greening of America.

I loved that book. It was the first time I read a political analysis of the United States. Reich first outlined the historical path of America, then detailed its many flaws, and finally provided an answer. In the nutshell, to cure America’s ills all one had to do was to don bell bottoms, smoke weed, and channel Bob Dylan. Of course it was a ridiculous proposition. But the seventies were a time for ridiculous propositions. One more wouldn’t hurt.

On August 27th, Doria was 200 miles off the coast of Daytona Beach, Florida. It gathered strength, and made landfall on the North Carolina coast on the 28th. By the 29th, it was in Virginia, and by the evening of the 29th it was pounding Cape May, New Jersey.

All during the day, preparations were being made at the hotel. I noticed a slight more hustle and bustle around the front desk. As the largest brick structure in city, it was the one place people could seek refuge. As the blankets, towels, food and others supplies were being gathered, I went about my day as if nothing unusual was happening. I was in the middle of a book, after all. I didn’t have time for all this hurricane stuff. And besides, in the whole scheme of things, how bad could it get?

It turns out, it was pretty damn bad.

I was in my eighth floor room the night the storm hit. Bob, a busboy from down the hall, burst into my room. “Are you watching this,” he cried.

“Watching what?”

“The storm, man, the storm! It’s unbelievable.” Bob ran to my window and opened it up. “Come over here and check it out.”

I put down my book and went to the window and looked out. Bob was right. It was unbelievable. The waves were nearly ten feet tall, and crashed over the sea wall. The streets of the town were flooded. Numerous cars had stalled in the water leaving the drivers stranded in a roiling sea of rising water.

“Look at that guy, look at that guy,” Bob screamed. A car drove down the street at high speed virtually hydroplaning across the water in a desperate attempt to reach the hotel. It didn’t make it. The car twisted and turned in the flooded street, stalled and began floating in the opposite direction.

“What an idiot,” Bob declared.

The wind was impressive. As I watched, branches, paper, and miscellaneous flotsam spiraled passed my eighth floor window, circled, and then came back around. I was like a scene from the Wizard of Oz.

“Look there, look there,” Bob yelled. Below, workers from the hotel had formed a human chain, reaching out to rescue people fleeing to the hotel. Not everyone made it to the other side without incident. More than one slipped and fell into the frothy water.

We both found this to be hilarious.

In self defense, I would like to point out two things. First, all humor is based on some form of human pain so, technically, there is something innately funny about seeing someone slipping and falling into the sea even if it is during a raging storm. And secondly, I was nineteen at the time and was both young and stupid. The defense rests.

I suppose we could have remained in my room laughing and screaming insults at the people below for the rest of the evening. But the fun and games came to an abrupt end when the door crashed open. Standing there, drenched from head to foot, was Brazilian John, my fellow dishwasher. He had a facial expression that could freeze water. Apparently he was one of the people in the human chain and had looked up to see us laughing at him.

John was not amused.

The only thing that saved us was the fact that Brazilian John was a devout Christian and he was restrained by the Ten Commandments. He looked at us with disgust.

Then he uttered two choice words that aptly fit the situation. Apparently Brazilian John's tenure as dishwasher had increased his vocabulary in colloquial English to include personal invectives. He tuned and left, slamming the door on the way out.

The next day there was mostly cleanup work at the hotel. Not only was there debris to remove, but the tourist season was ending. Some of the help had already left. It was time to rejoin reality.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t.

The Reverend Dr. McIntyre had just purchased the Holiday Inn in Cape Canaveral, Florida. He was starting a college. Tuition was low and admission requirements liberal.

Now THAT sounded interesting…

Next: Shelton College.