North Beach was devastated by Isabel in 2003, which was only a tropical storm when it struck Southern Maryland.
Hollywood, MD – For Southern Maryland residents, the horrible consequences of Hurricane Harvey dumping several feet of water on southeast Texas are reminiscent of Tropical Storm Isabel which flooded the western shore of Maryland in 2003 causing millions of dollars in damage.
Harvey should serve as a vivid reminder of what can happen when residents fail to understand the severity of such storms which can swell from an inconvenience to a life or death situation within a matter of hours.
The Mid-Atlantic region is no stranger to hurricanes. From colonial times into the present, the furious storms have wreaked havoc on many occasions throughout history. A hurricane raked Virginia and Maryland in 1667 with such devastation and storm surge that a reported 15,000 homes were destroyed. Its destruction was so widespread that for decades afterward events were recorded as “before” or “after the hurricane.”
Although storms are known to have raked the region in the early 1700s, records are scarce. A twin pair of hurricanes caused widespread damage in 1724 but it was the Great Chesapeake Bay Hurricane of 1769 that most affected the region in the 18th century.
This storm was considered one of the strongest to hit the region in one hundred years from Southern St. Mary’s County to Stratford Hall in Virginia. One Vernon Webb from lower St. Mary’s recounted, “Only a few days ago we had the most violent gale of wind that was ever known in the memory of man, for it has carried away almost everything before it … no person has escaped without some loss.”
The 19th century saw its share of severe hurricanes as well, some of the most memorable in 1824 and then back-to-back West Indies slammers in September and October of 1878. The October storm sank The Express, a transport ship that saw service in the Civil War. Captain Randolph Jones of St. Inigoes, who kept a journal for decades, solemnly recorded that his wife Mary was lost in the disaster. Another great tempest surged up the coast from the Carolinas in 1879, followed by two back-to-back cyclones in September 1882.
Weather recordation improved into the late-19th century as hurricane after hurricane swept out of the Atlantic to indiscriminate courses. The storms seemed to abate slightly as the 20th century blossomed, but unpredictable and destructive, they surged ashore on the East Coast in 1904, 1915, 1923 and 1925. The year 1928 began a savage time for Atlantic storms. In August of that year, two tropical systems dropped more than 14 inches and more than 7 inches consecutively. A third storm soon followed, saturating an already drenched region.
You can still find old timers today who remember the Chesapeake-Potomac Storm of 1933. The late David Sayre recalled being a young boy and watching the sky turn black.
“A lot of people didn’t have radios or televisions,” he said in 1989. “Nobody knew it was coming.”
The powerful storm left devastation in its wake. Piney Point, once a summer resort where American presidents from James Monroe to Theodore Roosevelt vacationed, never recovered from the sudden and astonishing gales that swelled tides to massive surges. Portions of St. George’s Island and Point Lookout were ripped off, diminishing their acreage. Chaptico Bay in St. Mary’s County, once a deep water berth for tall mast ships and steamboats, was silted in and never recovered. The warehouse that stood there sank beneath the mud in the storm’s unrelenting gale.
Lester Trott recalled that his father’s 50-foot cabin cruiser moored in St. Patrick’s Creek in the Seventh District ended up more than a quarter of a mile away in a farmer’s cornfield. Captain Charles Ridgell of lower St. Mary’s ignored the swelling waves and tons of debris, shuttling stranded residents from Point Lookout and Scotland Beach to safety in no more than a powerboat.
The popular ballroom and waterfront promenade that stood for decades in the Calvert County town of Chesapeake Beach was obliterated by this storm. Beachgoers can still find the tiny glass beads once given as carnival prizes at the waterfront arcades on the shores of Brownie Beach, delicate relics of one of the most powerful Atlantic storms to ever savage the region.
The Great Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 roared with tornadoes and heavy rains, flooding roads and farms in St. Mary’s County after almost 12 inches of rain saturated the ground. Four-hundred people died from Key West to Maine from this storm.
The National Hurricane Center began naming tropical storms in the early 1950s, forever changing how we would remember these devastating storms. Hurricane Hazel in 1954 was the first such storm that Southern Maryland residents remembered for its potency and destruction. Winds in excess of 110 miles per hour were recorded at Patuxent River Naval Air Station. More than 450 tobacco barns were lost in the storm throughout the tri-county region—two-hundred and fifty in St. Mary’s County alone. Tolson’s Hotel in Piney Point, a landmark for generations, was reduced to rubble by the unrelenting winds.
Longtime St. Mary’s County weather watcher Floyd Abell of Hollywood said that Hurricane Hazel was the only time he ever saw his father, a big, strapping man, afraid.
I vaguely remember Hurricane Connie in 1955 as it rolled my mother’s chicken house 100 yards away up the hill to her old home place. Chickens rolled with it. After the storm my father had to recruit a neighbor to drag it back down the hill with his tractor. That storm dumped almost 10 inches of rain on the region.
There were other hurricanes that came across the Atlantic, but much of Southern Maryland was spared until 1972 when Hurricane Agnes swept through. This storm is remembered for dumping so much water into Gilbert Run that silt and mud covered the oyster beds in the Wicomico River, destroying the region’s oyster industry for years to follow. Other areas throughout Virginia and Maryland saw catastrophic damage from this storm.
With the exception of Tropical Storm David (1979), the Southern Maryland region was spared the most devastating storms, including Hurricane Andrew (1992), the first Atlantic storm to ever record damage in the billions instead of millions of dollars. Hurricane Fran in 1996 flooded parts of Piney Point, including the Piney Point Lighthouse. The year 1999 brought Hurricane Floyd, which at one point was registered s a Category 4 storm before it slammed into the region. The biggest aspect of Floyd was the rain that came with it. That year had been a particularly dry one for Southern Maryland, which was 12 inches under average. As if to make up for the deficit, Floyd dropped 12 inches on the region.
For most residents, if you want to recall or have no idea how 
devastating not only hurricanes, but tropical storms can be, you only need recall Isabel, which was only a tropical system when it slammed into the region with a storm surge that flooded and destroyed all it came into contact with. The North Beach boardwalk was a gaggle of splintered timbers. At least a half-dozen waterfront restaurants in the region were utterly destroyed by the storm. Some, such as Chappelears in Benedict, never reopened.
Hurricane Irene in 2011 was the last such named storm to pummel Southern Maryland. Perhaps the six-years since a hurricane hit Southern Maryland has lulled you into a sense of false security as it did so many throughout Maryland history.
If that is the case, then Hurricane Harvey and the photographs and videos coming out of southeast Texas should be a reminder of the unpredictability and sudden nature of tropical systems as well as how destructive they can turn in an instant. And for the record, September and October are prime months for these storms. Now is the time to prepare for the unexpected. Don’t find out too late that you’re not prepared.
Some information in this article came from Rick Schwartz’s excellent book, “Hurricanes and the Middle Atlantic States,” Blue Diamond Books, Springfield, Va., 2007.
Contact Joseph Norris at joe.norris@thebaynet.com