1903 VAGABOND HURRICANE LEWES

LEWES, TUESDAY NIGHT, SEPTEMBER 15 , 1903

THE VAGABOND HURRICANE

Lewes, Delaware , September 15, 1903, Delaware Pilot.

It will take several days until an estimate of the damage from the storm last Tuesday night will be

clearly known, especially that done to the vessel's. Lewes got off with a number of trees uprooted,

and damaged buildings, the most serious being the power house smoke stack bown down which

left the town in darkness.

In the 1900's weather forecasting was incomplete, wind direction and barometric readings were 'it'.

When a storm came up, it was anyones guess when it would abate.

This particular 'vagabond hurricane' was one that proved to be unpredictable and came out of the

Atlantic , having been born a 1000 mile to the east of the Bahamas and stayed at sea until it turned

northward and raked the Delaware coast. It caught residents by surprise.

The three masted schooner, Hattie A. Marsh, was driven into the new outer breakwater, and broke

up, taking five crew members with her. Two, crew members, the mate and one sailor, were saved by

the Lewes Life Savings Station crew.

Farm crops, corn and orchards suffered but the late tomato crop survived. Fish plant piers and the

governments telephone line were done in. There was no communication down the coast south of

Lewes.

Source: Micheal Morgan, Delaware diary, Delaware Cast Press, 10/04/2017: Delaware Pilot &

“Weather Underground”. Abstract: Harrison H.