Don Canney

In addition to this line being the opener of many of Snoopy’s graphic novels, the night of August 4 was indeed a dark and stormy night as the Nashua area prepared for Hurricane Isaias, bearing down upon us from an unusual western approach. Most of our storms track from the south. As we were all currently hunkering down for yet another reason, we now had a new motivation to do so. Warnings of strong winds and tornados had us all on high alert. As it turned out, although power outages abounded, we were spared major damage. And with today’s meteorological wizardry, we were able to prepare ourselves.

Thankfully, tornado warnings are a rarity in this area, but when I see those trailers streaming across the top of the TV screen, visions flash before my eyes of Elvira Gulch, a rusty Tin Man, an intellectually challenged Scarecrow, a fainthearted Lion, along with Dorothy and her little dog too waving as they fly across my front window. We are now fortunate to have the advantage of weather forecasts almost by the hour, so we know when to brace and when to breathe a sigh of relief. But there was a time when things were not so predictable, and the results were even more devastating.

Our recent brush with the fury of Mother Nature prompted me to think about past storms that walloped the Nashua area in the pre-technological age when people were much less prepared.

In a May 31, 1969, issue of the Telegraph focused on major storms in the region, some of the biggest hurricanes to hit the city were chronicled.

The biggest storm to hit us to date occurred back when storms were not yet even issued a name. On September 29, 1938, a night that was described in a weather forecast as, “generally showery,” Nashua received the full brunt of a hurricane starting at about 5:00 PM. Residents woke up the next day to what must have appeared to be a bad dream, with over $500,000 in damages (in 1938 $500,000 was a LOT of money) and all means of communication wiped out. Mayor Frank A. MacMaster declared martial law and the National Guard was patrolling the streets of Nashua alongside city police. To give an idea of the amount of rain that fell, the Merrimack River threatened to flood the Taylor Falls bridge (that being the old original bridge that spanned Nashua and Hudson). Granted, that bridge was lower than the one that stands today, but still, that is a considerable amount of water. Wind gusts topped 100 miles per hour.

In 1954, Nashua was hit with a double (near triple) whammy. By this time, the National Weather Service was issuing names to each storm. On August 31, Hurricane Carol, the most powerful of those for the year, caused one million dollars damage with winds powerful enough to set off fire alarms in the city. Hurricane Dolly put a scare into the hearts of Nashuans just days later, on September 2nd, but she luckily veered out to sea. However, on September 11, another powerful storm, Hurricane Edna, blasted the city. Local merchants reported a “frenzied run on candles,” which gives us an idea of what the priorities were back then. Edna dumped five inches of rain, disrupted communications and electrical power, and felled even more trees, but the overall damage was one-third that of Carol.

Those three weeks were obviously not ideal for area insurance companies, as they were dealing with the impact of addressing claims filed resulting from two major storms within a short timeframe. If there was a Jake, Flo, or Doug (from their respective insurance companies) back then, they would have been remarkably busy people.

Even though we have our share of nasty winter storms and snow measured in feet versus inches, I guess we can consider ourselves lucky that tropical storms and hurricanes are fewer and farther between. And besides, we would never see Elvira, Tin Man, Scarecrow, Dorothy and Toto flying by our windows wearing winter coats and holding snow shovels, would we? “I’ll get you and your little snowman, too,” just does not sound right.

Don Canney is a freelance writer and professional voice artist. He was born and raised in downtown Nashua with great interest in Nashua history circa 1950-1970. He now resides in Litchfield.