In return, the owner let him take pine paneling and hardwood flooring. Dad helped tear down what was left of the motel in North Myrtle Beach. “After the storm, people grabbed a hammer and nails and did what they could to make a living. Hazel took lives, property and livelihoods. “When it was over, the shrimp house was gone, a three-mast schooner was sitting in our front yard, and we began to hear horror stories of people who died out on Ocean Isle,” he says. By 9 o’clock, the winds were howling and we sat out the storm in our house in the Hickman’s Crossing area,” Dixon remembers. Fishermen already were bringing their boats up into the canal in advance of the storm, so I stayed put. “I had planned to go hunting that morning, but Mom came in to say there would be no hunting. Residents there recall their losses, but also manage to count their blessings.įor William Dixon, 15 years old at the time, the day began with bad news. CALABASH RESILIENCEĬalabash, the small fishing village best known today for its distinctive seafood cuisine, first felt the impacts of Hazel’s landfall.
Stories of death, destruction and survival emerged from a storm that took many in Hazel’s path off guard. Those 1954 dollars translate to roughly $2.8 billion today.
Its trail of destruction caused an estimated $350 million in property damage from the Caribbean to Canada. 14, she shifted course and headed for the Carolinas.Īll told, Hazel claimed between 400 and 1,000 lives in Haiti six in the Bahamas 95 in the U.S., including 19 in North Carolina and 81 in Canada. Early forecasts had predicted that Hazel would track offshore along the U.S. While the mountainous island tamped down Hazel’s fury temporarily, warm surrounding waters intensified the storm. Harper, former editor and publisher of The State Port Pilot, would remember Hazel in his paper’s 50-year retrospective as “the most transforming event of the 20th century for this community.”ĭays before coming ashore in North Carolina, Hazel swept over Haiti, where heavy rains caused massive landslides - taking lives, homes, businesses and valuable sugarcane crops. Though a teen at the time, Southport’s Jim Harper says, “I recall the sound of the wind and broken glass until this day.” Photo courtesy Art Newton/The State Port Pilot. The book is the story of Hazel's political, personal and business life, with all of its bumps and bruises along the way, as honest, bold and straightforward as the woman herself.Shrimp boats came to rest blocks away from the Southport waterfront. Hazel's run as the leader of one of the fastest-growing cities in Canada has been nothing short of remarkable. In her memoir, McCallion writes about her early years as the feisty mayor of a growing city battles with politicians and business leaders her love of hockey and abhorrence of on-ice violence where the feminist movement misses its mark and how she watched and dealt with her beloved husband's fall into the grip of Alzheimer's. I'd wear out the carpet crossing the floor." She's been courted by federal and provincial parties over the years but turned them all down, declaring, "I could never toe the party line. The incident made her an international media star and cemented her reputation as a plain-speaking, decisive political leader. Within months of taking office, Mayor McCallion orchestrated the largest Canadian peacetime evacuation at the time after a train derailed and put almost 250,000 Mississauga residents in harm's way of deadly chlorine gas. No one would have foreseen that the indomitable Hurricane Hazel would become so wildly popular she would remain mayor until 2014, retiring at age 93. In 1978, she defeated a popular incumbent to win election as mayor of Mississauga, a rising city near Toronto that was, until then, a collection of towns, villages and farms. Throughout her ground-breaking career in business and politics, Hurricane Hazel McCallion has seen it all.
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