March 5, 1962, I was living at 109 Rehoboth Avenue with my parents and grandmother. My father, Dr. Floyd I. Hudson, was in Buffalo, New York, at a public health conference. My mother was in Newark, with my brother and his wife, helping with a newborn grandchild.
That night, my grandmother and I watched a Philadelphia news program, where they reported a nor’easter for our area. We thought wind and rain, no big deal. All of a sudden, the electricity was off, and all the windows rattled. Since we were over three blocks from the ocean, we never saw the water surge, just wind and rain.
The next morning, there was no damage around our house. The girl I was dating lived at First and Baltimore avenues. Since the Army National Guard had been activated and stationed at the beginning of each ocean block street to keep people from accessing the area, I walked to her home, and we simply went out her backdoor, cutting through the yards to the beach. The boardwalk no longer existed. As we walked the beach in both directions, you could not comprehend the damage that this storm did.
North from the Atlantic Sands to the Henlopen Hotel, collapsed or damaged buildings. The same sight heading south, Belhaven Hotel gone, Playland damaged.
My father was the executive director of the state Board of Health, and he rushed back from Buffalo. He rented the building at 130 Rehoboth Ave. as an emergency public health field office. At that time, it was the Rice Chrysler dealership. Later, it became the Seahorse Restaurant and is now Lockwood Design & Construction.
I was just a normal 16-year-old, growing up in a beach resort. Since all summer jobs for teenagers were based on tourism, all the teenagers were concerned that no summer jobs would be available. By Memorial Day, Rehoboth was ready for tourists.
At the time of this storm, I had already lived through several hurricanes and nor’easters. What I saw made an impression that has lived with me my entire life. I tease my children and grandchildren that they haven’t seen a storm till they live through one like “the Storm of ’62.”
Joseph Hudson
Dover
