The Ash Wednesday Storm

The Ash Wednesday 1962 Storm at Sea, by Ned Mayo During the Ash Wednesday Storm I was a young junior officer aboard USS Tweedy (DE 532), a Norfolk-based destroyer escort. This was the time when the Bay-Bridge Tunnel was new, having just replaced the old Kiptopeake ferry to Cape Charles. On the 6th of March 1962 we were at sea, some 75 miles east of Norfolk; I recall that the seas and winds increased slowly without apparent reason during the morning watch (4:00 - 8:00 am). By the end of the day, waves were higher than 60 feet high with wind gusts exceeding 100 mph. Our ship's length was only 306 feet, and we would certainly have capsized had we lost propulsion or steering and been unable to keep our bow into the wind. As Communications Officer, I remember the flood of distress calls on 500KHz, the International Distress Frequency. But fully occupied with our own survival, we were in no position to find, much less help, another ship. The interior of the ship was a shambles. Gear is always secured against normal rolling and pitching, but the 50 degree rolls we took overwhelmed these precautions. The storm was brutal to the coast because it occurred during a perigean spring tide--the highest of the high. When we steamed back into Norfolk two days later--battered but afloat-- we were amazed at the littoral damage. The Chesapeake Lightship had dragged anchor over a mile, while the buoys of Thimble Shoal Channel looked as if they had been set by a drunk. Low sections of Norfolk were flooded by saltwater. Part of the storm's destructiveness was that it was unpredicted. Had this been a hurricane its presence would have been known and advertised, even in 1962; but it was not. It was what New Englanders call a "nor'easter" and one of the worst ever.