Rural Retreat times. [volume] (Rural Retreat, Va.) 1892-1918, 1903-10-16
VIRGINIA COAST
SWEPT BY STORM
Wind Blew Seventy Miles an Hour at
Cape Henry MANY Boats and
Lives Lost
TEN THOUSAND MADE HOMELE SS
Eight Thousand Were Thrown Out OF
Work, Eight Hundred Houses
Flooded, One Thousand Acres
Covered by Water at Patterson,
NJ.
TEN THOUSAND MADE HOMELESS

N. j.
The Virginia coast from Cape Henry
TO Dam Neck Falls, ten miles south,
was strewn with wreckage of several
Inflated crafts last Saturday night
Three vessels were wrecked and sew
eral lives were lost.
Captain George H. Adams and Sea-
nan Peters are drowned while Joseph
Peters, Peter Lopez and M. Payne owe
their lives to the heroism OF Surfman
Charles Capp,s life saving station No.
3 -lll these men were on the Ocean
Belle, and when this barge was dashed
ashore, the waves swept her decks cleaf
of rigging and crew. Caps plunged
into the surf, ana after desperate strug
giles brought all three men to land
The fate of the Georgia's crew is un-
known, but little hope is held for their
safety. Barges were in tow of the tug
richmond and the tug is also miss
ing.
The three-masted schooner Nellie w
Hollett, Captain Ghesm, lumber laden
from Pensacola, is total wreck on the
coast three miles from Dam Neck
ILLS. Captain Ghesm and his crew OF
six men are safe at the station. -Four
attempts were made to launch the surf
3oat and thus reach the ship, without
success The surf guard finally sue
;eeded in dropping a line over the YES
sci, and one by one the crew were
hauled ashore through the surf.
The last train from the coast arriv-
ing in Norfolk Saturday night brought
many refugees. They reported a large
five-masted schooner in the surf be-
tween Virginia Beach and Cape Henry
and near her big passenger steamer
lighting battle with the northeast
gale that was blowing her toward the
breakers. The wind at the capes was
over seventy miles an hour and the
ssurf piled over the sand hills and back
into the main land.
At the Norfolk navy yard the cruiser
Olympia was in dry dock with her bot
tom plates removed. At high tide Sum
day morning the water was six inches
from the top of the cassion.
The terminal piers of the Norfolk and
Western, Southern and Atlantic Coast
Zine in the outer harbor were badly
damaged by the wind and tide and
the high pleasure piers at Ocean View
we're destroyed
Hundreds of crafts have come ashore
Norfolk city experienced a gale OF
lbout 40 to SO miles all days Saturday
nd besides flooded streets, much dam
&c was done. For the greater part Q
he day the city was cut off from the
outside world.
The first news received from the Ca
lima coast since the beginning of the
hurricane dispels the hope that the
ceacherous shoals between Carrituch
md Hatteras had not claimed thei.
,uota of the crafts.
Two vessels are known to have been
lost on that stretch OF the coast and
:urther reports are expected to bring
| Jews of more wrecks as at this time
three schooners are missing together
with one barge. Two schooners and a
barge in addition to those wrecked be-
tween Cape Henry and Dam Neck, were
ost during Thursday and Friday.
The crew of the schooners were saw
I'd. but the barge went down with all
hands on board.
The tug Buccanneer, Captain JOS
leph Lane, reports that the barge Crack,
Efoundered off Cape Henry with Cap
tain Coolzson, her cook and three sea-
men, all white The tug sailed from
Baltimore towing the Crack, which
was coal laden. Off Hog Island the
storm struck her on Thursday and the
barge with the crew went down. The
tug could not approach the barge in
the heavy sea- and was forced to 60
to Norfolk for safety.
| Observer A. W.. Drinkwate, of the
Currituck station, reports the loss of
the schooners Mabel Rose and ]. w.
Holden.
| The life savers had seen the Rose
about p. m. Saturday with her crew