Steve Pitt - Rain Tonight. A Story of Hurricane Hazel

This book would not have been possible without the help of a great many people who generously shared their Hurricane Hazel experiences with me. The vast majority of them did not make it into this book by name, but with their help I hope that I have accurately captured the essence of October 15,1954 in Etobicoke, Canada.

For anyone I may have missed, I sincerely apologize.

Tom Adair (North York Firefighter), Bryan Adamson, Ms. Noreen Albany, Gord the Duker Amor, Jean Anderson, Pat Anderson, Santo Arrigo, Norm Aylwin (Etobicoke Firefighter), Pat Barch, J.M. Beatie, Ruth Belsey, Ross Bissell (Etobicoke Fire Chief), Kathleen Boulden, Stan Bowering, Ben Brass, Mrs. Jay Bray, Audrey Bridges, David Briggs (RCAF), Jim Britton (Etobicoke Firefighter), Bill Brown (Constable, Forest Hill Police), Zilpha Brown, Des Burke, Elsie Cairnes, Marie Campbell, Peter Campbell (Sergeant, York Police Force), Betty Carter, George Cass, Pat Catling, Harry Chong, Charles Clark, Gerry Clarkson, Al Clint, Diana Cook, Shirley Cooper, Theresa and Walter Coram, Detective Jim Crawford, Joan Crawford, Lillian Cross, Jerry Culkeen, Jim Davis (Constable, Toronto Police Force), Cliff Ditchfield (Boy Scout), Nicholas Doran, Doug Duffy, Gord English (Sergeant, Toronto Police Force), Nancy Farrell, Art Frost, Muriel Garvey, Anne Gauthier, Edith and Geoff Geduld, Christie Goodyear, Doug Grant, Charles Greenwood, Irene and Tom Gould, Mary-Lou Griffin, Don Haley, E.D. Hall, Paul Hallam, Murray and Neil Hamilton, Barbara Hancock, Roy Heath, LaVern Higgs, Doug Hildebrand, Bill Hughes, Art and Doris Irwin, Pat Irwin, Milburn Jones, Marilyn Jones, Brian Katz, Marsha Kennedy, Joyce Kent, Katherine Kilmor, Jim King, Dr. John Knox (Meteorologist), Frank and Rita Krahn, Tim Lambrinos, Stan Laundry, Dorothy Lawson, Ruby Leonard, Jane Lindsay, Roland Locke, Jean Lupton, Frank Marshall, Eve Martin, Valerie Maruca, Doug Mason (Constable, Toronto Police), Linda Matthews, Fire Captain Ken Maxwell, William McCann Jr., Madeleine McDowell, Cathy McMullen, Georgina Micks, Olive Mihorean, Bryan Mitchell (Etobicoke Fire Chief), Thelma Montani, Terry Moran, Mary Ellen Mulvey, Margaret Near, Marie Nelson, John Neufeld (Constable, Scarborough Police Force), Bob Partnoy, Christina Paneluk, Trevor Paquin (C.S.M.), Edgar Parson, Tony and Norma Petit, Mary Prawecki, Beth Priest, The Reverend Mary Rabjohn, The Honourable Julian Reed (MP), Bernard and Mary Roberts, Vern Roberts, Hart Rogers, June Ross, Bill Sargeant (Scout Master), A.H. Savage, John Setchell, Alan Shaw, Cliff and Marion Sherman, Helen Sievert, Sil Silzer, Frank Smith, Robert W. Smith, Marion Smith, Bernice Steward, Rob Summers (Boy Scout), Gwendolyn Stilwell, Jean Taylor, Bert Titmarsh (Staff Sergeant, Toronto Police), Lloyd Tucker (48th Highlanders), Joyce Upton, Albertje and Klaas Vanderwal, Pat Wakeman, Clarence Walker, Bob Walsh, Ernie Warmington, Cecil Warner, Madeleine Waters, Jeanne Weeks, Dennis Wheeler, Dorothy Willis, Virginia Wilson, Howard Woodford, Dora Worsley, Mabel Yanicki, Elwy and Lila Yost, June Young.

A special thank-you to Jim Crawford and to Penny, Tom, and Patricia (the Doucette family) for sharing their amazing story.

Thanks also go to Al Henkelman, Vice President of Blacks Photo Corporation, who provided me with photo support while I was doing my research.

Authors Note

In Canada in 1954 (as in the United States today), imperial measurements were used. Penny would have understood distances given in inches, feet, yards, and miles. She would have been familiar with ounces and pounds instead of grams and kilos. And she would have been freezing cold when the temperature dipped to 32 F, not o C. To conform to the standards of Pennys time, we have used imperial measurements. The following tables will help if you need a better understanding of speeds, weights, distances, and temperatures mentioned in this book.

1 inch	=	2.54 centimeters
1 foot	=	30.48 centimeters
1 yard	=	91 meters
1 mile	=	1.60 kilometers
32 degrees Fahrenheit	=	0.00 degrees Celsius
100 degrees Fahrenheit	=	37.77 degrees Celsius
1 ton	=	1.10 metric tons or tonnes

Although every effort has been made to portray characters and events accurately, Pennys story is gathered from personal journals, newspaper stories, and interviews with those present at the time. Mrs. Hargreaves first name remains unknown to me, as does the exact spelling of her surname, which appears differently in various accounts. I have taken the liberty of calling her Edna, and choosing the spelling that was most often used. Should more precise information be forthcoming, corrections will be made in future editions.

A Giant Awakes

Even though it was the first week of autumn, the late September sun felt warm as Penny Doucette walked home from school. Penny lived in Weston, Ontario, a lovely little community built along the banks of the gentle Humber River. Although Weston was very close to the large city of Toronto, it still looked and felt very much like a separate small town. Huge trees and elegant old homes lined the streets. Many of the yards were edged by stone walls built with large, flat rocks hauled up from the nearby river valley. It was a quiet little village where people knew each other and enjoyed a sense of permanence and security.

RECIPE FOR A HURRICANE

For a hurricane to form, you need a hot sun and an ocean with a layer of warm surface water at least 160 feet deep and stretching for hundreds of miles. Warm water gives the sun a head start on its ability to evaporate billions of tons of water. Next you need the right winds that keep the water vapor together instead of dispersing it across the ocean. Finally, you need the rotation of the earth to start the storm spinning. Put all these together in the right order, and you have yourself a hurricane.

Penny lived on a new street called Fairglen Crescent. Someone had once told her that glen was the Scottish word for valley, and she could well understand why her street had been given that name. Fairglen ran straight down a steep little hill from Main Street to the Humber River. The houses at the top had a wonderful view of the Humber Valley, but Pennys view was even better. Her family lived at the bottom, right beside the river in a little house that her dad had built with a few hand tools and a borrowed cement mixer. Because Tom Doucette knew that the Humber often flooded in the spring, he had constructed the house high up from its banks next to a little maple that he hoped would grow into a majestic shade tree.

THE CORIOLIS EFFECT

Hurricanes always spin in a counter-clockwise direction in the northern hemisphere due to a phenomenon called the Coriolis Effect. The effect is named for the French mathematician Gaspard Gustave de Coriolis, who was the first to explain why cannonballs always veer to the right of their target in the northern hemisphere and to the left of their target in the southern hemisphere. Coriolis correctly concluded that the rotation of the earth affects all moving objects.