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The Wake of Another Storm

The Water Street drawbridge was carried away by a high tide during the hurricane of 1938. It was more than a year before cars could use the street again, but a temporary arched bridge accommodated foot traffic. The original Atlantis arrived home just before the storm, making an estimated 15 knots under sail along the way–it rode out the storm safely tied to a pair of moorings off the pier. Pop Schroeder’s vigorous caulking kept the laboratory in the basement of Bigelow largely dry so that damage at WHOI was minor. Even Dean Bumpus‘s wallet, which washed out of his pocket while he was seated on a bar stool at Cap’n Kidd on Water Street during the storm surge, was found in a nearby rosebush the next spring. (Photo courtesy of Woods Hole Historical Collection)