Wilmington, North Carolina, USA
1906 - COTTAGERS IN GRAVE DANGER - Two Hundred People Awake to Find Great Sea Sweeping Across Their Island.

Wilmington, N. C., Sept 18. - For six or eight hours upwards of 200 men, women and children were cut off from the mainland in imminent peril by a storm which swept Wrightsville beach, nine miles east of Wilmington. The storm reached the zenith of its fury between 6 and 7 o'clock in the morning. It came without warning, and hundreds of cottagers at the beach received their first intimation of danger upon awakening to find breakers sweeping clear across the beach to the sound and rolling high up on the mainland, two miles beyond. A trolley car kept at the beach in case of an emergency took about 25 early risers across the sound on the trestle, by which it is reached, and four other cars responded from the city to a telephone message and brought others across while the waves swept the trestle.

Those left at the beach were afraid to cross the trestle, which gave way immediately after the last car reached the mainland. The storm increased in fury until noon, when the rescue work was begun. Surf boats were sent across the channel at great risk, bringing first the women and children, and later the men, the last of the number being brought over at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Sheriff Stedman was among those caught at the beach and at once swore in a number of deputies, who closed the barrooms and patrolled the beach to prevent looting.

Cambridge Jeffersonian
Cambridge, Ohio
September 20, 1906

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