Page 103 - Fish in OC Magazine 2024

THE HURRICANE OF 1933
TUESDAY / AUGUST 22

THE HURRICANE OF 1933 Continued
storm killed seven people statewide, none of
those fatalities were local.

On top of all that property damage, however,
something bigger was brewing. The normally
serene coastal bays behind Ocean City became
so swamped with rainwater and storm surge that
they started to resemble a water balloon, over-
filled and bulging to the point of bursting.

Today, Ocean City ends at what we call the inlet
parking lot at the boardwalk. However, prior to
August 1933, the town kept going. There were
at least three more blocks of homes and busi-
nesses south of this area. There was no inlet at
that time.

Once that bulging water balloon in the back
bays finally burst, well … then there was an in- Lending a helping hand to cross
a flooded street in Ocean City.
let. The ironic thing about this development is
that for decades before 1933 Ocean City had
been pleading with state and federal politicians
to build an inlet for them.

Before the 1933 storm it was quite an ordeal
to go fishing out of Ocean City. Without an in-
let the only place to dock boats was up on the
beach. Every launch involved crews of eight or
10 men, dragging boats out into the surf. Ev-
ery return landing involved those same human
crews, plus teams of horses or mules—all need-
ed to pull vessels back up for overnight parking
on the beach.

In earlier times there had been a couple of short
respites from this ordeal. A storm back in the
1800s cut an inlet where 110th Street is today.
Another later storm cut a channel five miles
south of town. Fishermen had jumped on both
those inlets, but they got to use them for only a On the move (slowly) through a
few years before Mother Nature and her drifting flooded Ocean City street.
sands closed the openings back up.
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