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| Napatree Point Today |
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| Before and After the Hurricane of '38 |
We are absolutely living the life! Our new friends, Joanne and Jon (John's new golfing buddy), told us about the OLLIE Center at URI which has really cool classes for the "mature" generation. We have signed up for an 8 week class on the "Geology of Coastal Rhode Island" and a one day field trip to Napatree Point to discuss "The Hurricane of 1938". First we read the fantastic book by R.A. Scott "Sudden Sea - The Great Hurricane of 1938" which gave first hand accounts from hurricane survivors. Rhode Island's South County shoreline (Westerly to Newport) incurred the most damage and about 400 deaths. Since our condo overlooks Misquamicut Beach (about 5 miles from Watch Hill and Napatree Point) which also got wiped off the map during the Hurricanes of '38, '44 and Carol in '54 and about half wiped out during Super Storm Sandy in 2012....our attention is peaked on this subject.
With Naturalist Janice, our group walked the remaining 2 mile sand strand of Napatree. Before the hurricane, the strand was about
4 miles long, but the section called Sandy Point was detached (see map) and relocated into the middle of Little Narragansett Bay by what the book describes "the surge was essentially a wind-induced tsunami that reached a height estimated by some to be 50 feet! That 50-foot wave rolled over Napatree Point and obliterated the 40 houses that once existed there on Fort Road." 39 died on the Point while others survived floating on roof tops and mattresses across the bay to Stonington, Connecticut. A few chunks of cement stairs and some rocks from the old Fort is all that remains. This sand peninsula continues to move toward the mainland leaving the old road buried in sand about 100 yards out in the ocean.
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| Sandy Point Detached from Napatree |
The website beachsamp.org shows how past hurricanes have affected Rhode Island's shoreline. Maps of the storms mentioned above show the storm surge of all of them reaching very close to our condo's property line which is half a mile from the ocean and 40 feet above sea level. Thank goodness we are on the third floor so the water may not get us but with nothing blocking our view of the ocean, nothing is blocking the wind either!!
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| Champlin Woods Glacial Signage |
From our Geology class we learn that the RI shoreline is a moraine from the last ice age about 10,000 years ago. As the farthest point of glacial advance, the rock debris pushed in front of the glacier were dumped in a heap as the glacier melted and retreated. Explore RI describes the 134-acre Champlin Woods Glacier Park next to our condo as "a dramatic example of a recessional moraine, with kettle and kame topography, carved canyons, glacial erratic boulders and the moraine ridge. A number of the kettles are below the groundwater level, forming beautiful ponds. The morainal ridge over looks the glacial outwash plain (86-acre Lathrop Preserve owned by the Audubon Society of Rhode Island), Winnapaug Pond, the Misquamicut barrier beach, Block Island Sound, and the terminal moraine of Block Island and Long Island. A glacier geologist has reported that having all of these features in an undeveloped site is globally unique."
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| Folding Crust |
A field trip takes us to the shores of Narragansett then over to Beaver Tail in Jamestown where results of continental drift and the smashing of land masses has produced unique folded rock formations below the Beaver Tail Lighthouse. So unusual that this exact formation is shown in every Geology book around the world. We learn that Westerly was renowned for its high quality blue and pink granite used in buildings and monuments all over the world. The Washington Monument is an example. The granite business started in Westerly in mid 1800's and by 1892 4,000 of Westerly's 7,000 residents were involved in the industry. We learn that crystals from a massive vein of milky white quartz rolling in the surf for millions of years gives the namesake to smooth white stones found on nearby Moonstone beach.
Here we are having breakfast in front of Taylor Swifts Watch Hill house picking out great examples of pink and black feldspar formations among the massive barrier of RI pink granite. A walk among rocks will never be the same :)
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| Breakfast and Chatting At Taylor's House |
