Westerly Sun — Review of Fearful Storm Disaster at Pleasant View
Cottages at Pleasant View — From right to left: Judge A.R. Stillman, Abel P. Tanner and Mrs. Charles Brown Cottage, and cottage of Mrs. Lillian M. Browning of Norwich
March 3, 1914
Since the publication of the reports yesterday, regarding the extent of damage along cur county’s beach more definite news has been obtained from the storm swept the area, all of which show that the early representation of conditions at Watch Hill, Pleasant View, and Weekapaug were not exaggerated, but if anything underestimated. As reported yesterday, the worst damage was the property at Pleasant View where the storm of Sunday night swept the beach from the east to the west, leaving but a very few of the buildings unharmed. It is almost impossible to describe the extent of the damage along the shore at this point, but it is safe to say that the estimate of $100,000 loss was not in the least overdrawn, it is even doubtful if this amount will cover the actual damage.
In many places along the beach, the pounding the breakers tore everything before them, flowing over Atlantic Avenue into the pond and meadows. The cement walls from one end of the beach to the other work, with few exceptions, completely demolished, the stones and cement lying in complete mass on the shore in front of the cottages. Concrete walks were torn up, as though they had been constructed of cardboard in hurled with force against the nearby buildings. The piazzas of dozens of cottages were left hanging in midair, and in many cases the flooring and entirely disappeared, while some of it was found several feet from the buildings. Scores of houses were completely undermined, many of which were held from the stands by frail posts. Others did not even have the support and rusted flat in the sand with all of the under construction completely carried away.
The rear of the front row of cottages presented a massive wreckage. Parts of the houses in the front have been torn loose and has lodged in every conceivable shape all the way to…