THE TRUE TALE OF MISTY, STORMY, AND MAYBE THE WORST NOR’EASTER OF THEM ALL

The deluge lasted three long days and stretched across five high tides right at the time of the full moon. More than 90 percent of Chincoteague Island flooded. The water ran six feet deep at times on Main Street in downtown Chincoteague. The island’s chicken industry was destroyed–an estimated 350,000 birds died in the storm. Chincoteague’s famous ponies suffered horribly as well. By the time the rain stopped, more than 100 of them had died.

The culprit was the Ash Wednesday storm of March 6 to 8, 1962.

The most famous of Chincoteague’s ponies managed to survive the storm. A pregnant Misty was living at that time on the Beebe Farm in Chincoteague. Floodwaters did, in fact, reach her barn, but before that happened Ralph and Jeannette Beebe moved Misty into the kitchen of their home. She stayed there for three days. The aerial photo here shows how things looked at the Beebe Farm during the flooding.

Weather experts rank the Ash Wednesday storm among the Top 10 of the 20th century. Forty people died along the coast between North Carolina and New York. Another 1,000 were injured. The NASA facility on Wallop’s Island in Virginia suffered more than $1 million in damage. Here is the Wikipedia page on the storm.

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