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[This Just In]

WUSSES
The perfect storm

BY SETH GITELL

Earlier this week, the possibility of coastal flooding was big news. Television news crews were stationed in Scituate and Revere on Tuesday to capture footage of a few waves crashing over the sea wall. Apparently, the key to ratings during a winter storm is excessive coverage bordering on overkill. Of course, that rule was written after the Blizzard of ’78.

I was nine then. My family lived in Hull, a tiny sliver of land surrounded on three sides by the Atlantic. The day the blizzard began, the schools let out early. The winds, which were already gusting off the ocean at 50 miles per hour, almost hurled my tiny six-year-old sister into the bay when she got off the bus. Together, we made it into the house, and there we stayed.

My mother made it home from work a few hours later loaded with groceries from Purity. She took the month’s meat purchases — every kind of steak, London broil, and roast that people ate back then — and placed them in the freezer. They would be there for only a few hours. By nightfall, the winds and snow had knocked the power out. We carried the meat out to store in the milk box on the front porch.

We listened to the news by a battery-powered transistor radio in a house lighted by oil lamps and learned that newscasters were warning of coastal flooding. My mother laughed it off. She dismissed my grandmother, who lived inland and offered to take us in: “No, Rose, don’t be ridiculous. We’re staying here.”

Her bravado remained intact throughout the storm. Not so my own. Although not yet a journalist, I was already prone to every sort of hype, hyperbole, and hysteria. That’s why she rebuffed my first big scoop, which was gleaned by staring out the window. The ocean was pouring up B Street all the way across Nantasket Avenue toward our house. “Ma, the water’s coming up the street!” I yelled in a high pitch. My mother didn’t believe me. Finally, she agreed to look out the window and was shocked by what she saw. We lived in the center of the peninsula — not dangerously and expensively on the shore — and the only dry land we could see was Strawberry Hill in front of us. At that moment, the town of Hull was no more.

The ocean flooded into our basement and remained there for hours, if not days. The flooding was not without its novelty. Word filtered in to us that the glamorous WCVB reporter Susan Wornick had been spotted at the police station, chasing after the story. Governor Michael Dukakis toured the submerged town via helicopter. Best of all, however, was the food.

When massive flooding hit, it carried an unintended benefit. It thrust hundreds of live lobsters onto the shore. A family friend collected a half-score of these lobsters, which we promptly boiled up for supper. Between the lobster and the steak we were forced to consume, we ate better that week than ever. (Although I’ve never been a fan of lobster since.)

Eventually, the television cameras went away, and we had to clean the basement. Things returned to normal. But I have this to say to the current television establishment: that was a storm. The Blizzard of ’78 would have blown today’s blow-dried crew into the sea.

Issue Date: March 8 - 15, 2001