Camp Morehead By-The-Sea
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Camp Morehead By-The-Sea
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THE HURRICANES
F or the Camp’s eighteenth season (1955) Cap’n Pat replaced the original pier, whose pilings had come to resemble stalactites and stalagmites. At the Banquet that year, the counselors who had worked on the project presented Cap’n Pat a model of the new pier and assured him that the real one would be good for the next 18 years. Two months later, in October, Hurricane Hazel hit the coast destroying, among many other things, the new pier.Before Hazel, the catalogue described the Camp as being "located on a bluff overlooking Bogue Sound." Since then, the "bluff" could be better described as a "gentle slope". There also used to be many more live oak trees in front of the camp than have been there since Hazel. (The area between Cabin One and the gym had been naturally called The Thicket.) The next season was even less lucky. There were three major hurricanes, two of which
hit while the Camp was in session! Hurricane Diane came through about a week later. It was back to the high school
for the kids (I can still hear the groans) and the big boats went back to Pelter Creek. We
had to sandbag the The last hurricane, Ione, hit sometime in September, I think. Purcell had filled the deep gully with sand, but Ione opened it up again, this time undermining one end of the gymnasium. I understand they had to set house jacks under it. Cap’n Pat was having some health problems, and this experience may well have helped him decide to retire. For us counselors, it was a week of excitement and living in wet clothes. The campers probably didn’t like it very much. The real burden, though, was upon Cap’n Pat and Purcell. Fortunately, weather patterns changed and the next pier enjoyed a long and useful life. Cap'n Royster Chamblee
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Hurricane Connie came through on
August 17. The campers were taken to Morehead City High School, and those boats that
couldn’t be pulled out were taken up into Pelter Creek. The new pier was the most
important casualty at the Camp, but the in the northeastern U.S., there were numerous
deaths from flash floods. 
Sailor Lodge, as the sound was obviously
going to undermine it. What was left of the pier swung open like a gate, broke away, and
floated down the sound. As the ground was already saturated, 
rain water
poured down the unpaved road in a great torrent, cutting a deep gully in the sand beside
the gymnasium. As I remember, the gully was about 10 feet deep with a knuckle-ball table
at the bottom. Camp lasted a few more days and the kids were able to do some sailing, but
the sound was the color of strong tea so it probably wasn’t much fun. 
