Worcester County MDGenWeb THE STORM OF 1933

It was August, 1933. A tropical storm in the Atlantic was strengthening into a hurricane and began moving up the east coast of the United States. By the 18th, heavy rains began that pummeled Ocean City with 10 inches of rain every day for four days, flooding streets and swelling the Sinepuxent Bay on the westward side of the barrier island. On August 22, 1933, the storm made landfall, battering beachfront properties and the boardwalk. The railway trestle bridge to the town, automobiles, homes, and businesses were destroyed, some washing into the ocean. As huge waves battered the east side of the resort, the bay had taken as much water as it could hold. The water finally burst through with explosive force from the bay to the ocean, creating at 50 foot wide, 8 foot deep inlet at the south end of town. The force of the water destroyed the boardwalk, washed away three entire streets, the old railway bridge from the mainland, and fishing camps associated with the pound fishing trade that were in the area.

The current Ocean City inlet was not the first inlet that existed in the area from Fenwick Island on down to Assateague. Over the years, inlets had opened up and eventually filled back in. There was one up just south of Fenwick Island (around what is now about 110th Street in OC) in the distant past, and records indicate that there was one in the middle of today's Assateague Island National Seashore that was there from at least the 1690s until it naturally closed about 1830. The inlet cut in Ocean City in 1933 would have eventually filled in, as well, if not for work done by the Army Corps of Engineers to widen and deepen it by dredging, and to keep the sand at bay by the placement of rock jetties.

Storm of 1933 [5:15]

Ocean City MD Hurricane of 1933 [11:13]