How Providenciales’ historical hurricanes made their mark.

By Bengt Soderqvist

After Hurricane Dorian devastated the northern Bahamas in 2019 there was a lot of speculation about what would happen to Providenciales if a similar hurricane would hit here. Dorian was very strong and moved slowly across the northern Bahamas, which created an enormous storm surge. We have been very fortunate on Providenciales. Not since Hurricane Donna in 1960 have any of the hurricanes built up any significant storm surge. In trying to imagine what damage a hurricane with storm surge would do to Providenciales today, we can learn from history. 

From September 12–18, 1945, “Hurricane #9” traveled from The Bahamas into Florida and the US East Coast as the second Category Four storm of the season. This is the storm that swept Gus Lightbourne and his crew away from Providenciales and stranded them at sea for 13 days.

When Hurricane Donna hit in September 1960 there was no development in the low-lying areas that were flooded. From records available online we know that Donna passed Providenciales on the north side. The records don’t show the width of the eye of the hurricane, but very likely Providenciales was in the southern eyewall. The front spin must have caused enormous swells to be formed on the reef and a lot of water to be pushed inside the reef. I recall Frank Forbes and Alfred Stubbs from The Bight telling me that some of the water came over the dune, but it did not reach the settlement. In 1960, all the sandy land in front of The Bight was available to soak up water. Most of that area is today covered with buildings and paved roads and parking lots.

As Hurricane Donna moved to the west, the backspin pushed water onto the Caicos Bank. As more and more water was pushed to the north across the bank, it crashed into the southern shore. Where the land was low the water was pushed inland. From Five Cay Bay the water was pushed north through Cheshire Hall Creek past the site of Walkin Marine and into the valley of where Kewtown is today.The main footpath between Blue Hills and Five Cays was crossing this valley. Charlie Rigby from Blue Hills told me that because of the flooding the footpath could not be used for six weeks. Charlie also told me that “the water in the valley was so deep that we could dive for conch.” A storm surge like that today would put water on top of the check-out counters in the downtown grocery store.

For my early survey work I used aerial photos that were taken in the spring of 1961, about six months after Hurricane Donna. In the photos a white line could be clearly seen along the southern shoreline of Providenciales. The line showed the scar in the rocky terrain that the top of Donna’s tidal wave had created. The top of the wave had removed the loose rocks and the white limestone was left bare.

Chris “Fineline” Stubbs shows Bengt Soderqvist the ”Donna Line” still visible on Bristol Hill. “Fineline” was part of the original survey team in 1966 and enjoyed returning to the scene 57 years later!

When we did survey work in the area in late 1966, the scars were still clearly visible. The guys on my survey team named it the “Donna Line.’’ The highest elevation of the tidal wave was somewhere in the Bristol Point area in Turtle Tail at an elevation of +16 feet.

In the southern part of Long Bay, close to the shipyard, the “Donna Line” was partway up the dune. In the northern part, Stubbs Cove, where the dune is lower, the water had pushed far inland. The people in The Bight told me that the water remained there for a long time. A storm surge like that today would make The Shore Club look like a lighthouse sitting in the ocean.

To the east of Providenciales, there used to be a large island named Water Cay. After Hurricane Donna, we had Water Cay, Donna Cut, and Little Water Cay—Donna made two islands of the old Water Cay. When I first arrived in the fall of 1966, the water was still deep enough that we could pass through Donna Cut with a regular outboard engine, but Mother Nature had started the repair work. There were sandbars growing south from Water Cay and north from Little Water Cay. Sometime in the 1990s the two sandbars met and the two islands were joined together again. Donna Cut had become Half Moon Bay. In 1966 most people named Little Water Cay “Done Bobbin.” In rough weather, once you enter the Leeward Channel the water gets calm and you are “done bobbin’.” I love those old names. I doubt there is any other place in the world where you can sail past Done Bobbin and head for Heaving Down Rock. Further to the north, Hurricane Donna also opened up the gap between Water Cay and Pine Cay, but it only took a few years before the two islands grew back together again.

This February 1969 aerial photo shows that by 1969 Water Cay and Pine Cay were already joined together again.

I am fortunate to have in my possession a complete set of H.E. Sadler’s original books, Turks Islands Landfall, signed by the author. About Hurricane Donna Sadler says, “ . . . but there was fortunately no loss of life. However, the main force of the storm was directed against the Caicos settlements, where approximately half the population was made homeless. Tidal waves (sic) submerged large sections of the Caicos Islands and a new mouth was carved out of the west coastline at Bottle Creek, while the settlement of Whitby was isolated by a lake of seawater.” Sadler’s original books are out of print, but his daughter Marjorie has published an updated edition which also includes all of her father’s original volumes. It’s available in bookstores and makes excellent historical reading. A different hurricane that also had a lot of impact on Providenciales was the Hurricane of 1945. Hurricanes were not given names in those days. I had heard different stories about how Gus Lightbourne and his crew were lost at sea for several days before they eventually wound up in The Bahamas. After Gus retired and before his passing in 2005 he spent a lot of time alone in his house in Wheeland. I stopped by and visited him a few times and we used to talk about the good old days. During one of my visits, he told me about the 1945 Hurricane. I did not record our conversation, but I made some notes. Gus’ recollection matches the information that can be found online, where the hurricane is named “Number 9.”

Gus was 24 years old at this time and he had a sloop that was built by James Dean. The James Dean that I have known for several years was his son, had the same name, and was also a boat builder. In addition to Gus there were four more men from Blue Hills on board. Those were Livingston Swann,Thomas Palmer, his brother Joseph “Boy” Palmer, and Hovis Rigby. In the evening of Thursday, September 13 they were anchored at Frenchman Creek together with several other sloops. Frenchman Creek is on the west coast of Providenciales,  just north of West Harbor Bluff, which some people call “Split Rock.” The sloops were all planning to sail to Haiti in the morning. During the night the wind started to pick up. When Gus described how the condition got worse, he mentioned the word “brinestone” a few times. I assume that he meant that they could smell the salt in the air as the storm was approaching. A couple of hours before daybreak on Friday, September 14, the bowsprit, where the anchor line was fastened, broke off and they started drifting. The track of the hurricane shows that it crossed West Caicos, so they were now very likely in the northern eyewall of a strong Category 3 hurricane, which increased to a Category 4 the next day.

At this time they made the decision that probably saved their lives. Gus did not tell me who came up with the idea. He just said, “We decided to chop off the mast and make a sea anchor.” Dragging the sail and the chopped-off mast behind them helped stabilize the boat somewhat and kept them from capsizing. About six weeks later, they learned that all the other sloops had capsized and everybody had drowned.

There are a lot of coral heads in this area and it’s a miracle that they reached deep water without the boat being broken up. Gus told me that they “hit hard one time,” but the boat did not spring a leak. Later on during that day, Gus said that it suddenly got very calm. They were now, of course, in the eye of the storm. After the eye had passed on its westerly track they got hit by the backspin of the storm and were thrown to the north. The northerly drift continued until Wednesday, September 19 before the sea finally calmed down. Gus said that the swells were still big, but the waves were not breaking any longer. Using the stump of the cut-off mast they managed to rig up a small sail. They knew that they had drifted far to the north, so they started sailing south in hope of finding land.

Bengt Soderqvist and his son Lars plotted a possible route that Gus Lightbourne and his crew took during their 13-day ordeal during and after the Hurricane of 1945.

The following day, Thursday, September 20, using part of the sail they managed to collect some rainwater to drink. It still took several days of sailing to the south before they finally spotted land. During the moonlit night of Sunday, September 23, they could suddenly hear and see a reef breaking in front of them. Behind the reef was the dark silhouette of an island that had some hills. Gus said that it almost looked like Providenciales, but they soon realized that it must be Samana Cay in The Bahamas. They were now sailing to the west, staying way off the breakers on the reef. After clearing Samana Cay they continued on a southerly course till they reached Bird Rock, which is off the northwest point of Crooked Island.

After rounding Bird Rock they sailed south along the west coast of Crooked Island until they made landfall on Long Cay, where it was a large settlement in those days. It was now Thursday, September 27—finally safe after 13 days at sea.

Gus said that the people on Long Cay took good care of them. They spent the next few days recovering from the ordeal, then started the repair work on the boat. It took quite a while to get the boat refitted and back in shape, so it was not until the end of October before they reached back to Providenciales. Gus figured that they had been away 46 or 47 days.

During their stay on Long Cay a yacht had stopped by on its way from Florida to the lower Caribbean. The yacht was planning on a fuel stop in Grand Turk and had promised to deliver the news about the survivors. The message was more like a rumor by the time it reached Blue Hills, so nobody knew for sure that the five of them had survived until they stepped ashore on the beach on that happy, memorable day in Blue Hills.

The following quotes from H.E. Sadler’s book Turks Islands Landfall shows how devastating the 1945 Hurricane was:

“All told, 79 people were drowned and 2 lost their lives on land. The loss of life was particularly severe in the Blue Hills area, where a quarter of the male population between the ages of 15 and 69 were drowned while out fishing on the Caicos bank.”

“There was scarcely a house which escaped damage. The number completely destroyed or damaged beyond repair were as follows:

Grand Turk     152

Cockburn Harbour     80

Salt Cay     18

The problem in Providenciales was particularly difficult, as many of the men were drowned.”

The author wishes to thank meteorologist Paul Wilkerson for reviewing the article. Paul occasionally writes weather-related articles for Times of the Islands. He also keeps current his Facebook page Turks and Caicos Islands Weather Info with local forecasts and information.