March storms are no stranger to Delaware coast

When late winter storms roll across the mid-Atlantic coast, like this week’s storm, thoughts along Delaware’s beaches go immediately to the March storm of 1962. 

That storm, packing persistent gale-force northeast winds, piled high tides on top of high tides for three straight days. The resulting erosion eventually ate past beaches and dunes and into boardwalks, foundations, and buildings themselves.

When the foundations crumbled against the relentless pounding of the northeast-driven surf, oceanfront businesses and houses from Rehoboth Beach to Ocean City, Md., toppled into the surging ocean.  When the winds finally eased and the seas subsided, Delaware was left with its worst-ever natural disaster with damages calculated into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Frank B. Calio photographed the aftermath of the March 1962 storm and made this picture of the Atlantic Sands Motel, which up until that time had fronted on the Boardwalk which was peeled away by the storm.