Two seals circled their enclosure lazily and basked sleepily under a cloudy sky on the last day of August 1954. The pair had called their little pool close by Great Harbor in Woods Hole home since June, when a fisheries truck delivered the two, disoriented from the trip, from Boothbay, Maine. As the seals moved about the air pressure dropped and the wind picked up. Down the street passengers on the island steamer stepped off the bobbing vessel in the morning light, the last travelers to make the trek for many hours.
By 10 that morning it was apparent to everyone that the hurricane barreling up the coast, named Carol under the newly adopted naming convention, was bearing down on Cape Cod. 12 days later another Hurricane, Edna, passed directly over the Cape, still getting back on its feet.
Carol flew ashore with greater fury, devastating the waterfront communities of the Cape, leaving in its wake death and destruction reminding some of the events of September 1938 and the hurricane that has become the highwater mark for tropical destruction on Cape Cod.
Edna passed closer, but with less violence, the eye settling over Martha’s Vineyard, lashing the Upper Cape with rain and winds tempered compared with those of 12 days previously but still destructive.
By 1954 forecasting had moved beyond the limitations of earlier decades. Forecasters in 1938 felt confident that a tropical cyclone would move out to sea rather than come ashore in New England, a prediction that proved disastrous. In 1954 the confidence in the path of hurricanes had grown markedly, in no small part thanks to the adoption of radar. Ahead of Hurricane Carol 20,000 Cape visitors and residents left for calmer waters. Even before the winds began picking up that August morning, firefighters and National Guardsmen set out among the shore communities to knock on doors and urge residents to leave. 
Unlike 1938 a sense of foreboding drifted through the towns despite a short warning. Vacationers and residents alike were not looking forward to the late summer sun, or an early morning swim as they were 16 years earlier. The predictions of heavy weather played themselves out that last day of August, the wind rose steadily, peaking around noon with gusts well over 100 miles an hour. The high tide and the height of the storm coincided, again like the hurricane of 1938, causing a massive storm surge to sweep inland, funneling up Buzzards Bay and inundating Falmouth, Bourne and Wareham. Houses gave way under the tide, at Taylor’s Point in Bourne 20 houses were demolished one ending up in the canal, along with the its occupant Elmer Clapp, Bourne’s sole fatality despite the devastation.
In Falmouth two sisters Mrs. Golda Richmond Walters and Mrs. Martha Winick along with Mrs. Winick’s three children ranging in age from seven to two died when waves pushed their Menauhant road house into Great Pond. At 11 AM men lashed themselves together in a vain effort to rescue the five inhabitants. An hour and a half earlier Golda Richmond Walters, a special justice of the Ayer District Court, had telephoned to her neighbor, John J. McLaughlin whose house sat a half mile down the road asking if his 15-year-old daughter could babysit. They had an “important engagement.” In an interview with the Enterprise Mr. McLaughlin recorded his response, “It’s more important than you think … there’s a hurricane coming.”
Residents in Acapesket found themselves sheltering at local grocery stores, well provisioned. Others sought refuge at Otis Air Force Base.
In Woods Hole the sea flowed into the streets and inundated buildings. At 10:30 the waters rose high enough for the seals to make their escape. The ferries, who hours earlier had disembarked their passengers, were in danger of parting their lines, the ships’ guards riding above the pier on the storm surge. The captain of the four-year-old Islander, fearing for his vessel, ordered the lines parted and set sail across the sound to ride out the storm in the lee of Martha’s Vineyard at Lambert’s Cove where the crew kept the engines running dead slow and rode out the storm.
The winds began to abate at two in the afternoon and by four residents crept out of shelter to view the damage. At 4:30 a long blast on the fire whistle blew to summon the National Guard. Fears of looting spread and Guardsmen began taking up patrols alongside Air Force policemen from Otis to prevent any unwanted attention near the damaged communities.
On Surf Drive in Falmouth the cabanas that dotted the beach had, for the third time in 16 years, flew across the road and into Salt Pond. Quickly the Surf Drive debate, a discussion that swirls around like the storm tide over the road to this day, surfaced again. This narrow stretch of asphalt between the Sound and Salt Pond, once again was strewn with wreckage, sand, and salt.
Though mail delivery had ceased at noon, the milkmen forged ahead through the storm working until after dark to finish their deliveries.
The National Guard’s presence began even before the storm hit its peak, evacuating residents along Buzzards Bay riding along in DUKWs, the amphibious “ducks.” As the storm passed more men were summoned to duty in Falmouth and Bourne to aid in recovery and protect property. Falmouth’s town hall became a barracks for 100 Guardsmen while Bourne Town Hall served as headquarters for the operation.
Cleanup proceeded apace. Crews cleared trees from the road, power winked back on in dribs and drabs and debris hauled off. The storm had churned up the mud in the coastal ponds and harbors, the resultant escape of trapped gasses reacted with the lead in house paints causing the structures to discolor. The National Guard stood down and the Cape’s off-season set in rapidly thanks to the leafless trees and exodus of tourists. Nine days after Carol barreled through forecasters warned another Hurricane, Edna, had set its sights on the Cape.
The winds rose again on Saturday morning September 11, 1954. Rain poured down but by noon an eerie calm settled over Falmouth. Residents crept out only to be ushered back to safety by police. Edna’s eye passed over Martha’s Vineyard.
When the storm finally passed the scene, though not apocalyptic, it was still startling to behold. Boats not destroyed during Carol again lodged themselves ashore and some buildings sustained yet more damage. During the height of the storm the Coast Guard buoy tender Hornbeam cast off to take up station as a light ship on the Nantucket shoals. The lightship Nantucket had lost steering in the storm, and with portholes smashed she began to drift. While the light vessel was towed to Boston Hornbeam battled the elements to ensure the post was not abandoned.
The resulting damage of two hurricanes in so short a time buckled, but did not break the Cape. The residents moved on and buildings continued to go up along the shore.