On August 18,1955, Hurricane Diane became the second hurricane to strike the United States East Coast in less than one week.
Diane encountered cold water left in the wake of Hurricane Connie as it approached the South Carolina coast. Winds dropped to 40 mph, with gusts to 55 mph, but the moisture accompanying the system was not diminished. Diane would dump up to 20 inches of rain across parts of Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and into New England. Following on the heels of Connie’s torrential rainfalls a week earlier, Diane’s rainfalls were disastrous. By late evening of the 18th, Diane was dumping torrential rains on the beautiful Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.
At Camp Davis in Stroudsburg, PA, a wall of water 30 feet high rushed down Brodhead Creek, sweeping the camp away and drowning 38 campers in Diane’s deadliest incident. 113 people would die in Pennsylvania. Diane would go on to cause historic flooding in parts of Connecticut, Rhode Islands and Massachusetts. A magnesium processing plant in Putnam, CT was flooded and the floating barrels of burning magnesium produced a ghoulish pyrotechnic show was they exploded and burned in the flooded streets. At one point, 40 percent of Worcester MA was under water. A famed Revolutionary War bridge over the Concord River was washed away by flood waters.
Hurricane Diane would become the first billion dollar hurricane in United States history, causing $3.25 billion in damage. A total of 191 people died in the storm. Diane would be retired from the list of hurricane names.
