Fisherman Edward McKelvey was in a boat about 100 miles off Manasquan, on the eastern seaboard of the USA, on March 5, 1962, when the nightly weather report forecast high winds.
His four-man crew - out for fluke and lobster - sat in their boat to wait out the weather. There was no warning that those winds would turn into one of the worst storms ever to slam the Jersey Shore, wrecking 260 homes.
The 69-foot trawler Jenny slid helplessly through enormous seas, as waves ripped off fishing gear and chunks of its superstructure.
"It got so rough, you just had to put it in neutral, you couldn't ride through it," Edward said. "We were at the mercy of the storm ... day and night."
After two days, the storm spat the boat out 35 miles off the Virginia coast, where it drifted through a Navy fleet from Norfolk riding out the storm. As Edward and his crew took their terrifying ride, the storm was causing about $400 million in damage along the coast from southern New England to North Carolina, killing seven people on Long Beach Island and up to 15 others at sea.
The 1962 nor'easter, also known as the Ash Wednesday storm, actually hit on a Tuesday. Coincidentally, the spring equinox was approaching along with a new moon, exerting higher than usual tidal forces.
Edward and his crew would go fishing again. But they would do it without the boat's mascot - a little dog that had survived with them, but was never the same again. The dog started nipping at people a couple weeks later and they couldn't bring it on trips anymore, Edward said.
"I'm very surprised that there's not much said about that storm," he added. "I've been in an awful lot of them, and to me, it's the worst I'd ever seen."
His survival, Edward said, "was a lot of luck. Lady Luck on one shoulder and the good Lord on the other."
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