Tidal Wave: On Great Burin Island

Louise (Emberley) Hollett

Louise Hollett is a senior citizen living in Burin Bay. She was twenty-three years old when the tidal wave hit her town of Great Burin on Great Burin Island. Louise was in the kitchen enjoying the smells from the oven when she heard a noise.

"I WAS IN THE HOUSE," Mrs. Hollett recalls. "It was about five o'clock. We were getting supper. We had a lady come over to visit us that day and Mom was baking apple dumplings. That's what she had in the oven, apple dumplings.

"I don't know what else we were going to have, but I know we were going to have these, maybe for dessert or something. I heard this noise and I thought it was the stove. We ran out by the door and you could feel the earth shaking under your feet."

After supper, Louise made her way to the telegraph office. Up and away from the beach there was a road called the "high road", but she took the route down by the water. Parts of the lower walkway were simply planks laid across fish flakes, joined by bridges. The harbour was to her left as she walked.

"I went over to hear the news and when I was going over, the harbour went right dry. Darby's boat was there and she was high and dry at the wharf."

In the post office they used to have telegraphy. Mrs. Helen Darby was the telegraph operator and she had a big news book. The news would come and she would write it all out and then put it out in the lobby. Sometimes she would read it for the crowd of men standing around.

"After the earthquake, they came over from Shalloway," recalls Mrs. Hollett. "That's another island they had to come over footbridges to get there. They came over to hear the news and see what was happening."