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Hurricane Carol's waves wash onto one neighbor's yard in the foreground. The rising storm surge threatens to cover the sign, "PRIVATE," on another neighbor's sea wall on the far side of the channel.

he third hurricane of the '54 season, fully developed, is now headed, apparently, for the New England coastal area. So say the news reports of the day.

The weather has been cloudy all day. On arriving at Milford, I find the water on Long Island Sound is leaden green and quite choppy. It is the time of day that would be dusk. The wind is rising, and it begins to sweep in gusts. The grass of the lawn fattens out under its impact

There is activity on the shore front. People are battening down for the blow. Everything movable is being tied down or stored. I put my patio furniture in the garage. Most of it anyhow.

There is a quiet, yet, tense excitement in the air. Shore-front neighbors gather in little knots to reckon on the chances. Will it be bad or will we be lucky and skin by?

It is dark, now, and the boom of the surf deepens as the tide starts coming in. It begins to pound and with its increasing deep crescendo, the house shudders and moves like a living thing. Each measured recurring blow fulfills an almost cringing anticipation.

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