San Ciriaco Hurricane, Outer Banks Landfall, August 16, 1899

A high and troubled surf pounded the shore at Cape Hatteras, the sky became overcast, and the wind, normally light and from the southwest at that time of year, went around to the east and got down to serious business of blowing.  By noon it had reached fifty miles per hour.

The next day -August 17, 1899- San Ciriaco loosed its full fury against the narrow string of sandy reefs and islands which constitute the North Carolina Outer Banks.  At 4 A.M. the wind at Cape Hatteras was blowing at 70 miles per hour; at noon it was between 84 and 93 miles per hour; at 1 P.M. it was recorded at 120 miles per hour and throughout that afternoon and night winds of more than 100 miles per hour prevailed.

"There was no more than four houses on Hatteras Island into which the tide did not rise to a depth ranging from one to four feet," the government reported; and Hatteras Island, even then, included more than half a dozen separate communities.

So intense were the winds and so high the tides accompanying San Ciriaco that it was impossible for lifesavers to maintain their patrols, with the result that most of the vessels wrecked on the coast were not reached  -were not even discovered- until the morning of the eighteenth, when the winds had begun to subside.