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Photos from The Hamlet News Messenger

The guys at Myrtle Beach Air Force Base use to read mine aloud in Seaside Restaurant

I remember this very well. I was working at Brigmans Esso on the corner of highway 177 & 74 during this time. We posered the gas pumps with a lawnmower engine to pump gas. Howard had me go to Charlotte and purchase a pickup truck load of dry ice and we sold it so people could put it in their freezer so the food would not thaw out.

Daddy was in Raleigh in the Senate. Mom took great care of Virginia and me. We ate high on the hog using a
Hibachi grill...cleaning out the freezer of steaks, etc. Mama taught us how to play penny poker. We had a great time.

Mom was in Richmond and Dad arrived back after the storm had come through. It took him 8 hours to get from the station to our home on Spring St. He was along so he started taking friends in who didn't have a means for heat. I don't know who was there but I think they ate good grilling outside

more 1969 Ice Storm pictures

More Hamlet pictures of the Ice Storm of 1969

Thanks for posting these David. Is one of those from about a block away from clay hill. Amazing devastation

I remember looking out of the window on the top floor of the Hamlet Hospital watching the "fire works display". Actually it was electrical pole transformers exploding all over town.

My brother Bill took these pictures and most are around our house at the corner of Minturn & Clay.

I remember those good ole days when you could pump gas while smoking and have your engine running at the same time and not blow up the gas station.

That picture was a lot closer to Sidney and Rodney's house than mine!!

I also remember the Ice storm of 69 well for a number of reasons, I was working with Pargas of Rockingham as a Tank Truck driver during this time and I was on call the week it hit us and I will remember it as long as I live. We had a huge tree in our back yard with a limb over our home as large as most trees and it sound like shotguns going off every few minutes with limbs breaking off and I thought that big limb would come our roof any minute but thank God it did not. We were with out power close to 3 weeks and no phone for a while, when the lights went out I got a phone call Emma Warwick on Hwy. 74 about were Smithfield's BBQ is now that she was out of gas, I had to get dressed and go out into the cold dark night into the storm for the first of many trips that weekend. It was a funny feeling being the only vehicle on the road and everything was dark until I got to the shopping center and the main line going to the hospital was the only place that had power at that time, It took a while to get from my house to hers but was only about 4 miles, as I was standing in the sleet and rain filling Emma's 335 gal. gas tank there was a big boom sound and the sky turn orange toward East Rockingham and it was scary feeling standing out in the dark night and seeing this happen after I filled her gas tank I had to go into her home and light her gas heaters, It took longer to drive home and when I started to back in to my drive I saw I could not park in the back yard were I always parked my truck because huge limbs were down all over the place but thank God the one over our house never broke off and that was the first of many trips for weeks. People were heating their homes any way they could and a lot of people were using their cook stoves and they only had 100lb or 200lb tanks so they were running out of gas real often and other people were scared of running out of gas and many of them had enough to last a while or even until we ran out route but because we were running all over the place on calls of which many did not need gas at that time we never got to run our route until spring it like to worked us to death. There were some good things that came from the storm the one I think about more often is people slowed down and helped each other out and check on and look out for each other, people made a lot of new friends during this time. I wish I had the talent of some of you to write I believe I could write a book about the ICE STORM of 1969 and that's my 2 cents worth!!!!!!

These photos are painful to look at, even now. Thankfully I didn't have to go through it.

I remember this storm very well. People in Hamlet, who used their fireplaces as a place to hang Christmas stockings once a year, were suddenly building fires for the first time. I spent several nights at Jenny Wright's house.There were at least 4 or 5 more of Jenny's friends there also. We actually had to take turns getting up at night to keep the fire from going out. It was an event for sure. After several miserable days trying to stay warm, my Mother somehow managed to drive us to relatives in SC. We were very fortunate because they had power.

Today brought back memories.