42 • MARCH 2013

THE FLOOD OF 1963:

50 years laterBy Kate Bucklin

A special thanks to Anthony Orsini and Thomas Senuta for providing the photographs of the flood for this story. The color photos were taken by Mr. Senuta’s father, the late William E. Senuta. The black and white photos were given to Mr. Orsini by a photographer who took pictures for the Norwich Bulletin at the time of the flood.

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arch 6 marks the 50th anniversary of the day the dam at Mohegan Park gave way. �e break sent as much as 6.5 million gallons of ice-cold water on a

path of destruction from the park to downtown Norwich. Six lives were lost that night, including those of �ve workers when a mill on Cen-tennial Square collapsed.

The sixth life lost was that of Margaret Moody, a 24-year-old mother of three who was swept away while her husband tried to pull her out of

the family car.For many of the people who lived through the

�ood, the memories of that night are haunting: the water, the giant blocks of ice that rammed into build-ings, the oil tanks and cars that got caught up in the �ood’s path. And a�erwards: the millions of dollars worth of damage to homes and businesses.

Former Norwich residents �omas Moody, Jr., An-thony Orsini and Roberta Delgado Vincent took the time recently to share with Norwich Magazine their memories of the 1963 �ood.

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ROBERTA DELGADO VINCENT

e lived

at 76 Boswell Ave., our backyard overlooked

the Lake Street Playground and we spent all our time there. I wasn’t aware of any evacuation orders com-ing, but it was such an eerie night that night. My sister, Dolores came in and got me and took me to the back door. �e water was level with the basketball hoop through the entire playground, and was also �ow-ing down Pond Street. It had come through with such a force.

I panicked that night. I remember going and trying to wake up my other siblings. Later they told me they were all awake. But that wasn’t how I remembered it.

Dolores had gone outside to look around and my parents, I found out later, were talking to the neighbors. I remember my baby sister was in her crib and I got her dressed and ran out the door with her. My mother caught me, thank God.

You could hear the screaming … from those who weren’t as fortunate.

My sister Brenda said she could hear the water before it came.

�ank god it didn’t happen during the day. I can’t imagine. �e day a�er, it was calm and clear. �e downtown was destroyed. �ere was sand every-where.”

Vincent was a senior at Norwich Free Academy in 1963. She lived in the Boswell Avenue home with her parents and six siblings. Now a resident of New London, she is still very involved in Norwich community

groups including the Norwich Arts Center, the Cape Verdean Com-munity of Norwich and preserving St. Anthony’s Chapel (built by her grandfather, who moved to Norwich from Cape Verde in the early 1900s.)

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ANTHONY ORSINIlived on Lake Street with my parents at the time, and had just gotten out of a city league

basketball game. My father came in and said Mr. Moody needed help to take the three kids over

to the mother-in-law’s house, and that the dam had broke. So I got ready and went with them. We

didn’t know where the water was coming from, or the path. Of course, it came right down where we were. �at’s the path it took. It �ipped the car over a few times and it landed on its top.

We had some room where it landed – room around the car – to get out. So we did and I climbed up on a building with Mr. Moody. Mrs. Moody handed us the children. I had the three kids and he was pulling her up and all of the sudden the building shi�ed and he lost his grip. �ere was nothing we could do. We were afraid the building we were on would collapse so we went to a tree. I had one of the

boys under my coat. We stayed in that tree until the water subsided and help came.”

Orsini was 19 years old at the time of the �ood. His father remained at their Lake Street home that night and watched the water from the porch. His mother and his sisters had been at a relative’s house, but happened to be among the people who could see the Moodys and Orsini in the tree.

“A�er all these years, I still think about it. A lot of people did special things that night, at the mill, too.” said Orsini, who lives in Niantic.

“�e last thing Mrs. Moody – they called her ‘Honey’ – did was make sure her children were safe. She’d be real proud of how the children were raised by her husband and her mother.”

The Turner-Stanton Mill, on Broad Street at Centennial Square, was engulfed by �oodwaters the night of March 6, 1963. Battered by giant ice chunks and other debris caught up in the �ood, the mill collapsed shortly after 10 p.m. that night. Inside, eight second-shift workers were trapped. Five died. They were: Madlyn Atterbury, Mae Robidou, Anna Barrett, Alexander Pobol and Helen Roode.

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Tom Moody, Jr.’s book, A Swift and Deadly Maelstrom: The Great Norwich Flood of 1963, A Survivors Story, not only tells the personal story of his family’s experience but includes facts about what led to the dam break and the recovery e�ort after the �ood. Moody also includes information about follow-up litigation and what he

concludes was unjust compensation for

the families of the victims.

The Norwich Historical Society is planning on hosting Moody for a book reading and signing March 15 at Slater Memorial Museum. For more

information, contact the historical society at (860) 886-1776. To purchase

the book, go to barnesandnoble.com.

THOMAS MOODY, JR.

was 4 years old when the �ood happened. My memo-

ries are really vague. I remember when the wave hit the car, and my

mom screaming out, and the car rolling. I was instantly frozen. I remember being in the tree, holding on and looking out and watching the water going across (Lamperell’s) Garage and down Franklin Street. �ere were these oil tanks crashing into the garage and the ice. Across from me in the tree, my little brother Jim—he was 2 ½—was screaming his head o�. �en I remember waking up in the hospital.”Tom Moody had just turned 4 years old a few days before the �ood. He and his two younger brothers, Jim and Shawn, who was 6 months old at the time, were in bed for the night when someone knocked on their Lake Street apartment’s window and alerted their parents that the water was coming. Tom Moody, Sr, and Margaret Moody (pictured, le�) decided to put their boys in the car and head to Mar-garet’s mother’s across town. �e father enlisted the help of Orsini. Together, the family of �ve and Orsini headed down Lake Street in the car. It was a little a�er 9:30 p.m. Just as the car turned the corner at the southern edge of the Lake Street Playground, the wave of water and ice hit them. �e vehicle was sent careening over a retaining wall behind Capital Garage.

“All of us had ingested that water. It was rancid. �ere was raw sewage and everything else that got swept up. Shawn – he was the most struck by it physically. He was an infant and he got pneumonia. He spent three weeks in the hospital. Me and Jim were there a week.”A�er the Moody boys recovered at the hospital, they moved in with their grandmother. Tom Moody said it was his mother’s wish for that to happen if anything were to happen to her. His father visited daily. Tom Moody lives outside Dallas, Tex. now and works for a nuclear power company. He’s married and has two kids. His brothers are both Stop & Shop managers and live in Con-necticut. Moody’s father died in 2009. He lived in Norwich his entire life.Although what happened that night was never openly discussed in the Moody family, Tom said he that growing up it “was always part of my family. I knew I was going to have to chronicle it some day.”

It was another tragedy that pushed Tom Moody into writing a book about the �ood. In 1994, Moody’s oldest son died of brain cancer. “�at’s when I sat down and decided, I really needed to understand what happened and have something to pass along to my family. Bill Stanley had started writing his ‘Once upon a time’ column (in �e Bulletin) and my father would send them to me. It seemed like every March he’d write about the �ood and how this one woman, Margaret Moody, died saving her children.”Despite living in Stephenson, Tex., Tom Moody decided to start researching the �ood. He made several trips to Norwich to talk to residents and city o�cials from that time. He conducted phone in-terviews. In May 2010, Moody started writing. His book, A Swi� and Deadly Maelstrom: �e Great Norwich Flood of 1963, is available now on the Amazon and Barnes and Noble websites.

struck by it physically. He was an infant and he got pneumonia. He spent three weeks in the hospital. Me and Jim were there a week.”

moved in with their grandmother. Tom Moody said it was his mother’s wish for that to happen if anything were to happen to her. His father visited daily.

nuclear power company. He’s married and has two kids. His brothers are both Stop & Shop managers and live in Con-necticut. Moody’s father died in 2009. He lived in Norwich

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