A Most Unusual Tempest: The Story of the 1903 Vagabond Hurricane, New Jersey and NYC's First Superstorm

 “The storm reached the city shortly after 8 o’clock in the morning and the high winds prevailed for about two and one half to three hours.”

-The New York Times September 17, 1903

It seemed to come completely out of nowhere and smash, without warning, right into the New Jersey coastline just north of Atlantic City in the early morning hours of September 16, 1903.  A tropical cyclone with hurricane force winds and drenching rain, ravaging the Jersey Shore, over 1,000 miles north of where storms like this one were supposed to happen.

The storm, which at the time was simply called Hurricane Number 4 of 1903 in an era before weather events were given proper names, was so unexpected, and the damage that it caused to the Garden State was so unprecedented that the leading newspaper in Atlantic City at the time, The Atlantic City Press, dubbed it “The Vagabond Hurricane” because it seemed to have mysteriously appeared out of nowhere, destroyed everything in its path, and then left just quickly as it had come.

Even the National Weather Bureau described the 1903 Vagabond Hurricane and the impact that it had on the northeast United States as, “A most unusual tempest.” 

The Hurricane of September 1903 reached a Category 2 status with sustained winds of up to 100 mph along the Jersey Shore and it was the first hurricane to strike the New York Metro area since 1851 when records began to be kept.

The Vagabond Hurricane of 1903 is one of only four times in nearly 175 years of record keeping that true hurricane force winds have been recorded along the Jersey Shore.

Path of the Vagabond Hurricane

In reality, the storm that the press eventually dubbed the “Vagabond Hurricane” didn’t arise out of nowhere.  The Hurricane which made landfall on the New Jersey coast, in Ocean City on September 16, 1903, was first observed by meteorologists from the National Weather Bureau as a tropical cyclone off the coast of Antigua on September 12 of that year.

As it moved up the eastern seaboard of the United States a large flock of nearly 100 birds, flying off the coast of Hampton, Virginia on September 15, 1903, fell to the ground and landed on a sandy spot that juts out into the ocean called Old Point Comfort, dead and with their feathers stripped off as a result of the hurricane force winds.

However, in a time before even semi-accurate weather forecasting, and over fifty years prior to the advent of satellite imagery, it was impossible for anyone to tell where the Vagabond Hurricane was headed.

As it was, less than ten percent of the total Jersey Shore population, stretching from the southern tip of Cape May all the way to Asbury Park, would evacuate their homes prior to the hurricane’s landfall on September 16, 1903.

Before all was said and done, the storm would intensify in strength and move quickly up the eastern seaboard, killing 57 New Jersey residents in its path.  

The New York Times in an article on September 17, 1903 entitled “The Storm Was Ocean Born” reported that, “The storm swept in from the sea striking the New Jersey coast and passing over New York City in its course northward.”

The Times article went on to say, “This was not a conventional, but a marine storm...it came in over the New Jersey coast somewhere near Atlantic City and moved inland in a northerly direction with great rapidity.”

Flooding in New Jersey from the 1903 Hurricane

For days all communication between Philadelphia and New York City was completely lost as a result of the Vagabond Hurricane.  The lack of communication between population centers in the northeast United States sparked wild rumors that Jersey Shore towns had been razed to the ground and completely destroyed.  In the wake of the Vagabond Hurricane of 1903 it was thought that the New Jersey coastline had become a desolate and uninhabitable wasteland.  The Times stated that it was believed, “the great resort (Atlantic City) had been completely wiped away.”

In reality, Atlantic City and other Jersey Shore towns had not been completely destroyed by the unexpected Vagabond Hurricane of 1903, but they certainly hadn’t been spared.

The hurricane caused over $1 million in damages in 1903 U.S. dollars, a total equivalent to nearly a half-billion dollars today, in Atlantic City alone.  In Asbury Park the roofs of six hotels were ripped completely off and the storm deposited so many tons of debris along the New Jersey shoreline, that many beaches would remain closed to visitors for over a year!  

Across the state, in Burlington, Salem, Monmouth, Middlesex, Sussex, Warren, Morris and Bergen Counties strong winds and drenching rains destroyed nearly seventy-five percent of the state of New Jersey’s agricultural crops at a time when the Garden State was one of America’s leading producers in tomatoes, cranberries, celery, apples and even corn.  The agricultural damage caused by the Vagabond Hurricane, at a time before mass refrigeration and freezing, caused food prices in New York City, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. to sky rocket.

A storm would not cause comparable economic damage in the New York City metro area for another 109 years until Superstorm Sandy made landfall near the exact same spot as the Vagabond Hurricane in late October of 2012.

Between eight in the morning and eight o’clock at night on September 16, 1903 two and a half inches of rain fell in Central Park.

Damage along the Jersey Shore in 1903

Winds in New York City reached speeds in excess of 70 mph, the strongest winds that had been recorded in the Big Apple since the blizzard of 1888, over twenty-five years earlier.  The city’s largest buildings are reported to have swayed from side to side and wagons are said to have completely flipped over as they tried to cross the Brooklyn Bridge, as result of the tropical force winds generated in New York City by the passing Vagabond Hurricane.

The New York Stock Exchange and almost all commercial businesses in New York City were closed for an entire day during the Hurricane of 1903 when city officials deemed it too hazardous for residents to be outdoors due to the risk of injury from flying debris, especially street signs which were ripped from sidewalks by the dozens all across the city.

In Jamaica Bay, in Queens, more than 100 boats were overturned and destroyed by the wind while they sat in the bay at their moorings.

President Theodore Roosevelt was vacationing with his family off the coast of Long Island on September 16, 1903 aboard the U.S. naval yacht Sylph and ran headlong into the Vagabond Hurricane.

The Presidential yacht was tossed from side to side by gusty winds and high waves while being buffeted by sheets of drenching rain.  Security Guards and White House Personnel deemed that the President’s life would be in great danger if he remained aboard the yacht at sea, and immediately headed for land, reaching Brooklyn Navy Yard without incident, though both President Roosevelt and the First Lady reported having seen many boats capsized by the high waves.

Slowly, communication between Philadelphia and New York City was restored.  Though the damage was extensive throughout Atlantic City and other Jersey Shore towns, the New Jersey coastline would rebuild from the Vagabond Hurricane and go on to become an even more popular tourist destination than it had been ever before.

After the hurricane the The New York Times would state that, “[M]ore havoc was caused by yesterday’s big storm than has been caused by any other storm in recent memory.”

New York Times September 17, 1903

Surprisingly, though, maybe because it came from seemingly out of nowhere and moved through with such stunning speed, or maybe simply because the stalwart residents of New Jersey and New York City merely picked up the pieces left behind in the wake of the storm and rebuilt without ever looking back, the Vagabond Hurricane of 1903, would be largely forgotten within a decade as the northeast United States moved forward into the 20th century.

Over one-hundred years would pass before the residents of New York and New Jersey would have their mettle and perseverance tested by an equally devastating storm, this time in the form of Hurricane Sandy, and once again in 2012, just like in 1903, those affected by that storm would pick and the pieces and rebuild without ever looking back.