Related by Marriage: Hurricane Gloria, in Three Takes

Mr. Irene leased a house in the early 1980s near Long Island Sound in suburban New Haven. He lived there with some fellow graduate students from the Biology Department. The house, built in 1918, stood directly on the beachfront. It served as overflow lodging for a tennis and beach resort just a quarter-mile away. The resort, established in 1867, still operates today.

Hurricane Gloria, a meandering storm that crawled up the East Coast for several weeks, made landfall for the third and final time along the Connecticut coast on September 28, 1985. It was the worst hurricane Connecticut had seen in thirty years: its ferocity at landfall was a bit of a surprise. Computer modeling technology then was not what it is now. 

When the hurricane hit, Mr. Irene had just taken off on a flight out of Hartford airport bound for Chicago. He was returning to attend a friend’s wedding, and his flight was one of the last cleared to leave before Gloria’s landfall.

Here is how the shoreline looked at impact, just two miles from Mr. Irene’s Connecticut home.

Branford, Connecticut, October, 1985. Mr. Irene arrived home to find that the wooden, screened-in porch had taken the brunt of Hurricane Gloria’s force.

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Branford, Connecticut, October, 1985. "Tomo," a gentle German Shepard and Collie mix, served as mascot to the graduate-student household. She lived in fear of the simplest thunderstorms, and she was relieved when the hurricane ended.

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Branford, Connecticut, Spring, 2013. The house, today.