Hurricanes Carol & Edna

(WPRI) - The year was 1954 and Rhode Island was about to be hit by not one, but two, hurricanes.

Hurricane Carol was first to strike during the morning of August 31. The massive storm destroyed 4,000 homes.

"It was taken right across the property, the pond and landed parallel to those hedges with no water in the house at all," recalled Eileen Recchia of Matunuck.

Carol's winds carried her house a few hundred yards away from the coast.

Recchia was 9-years-old when Hurricane Carole hit. She said it came with little warning.

"There was no indication of a hurricane. No announcements. It was just gonna be, apparently, a very windy day coming up," she said.

Hurricane Carol came ashore over Central Connecticut. As the storm surge raced up Narraganset Bay, the winds howled through Rhode Island, reaching upwards of 100 miles-per-hour.

The storm destroyed thousands of buildings, cars and boats. It killed 65 people. Downtown Providence was flooded under 12 feet of water. Cars were submerged, people were stranded at city hall, fire trucks were abandoned for boats.

Then, just two weeks after Carol, Hurricane Edna moved in.

Though not nearly as destructive as Carol, was not a welcome visitor. The one-two punch from mother nature left Rhode Islanders battered and exhausted.