Residents Reflect On The 20th Anniversary of Hurricane Bob

It’s hard to believe it’s been 20 years since Hurricane Bob made landfall in Rhode Island. Even though South Kingstown wasn’t hit as bad as other parts of the state, the town still saw the sometimes devastating effects of a category two hurricane on a coastal community.

According to a report from URI about hurricanes that have hit South County, Bob caused an estimated $115 million in property damage. Parts of South Kingstown were left without power for days due to power lines and telephone poles being down.

According to Elisa Conti-Jackman, daughter of Snug Harbor Marina owner Al Conti, everyone in Snug Harbor was evacuated on that August day.

“I was only ten at the time, but I remember police going door to door telling people to leave, but my parents didn't want to; they kept saying it would be okay and that they had survived other storms,” Conti-Jackman said. “We boarded up windows and packed everything away; preparing for the worst but in the end, it seemed like it was a non-event. We didn’t have any catastrophic damage on our property.”

Conti-Jackman also remembered people going to shower at the elementary school because West Kingston didn’t have water or power for quite a while.

South Kingstown Fire Chief Robert Perry remembered it being extremely windy, with lots of trees falling down.

“After we evacuated most of the low-lying areas in town, we stayed in the station during the storm itself and we could hear trees snapping; it was almost scary hearing the trees creaking and then breaking,” Perry said.

Kingston Fire Chief Nathan Barrington says that they were very lucky because the storm could have been ten times worse.

“Kingston was challenged because we ended up with a week without power but we were lucky and only got a fraction of what it could have been. We kept the station fully staffed for 96 hours,” Barrington said. “I think that storm helped us realize what kind of devastation we could have gotten and that when we are threatened with a storm, we really need to take it seriously; now the town has a very good evacuation process whenever a storm comes again. “

Since Hurricane Bob, Director of Planning Vincent Murray says they have tightened the town's emergency evacuation plans.

“We have an evacuation map and shelters planned out because we need to be more prepared; people lose perspective on what could happen,” Murray said. “It  seemed like we had a lot of near misses while we were growing up but then Bob hit and it was pretty serious.”