Summary of the Disaster On November 18, 1929 an earthquake registering 7.2 on the Richter scale (number seven on the Rossi-Forel scale) originated at 44ø 30' north latitude and 55ø west longitude, along two fault planes parallel to the axis of the Cabot Submarine trough. The quake, originating about 250 km (153 mi) south of the Burin Peninsula, affected the communities from Rock Harbour to Lamaline, a distance of 65 km (40 mi). The first tremors from the epicentre at 20: 31: 53 hours (8:31:53 pm) Greenwich mean time reached Burin between 4:45 pm and 5:00 pm (local time) and lasted five minutes. These tremors resulted in exceptionally low water levels in the coastal areas of the southern tip of the peninsula. At St. John's, 402 km (250 mi) from the epicentre, the tremors, which occurred at 5:02 pm, were thought to be an accident in the submarine shafts at the Bell Island mines in Conception Bay. At 7:30 pm a tidal wave (tsunami) of between 5 and 15 m (16-50 ft) washed ashore on the Burin Peninsula. The waves, travelling at a speed of 129 km/h (80 mph) from the epicentre, reached the peninsula at a speed of 105 km/h (65 mph) creating exceptionally high seas in the area until 10:00 pm. Loss of property, initially estimated at from $150,000 to $250,000, amounted to over $1,000,000 in the aftermath. In the communities involved there were twenty-seven deaths attributed to the tidal wave. In addition the telegraph lines connecting the peninsula and St. John's were severed during the earthquake or the tsunami. Cable lines between Newfoundland and New York were reported by the Bay Roberts Cable Station to be damaged or inoperative. The cable ships Lord Kelvin and the Cyrus Field, dispatched from Halifax, located the breaks approximately 563 km (350 mi) south of St. John's. Eventually a total of twenty-eight breaks were reported in over twelve oceanic cables in the area of the epicentre. At Burin the S.S. Daisy relayed a message to the coastal vessel S.S. Portia which was to have made a regular stop at the community on November 18. The Portia travelled directly to St. John's, arriving on November 21, 1929 to request relief for the disaster victims. The S.S. Meigle was dispatched with food, medical supplies and medical staff. The first official disaster fund for the emergency was established at Pitts Memorial Hall, St. John's on November 25, 1929. Local relief committees were co-ordinated by Magistrate Malcolm Hollett (Burin), C.C. Pittman, Justice of the Peace (Lamaline), C. Murphy (Lawn), and Constable Victor Mullet (St. Lawrence). The Tidal Wave At Lord''s Cove Mary (Walsh) McKenna The Newspapers summed it up: At Lord's Cove, "All fishing property and provisions were lost. Four lives were lost: Mrs. Patrick Rennie, 37, and her three children: Rita Rennie, 9; Patrick Rennie, 7; and Bernard Rennie, 2." I WENT OVER TO ST. PIERRE when I was thirteen and I worked at a hotel. A woman had three children. I was taking care of them. I used to go back to Lord's Cove in May because my father needed my help and I worked with him during the summer. I stayed late that year, so I was there for the tidal wave. His name was Jim Walsh. The Earthquake It was in November. The ground could have had a little frost in it but I doubt it. Your whole body is shaking, especially your knees when you're standing still. You don't know if you should move or not. And I was standing there. A lot of people found it the same. I know I had a package in my hand and my father's wallet. I was just shaking, because there was nothing to hold on to. When I got home my father said to me, "What in the heck is going on? Everything is shaking here." I went to look in the pantry and there were a couple of cups down on the floor. Off every kitchen in Newfoundland, in the old houses, there's a little cupboard there with dishes in it. The First Wave Later that evening, I was in the front door. I called to father. I just had my coat on. I said, "Pop, there's no water in the cove. It's all rocks." He said, "What?" "There''s no water in the cove," I said. "Come and see." That's when he got up and came and looked out. He stayed staring at it and then we saw the wave coming. So then he ran out and hollered to everybody. That was the way you got in touch with your neighbours, one to the other. So they all came out and saw it. Then when they saw the water coming, everybody started to run. Because it wasn't like it was coming in through the cove. It was like it was coming from the sky. That's how high the waves were. But it got smaller as it came in. Fighting Water With Fire In Newfoundland years ago, especially the Roman Catholics, they always died with a candle in their hands, did you know that? My mother was sick for a long time, and when she died somebody had to hold the candle. That was the church's rules. So anyway, it wasn't all burned away. There was quite a bit of it left at the time she died, so my father kept it. I was in the door when he saw the wave coming. He was in the hall when he saw it. He left me and went upstairs and grabbed the candle. He jumped in his boots and went out to the bank where the capstan was and he stuck it down in a piece of chain. He lit the candle and the candle was going after the third wave. He took it out of there when we thought there were no more waves coming. It was one of those old fashioned long white candles. So, we never lost anything. Everybody else lost their staging, dories, skiffs and everything. Ours was still there. So of course, that was quite a thing, people coming and looking at that. I don't know why, but father believed it was because of the candle. The water didn''t came anywhere near there. Fighting Water With Water Now my sister Katie, when it started, she wouldn't come away from the house. We wanted to take her three children, my father and me. Katie was out with a bottle of holy water, spraying the bank. There was an incline there and that's what she did. I tried to get her to leave her house. I said, "Come on Katie, I'll help you with the children." And she said, "No, I'm going to bless the bank". Celeste Bentau We thought the wave was going to come up where we were, so my father jumped over the barbed wire fence. I went under, but I had this little girl I picked up on the way. Celeste Bentau was her name. A dear little thing, I'll never forget her. She had a kind of reddish hair and she was sitting down in what they called the chip pile, where you cut up wood. When we were running, Celeste was sitting, playing as we went by. She was probably playing in it and I just picked her up. She didn't know what happened. I said to my father, "My God, Celeste!" He looked back, and he was going to get her, but I picked her up and we ran. My father helped put her over the fence, and I went under. He jumped over and tore his rubber boot. I shoved her under and crawled. But the water didn't even come up there. The Card Game Every night Pat Rennie used to come over to Maurice Harnett's. That was soon after supper to play cards. Maurce's house was our neighbour. Well, this was one of the nights Pat Rennie came over. His son Martin came with him. People usually finished eating a little after six, so when the dishes were cleared away, there was the kitchen table with an oil cloth on it. Everybody sat there. The View From The Bank When the tidal wave happened, Pat Rennie was standing on the road in front of our house. The men were around, talking and he said, "There, look, there's my house, and all my children and no doubt, my wife." And the next wave that came they saw it coming and we all moved back. Well, it took Pat Rennie's house out. The Rennie House The house was back of a pond and a beach separated the pond from the ocean. They used to spread their fish on the beach in the summer. It started with the first wave. When the tidal wave came in, it went over that beach. There was a pond, a freshwater pond, that's where the Rennie's house was back of that. The first wave took it and put it right by the shore, but nobody could get to it because they were all up on higher ground. But another wave came in and took it a little farther. The third one took it out right farther in the pond and the water was deep there. The Rescue of Margaret Rennie They thought they heard someone crying in the Rennie house. It was a little girl upstairs in bed. When father went out in the dory, he could never have done it without help, so he wasn't the only one. When they heard the noise, father and Maurice and Clem Harnett, two brothers, decided they'd launch a dory. Clem Harnett stayed on the land, at the capstan. He was the one with the rope on the dory. There was a big ring there on the end, just in case they had to have help. Maurice rowed and my father stood in the front. Father broke the window and reached in. Like they were saying, that was a good thing, the crib was right there. He had to reach in to get it. They always carried a scoop in the dory. I think he used that to break the window. I said to him, "You could have cut yourself when you reached in through the window." "When I hit the window, I hit it!" Well, he broke the window and sure enough, the child was there and they just had time to get in before the second wave came. This was the most dangerous part. Mrs. Rennie And The Children Found They couldn't get that house in, I think, until the next day or the day after that. I know they rigged up a tackle with chain or ropes. I saw them with it, on the beach. They pulled the house in and when they got it in on the land the water poured out. They found Mrs. Rennie and the children. They were waked in the schoolhouse. I saw the funeral go by, because, standing out by our house I could see the church. To see all those caskets coming out, it was a terrible thing. I didn't go. I didn't go to the school neither where they were waked. Somebody told me that Mrs. Rennie was in the centre and a child on each side of her and one at her feet. I heard people saying it looked so sad. People Are Affected Forever It stays with you know. I never stayed in that house after. I used to stay with my father in the daytime but I used to go to Katie's and sleep. I couldn't stay there. And I've been back several times and I didn't stay there. Even when I didn't sleep at home in the house, I didn't sleep good. And I think it upset people for years. I don't sleep good now. On Young Street, here in Halifax, I would wander around half the night, sometimes set a pillow on the radiator, sitting like that. It's an awful feeling when you go through an earthquake like that. Because it was only two hours afterwards that the wave came and I don't think anyone knew there was a tidal wave after an earthquake. Afterwards the cove was never the same, I think. A lot of people noticed it. What I mean by that, it seemed that when there was a heavy sea, there were no waves. It was like there was no bottom in the ocean. I said to my sister Katie, that at night, I hear the noise. She said, "Yes, but down further you could hear it more." I said, "What does it sound like to you, Katie?" "Like there's no bottom." So I don't know. It is strange isn't it? Bessie Walsh''s Story of Lord''s Cove Bessie Walsh was born in Lord''s Cove and married Bertram Walsh, brother to Molly McKenna, whose story you just read. Mr. James Walsh, who rescued Margaret Rennie, was her father-in-law. Everyone called him Grandfather Walsh. When she married Bertram, she moved in with her husband in Mr. Walsh''s house. I interviewed her in her home, at her kitchen table. Here is what she remembers from that same day. The earthquake When the earthquake happened, my father, my brother and I were down in our store, weighing up some fish. I was standing right by the weights, handing the fish to Mr. Harnett the merchant, who brought the weights over. I was passing him the fish to put on the weights. When everything was shaking, we ran to our house. The Tidal Wave I was in school that day. My teacher was Mrs. Bert Maddigan, from Lamaline. I would leave my own home and walk in the road where the Rennie house was taken away. I just reached home when I saw that the cove was dried right out. I could see everything. I was standing in my father''s gateway. I was a Hennebury and I lived on the other side of the cove. The water didn''t come up to my father''s house. The wave looked very, very high. First, we could see the bottom of the cove dried right out, as dry as this kitchen table. The tide went back, and when it did, in rolled the sea. Father took us and carried us up to another house in on a hill. My father had a small boat and the next day he went down to pull it in for the night. There was a slow tide running in, and the boat hit him and broke his leg. We had sheep that got caught in under a store. A wave pushed them up under out cod liver store and they drowned there. Over here, at Grandfather Walsh''s house - we always called him Grandfather Walsh - there was this capstan was on the edge of the bank, and the sea never came up to it. (The capstan is where Mr. Walsh put his holy candle.) He had his stage right down under the bank but it didn''t get hurt either. The night of the tidal wave he came over to our house on the other side of the cove. He walked over because he didn''t know for sure where his son Bertram was. There was a store down there, with big fish flakes going along, for drying fish. He thought Bertram might have gotten washed out with them. But he wasn''t. That night we came back to our own house. But now, there wasn''t anyone in Lord''s Cove in bed, because those four bodies were there. They didn''t get them that night. It was early the next morning they got them and brought them ashore in a little boat. I was by the side of the pond when they brought the bodies to the shore. They were waked in the hall, the school. They were laid out on a big, long table, the three children and the mother. Everyone in the cove was at the church service, big and small. Mrs. Rennie was a close friend to me. She lived close to me. I used to go in her house quite a bit. Besides the Rennie house, there were two others that were moved. Mr. Martin Fitzpatrick''s house was close to the Rennie house. Mrs. Rennie was his daughter. His house was moved. Out here, by the neck going out the graveyard, Mr. Michael Harnett''s house was moved farther up in the meadow. We saw a movie over in the hall one time. It was a movie about the tidal wave, but I couldn''t take it. I had to leave and come home. It was too much for me to take, to see what happened. ..... Margaret Rennie''s Story of the Tidal Wave at Lord''s Cove Margaret Rennie was the young girl rescued by Mr. James Walsh and his friends. Today she lives in Fox Cove, Newfoundland. I visited her in 1999. Here is her story. I was awake when the earthquake happened. The only thing I do remember is, the lamp went out with the shaking, the lamp on the stairhead. Albert, my brother, and Dad were across the beach playing cards. My brother Martin was with them too. When they heard the noise, they came to see what it was. When they looked the house was gone out in the pond. When they got me, I was unconscious from the mud and water and everything else. When they got me, they put me down in a big tub of warm water. I think this was at John Joe Fitzpatrick''s house. His wife''s name was Bertha. They found Mom and the children downstairs. Mom was found in under the table. She was sewing at the table, with the sewing machine. Poor Patrick, he was in under the couch. Now, Patrick was upstairs in bed earlier. I suppose, when he heard the noise, he came downstairs. Rita was around there somewhere, I suppose. The baby, Bernard, was tied in the high chair. I haven''t got pictures of any of them. Poor Mom. I don''t know what she looked like. After this, I went to Roundabout with relatives and my two brothers stayed in Lord''s Cove. Soon after, we all got back together as a family. There was no work in Lord''s Cove, so father moved to Little St. Lawrence to work in the mine.