Terrible Tilly

By Sam Churchill

On the morning of October 21, 1934, one of the most brutal storms in Pacific Northwest history poured in off the Pacific Ocean and slammed across the Oregon and Washington coasts. Winds at North Head were clocked at a screaming 109 miles an hour. Power and communication lines were left in a tangle. Seventeen persons died in the storm and damage was estimated in the millions.

Square in the path of the storm was Tillamook Rock Light Station, a 53-year-old fortress-like dwelling and light tower perched on a fist of rock 20 miles south of the mouth of the Columbia River and a mile and a quarter off the Oregon shore.

The station has since been discontinued (September 1, 1957) and its navigation warning duties taken over by a lighted whistling buoy anchored at sea west of the rock.

But although now abandoned by its human inhabitants the old station with its light tower is still on the rock and presents a lonely but picturesque mystery to thousands of tourists who each year visit the beach areas and communities in the Seaside-Cannon Beach area.

But in 1934, the light station on Tillamook Rock was a vital navigation warning post manned by a crew of four men – head keeper William Hill, about 53, Werner Storm, about 40, Hugo Hanson, about 38, and Henry Jenkins, 31, who, at the time of this writing, lived in Tacoma, Washington. For these four men the day of October 21, 1934, was to be a day of unbelievable violence and terror during which for minutes at a time the entire station would be swallowed by the sea.

Mountainous walls of frothing green water reared skyward against the rock as though heaved upward by some cataclysmic thrust from the bottom of the sea. They drove against the two-foot thick walls of hand-cut and fitted stone blocks, welded I-beams and heavy timber bracing with such force that heavy oak panels, bolted in place to protect lower level windows, were blasted apart.

A 25-ton section of the west wall of the station’s supporting rock was ripped free. The churning currents ground the mass into giant boulders that seemed to float almost like cork and bombarded the sides and top of the station in a continuous thunder of sound that could rip a man’s nerves apart. There was no doubt about it. Nature seemed determined to sweep this man-made invader and its human inhabitants from their shuddering perch and bury them deep in the sea forever.

This wasn’t the first battle between Tillamook Light and the sea. In 1883, two years after the light first flashed on, a January gale bombarded the fog horn house with boulders so fiercely that the iron roof was breached.

In December 1886, raging seas tore loose half a ton of concrete and dumped it on what served as a tiny front yard for the station. On December 9, 1894, huge seas swept over the rock and light tower, 133 feet above the normal high tide level. And in the autumn of 1912, a series of violent gales held the rock’s supply tender at bay for seven weeks.

Seafaring men throughout the sea lanes of the world nicknamed her Terrible Tilly. It was descriptive and honest and it stuck.

Arrival of the 1934 storm was no surprise. It had been lurking off the Oregon and Washington coasts, gathering strength, most of the previous night. For several days storm warnings had been fluttering along both coasts. Wind and rain, in advance of the main storm, came as early as October 19, bringing needed snow to the mountains and moisture to the forests, ending a dry and prolonged Indian summer.

When Henry Jenkins went on watch the evening of October 20, the wind was brisk and out of the southeast. A light rain was falling. Near midnight the wind shifted to the southwest, the region’s storm funnel. Jenkins checked the storm shutters that protected the windows of the dwelling area. They were bolted shut. He made doubly sure that the heavy double-fold oak doors that opened outward through the heavy, thick walls, were bolted shut. Near midnight what had been a light rain a few hours previously became a hissing curtain of water that exploded into a fine spray against the quarter-inch plate glass panels that formed a weather wall around the lantern room that housed the oil-vapor lamp whose flashing beam was visible for 18 miles on a clear night.

Jenkins didn’t know it but within a few hours he and his three companions would be fighting for their lives and the night of October 21 there would be no flashing beacon shining on Tillamook Rock.

Ironically, it was this same month and date, October 21, (1879), that the first members of a nine man work party leaped ashore from a small boat to start work on the Tillamook Rock lighthouse construction project.

They were among the first to ever set foot on the rock. Coastal Indians, declaring it was the abode of evil spirits, kept their sea-going dugout canoes well away from it. It had a rather awesome protective barrier, to protect it physically as well as spiritually, including sucking whirlpool currents, swirling tides and heaving swells that drummed against its vertical walls day and night.

Only on the east side could a landing be made. Here the slope was a modest 45 degrees with a narrow strip of slippery but level rock at its lower edge. It took most of the day to get the first four men ashore but rising seas delayed the landing of the remaining five until five days later.

In addition to hand drills, hammers, food supplies and water, the men took ashore a goodly supply of ring bolts and canvas. The workers drove the ring bolts into the rock and anchored themselves to them. The canvas would be their only shelter.

Despite every precaution one workman fell victim to the sea during the landing operations. He was John R. Trewavas, a skilled master mason with experience on many difficult and dangerous lighthouse construction projects. He lost his footing on the slippery slope while leaping ashore from the small boat. He slid a few feet, disappeared into the waiting waters of the sea and was never seen again.

The crew was barely lashed to the rock before the first storm hit. Lashed to their ring bolts and huddled under their canvas tarps they clung to life by the slimmest of margins as wind and water clawed at them in an effort to sweep them into the sea. Those first crews would have quit the job and left the rock in a minute had there been a chance to do so. But once on the rock they were committed and virtually marooned for the duration of the job.

The first job was to blast away a level foundation from the rounded top of the rock some 120 feet above the sea. Space was needed for a 48 by 45 foot dwelling and adjoining 32 by 28 foot structure to house the fog horn equipment. A 16 foot square stone tower would rise from the center (foyer) of the dwelling area and support the lantern room.

The only approach was staging, hung over the vertical sides of the rock and anchored to ring bolts. Foot-by-foot, with hammer and hand drill and small charges of blasting powder so as not to disturb the main core of the rock, the men whittled a narrow footpath and from that worked toward the center to achieve the level building site.

The wall of the station was built from fine grained basalt quarried at Mt. Tabor near Portland, Oregon. The first cargo of stone was delivered June 17, 1880 and the cornerstone was laid June 22, 1880. Every ounce of building material had to be delivered by boat as did food and fresh water for both drinking and mixing of mortar.

The installation was completed and the light turned on January 21, 1881. Completed, Tillamook Rock Light Station cost one life, 575 working days and $123,493.

Jenkins’ room was identical with those of the other keepers – a 10 by 12 square with bed, table, chair, kerosene lamp and alarm clock. The only opening to the outside was a window (shuttered for the storm). Jenkins crawled into bed at 9:30 a.m.. The roar of the storm was no match for his exhaustion. Within minutes after pulling the covers up around his chin he was sound asleep, but for only moments.

He came out of his sound sleep fighting for air and tearing at the frigid blanket of icy seawater that surrounded him. Salt stung his eyes and he gasped from the cold. His first thought was that the station had been swept from the rock and was in the sea. The water receded and he found himself wedged in the room closet with his legs entangled in the rungs of the chair.

The roar of the storm was deafening. Another sea burst through the window sending the four poster brass bed skidding across the concrete floor.

Water was waist deep in the living quarters. The galley stove was pushed from its foundation and cold water against hot metal had cracked the top and sides.

By 10 a.m. the station was a bedlam of noise and terror. The mountainous seas were now crashing down on the concrete and steel roof. Huge boulders were rolling across it. The crew faced two immediate dangers-complete inundation of the interior by the ever increasing ferocity of wind and•sea and damage to the warning light.

Head keeper Hill shouted in Jenkins’ ear and pointed toward the circular stairway leading up the inside of the 62-foot tower to the lantern room. “Storm panel,” he shouted. Jenkins knew what he meant; bolt the emergency storm panels in place to protect the light mechanism in the event wind or flying rock crashed through one of the glass protective panels. The four men raced toward the tower entrance but already it was too late.

At 10:15 a.m. the rock and station shuddered violently. A 25-ton section of the west overhang of Tillamook Rock collapsed into the sea and a 60 pound boulder crashed through the glass paneling and into the lantern room, 133 feet above the normal high tide level of the sea.

The heavy wooden boom that hung out from the rock and was used to transfer men and supplies from supply ships to the station was swept away; fuel and fresh water tanks anchored to the rock were shifted and their supply lines severed.

About this time, relief lightship 92 at the mouth of the Columbia River was blown two miles off her charted position despite full speed ahead on her engines and the drag of heavy storm anchors. The ocean liner President Madison was torn from her moorings at Seattle’s Pier 41. The intercoastal freighter Floridian radioed that she was in trouble off the Oregon coast with 32 men aboard, some of them injured.

On Tillamook Rock Light Station there was no panic but the suddenness of everything left Jenkins and his three companions stunned. Tons of water, broken glass, rocks, dead fish, seaweed and barnacles came poring down the throat of the tower, flooding the interior of the living quarters and forcing the men to climb the steel roof supports to keep their heads above water.

It was then that they realized Tillamook Rock Light Station, including the light tower, 133 feet above the sea, was underwater. The surge passed and the water drained to waist level through smashed windows and under doors. But at intervals of a minute a new surge would sweep over them.

The undersea telephone cable to Seaside, Oregon, on the mainland was broken. The men were isolated from all humanity with no means of communication.

The barometer stood at 28.92, a devilishly low reading for this temperate region. The rock and station shuddered and groaned. Death had to be but minutes away. The four men clasped hands. “Good bye, and may God have mercy on us,” they shouted in voices that could barely be heard above the storm.

Even though none expected to see the dark of the coming night, the urge to duty was strong. Survival of the station, the lives of personnel on ships at sea and their own lives depended upon one thing getting the lantern room storm panels bolted in place to keep out the sea.

Next, a makeshift light had to rigged to replace the damaged warning light. They had to get to the lantern room. Timing their assault to the brief lull between the mountainous surges of the sea, they rushed up the circular stairway.

Everything was a shambles. Dead fish and other debris cluttered the stairway. Sixteen panels were smashed in the lantern room. The 60-pound boulder had smashed the oil vapor lamp and the lens. All that night and the next day the four men worked furiously without food or rest getting panels in place and rigging up an emergency light. They had a measure of success.

The panels were in place and by the second night Tillamook Light Station was giving off a light. It was feeble and it was a steady white glow rather than the flashing beacon that navigation charts showed, but it was a light. The next problem was how to inform Lighthouse Services headquarters in Portland of the storm damage and the emergency light.

Radio was the answer but the only radio on Tillamook Rock was an old battery-operated receiver. But Henry Jenkins was a licensed shortwave radio amateur. Using parts of the old receiver, the useless telephone, tinfoil and other odds and ends, he put together a tiny transmitter and receiver. His only diagram to work from was memory.

A little before 7 p.m. on October 23rd, two Oregon radio amateurs, Merrill 0. Peoples of Portland and Henry W. Goetze of Seaside on the coast almost opposite Tillamook Rock, were communicating in International Morse Code.

“Someone is calling you,” Peoples tapped out to Goetze. Goetze took down Jenkins’ message, telephoned it to R.R. Rinkham, superintendent for lighthouses for the 17th district.

It wasn’t until October 27 that the storm abated sufficiently for an inspection team to land on the rock. Food, fresh water and a radio transmitter were floated ashore in canvas-wrapped boxes. Until the rescue supplies arrived, Jenkins and the others were without heat and heated canned food with the aid of a blow torch.

The damaged light was put back in operation, the buildings strengthened and the old oil vapor lamp replaced by a more modern electric Great Lakes type. An iron mesh curtain was draped around the outside of the glass panels of the lantern room as a protection against boulders from future storms.

Tillamook Rock Light Station these days sits offshore, a deserted, lonely, picturesque spot on the Oregon coast a little too far to capture on a colored slide except with the aid of a telephoto lens. Tourists study it, wonder about it and remember it.

For Henry Jenkins it brings back memories of October 21, 1934, the most awesome, terror-filled day of his life.

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