Thread by @TODreamsProject

1. On this morning 65 years ago, Toronto woke to discover the city had been devastated by Hurricane Hazel.

2. The storm arrived on a Friday night in 1954 — the end of a wet, grey week in October.

3. Hazel had first been spotted off the coast of South America, and over the last week the hurricane had been steadily heading north.

4. On Tuesday night, Hurricane Hazel tore through Haiti, killing hundreds. On Wednesday afternoon, it hit the Bahamas and killed six more.

5. On Friday morning, it crashed into the coast of the southern United States — dozens of Americans died over the course of the day.

6. By dinnertime Friday, as Torontonians arrived home at the end of a soggy commute on their new subway, Hazel was tearing through Washington, D.C.

7. Hazel wasn't supposed to be a big threat to Toronto — we're protected by the Allegheny mountains, which usually break up storms or push them east.

8. The last official weather report, 9:30pm: Toronto would see high winds & lots of rain, but nothing like the devastation to the south.

But by then, the flooding had already started. Hazel *had* crossed the Alleghenies, hit a front of cold Canadian air & stalled above Toronto.

9. All over the city, rivers and creeks began to burst their banks. The Don, the Rouge, Etobicoke Creek, Mimico Creek, Highland Creek…

Even the Garrison, buried in a sewer for nearly a century, sent manhole covers flying atop geysers in Trinity Bellwoods Park.

10. But the worst was the Humber. That night, 150 billion litres of water fell into the Humber River’s watershed — hundreds of tons of rain.

11. The river became a deadly torrent. Roads destroyed. Trees snapped like matchsticks. Cars swept away. Homes ripped from their foundations.

12. And quiet Raymore Drive, near Scarlett & Lawrence, became the scene of unspeakable horrors.

(I should probably mention at this point: some of the following tweets will be pretty upsetting.)

13. An entire block of Raymore Drive had been built at the bottom of the Humber Valley — and now that quite residential neighbourhood found itself in the middle of the raging river.

14. As the flooding started, only a few fled to higher ground — and over the course of just a few minutes, the neighbourhood was overwhelmed by water:

15. Families scrambled onto their rooftops, clutching flashlights, clinging to their TV antennas, screaming for help.

16. Some houses were carried away by the river. Others just disintegrated. Flashlights winked out as buildings disappeared. People were dying.

17. Firefighters, police officers, volunteers all leaped into action, but there was little they could do against the angry white water.

18. Bryan Mitchell, a volunteer firefighter who would later become Etobicoke’s fire chief, was on Raymore Drive that night.

“People were screaming… We could see them, but they were just too far out you couldn’t throw ropes… I felt so helpless," he remembered.

19. “It was like something out of a Cecil B. DeMille movie. The incredible roar of the water, like the roar of Niagara Falls... Houses crashing into the sides of other houses, people everywhere screaming. And then you couldn’t even hear the screams anymore.”

20. John Neil came home that night to find his street gone, assumed his family had been evacuated, and joined the rescue efforts.

It wasn’t until the following morning that he learned his wife and three children had all been killed. His brother-in-law’s whole family too.

21. Tom McGarvey came home to find his family trapped in the river. A friend had to tie him to a tree to keep him from rushing into the deadly water.

He watched, helpless, as his house was carried away — with his wife and two of his children inside.

22. Downriver, near Dundas Street, the Humber swamped a fire truck as it responded to a call for help. Five firefighters drowned.

23. At the Old Mill, part of the historic bridge was washed out by the torrent of water. Cars were driving straight into the river.

24. At the mouth of Etobcioke Creek, a trailer park was swept away into the lake.

25. Nearby, a mother handed her 4-month old baby to a firefighter, to safety...

Moments later the mother, the rest of the family and their entire house was washed away.

26. The next morning, the survivors found an entire block of Raymore Drive had been wiped off the map. 16 houses gone; more than 30 dead.

27. By the time the storm was over, 81 people had been killed in Toronto and the surrounding region — one as far away as Ottawa.

Thousands more were transformed into refugees overnight.

28. The recovery effort was massive. The army moved in to burn wreckage. Helicopters buzzed up and down the valley.

29. Schools, churches and fire halls were turned into makeshift morgues. Bodies were being found for days. Even teenagers, like my father, were pressed into service searching for corpses.

(We headed back there with him, to the mouth of Etobicoke Creek, a few years ago.)

30. In the wake of Hazel, Toronto developed a groundbreaking new plan for flood control. Thousands of acres of land were expropriated, turning many of the city's floodplains into parkland.

So many of the green spaces we enjoy today are rooted in the horrors of that night.

31. And so today, on the spot where the terrors of Raymore Drive once happened, you'll find a public park: the same park I played in as a boy who lived just up the hill — protected from the river that turned so deadly on that dark October night in 1954.

32. Thanks so much for reading. And if you're interested in more stories about how death has shaped the history of our city, I wrote about Hurricane Hazel and many other morbid tales in The Toronto Book of the Dead: dundurn.com/books/Toronto-…