Snugly tidied for the winter last week were the fishing villages along the Burin peninsula, which projects southward from southern Newfoundland. Provender was in the butteries, coal within the bins. Warehouses held stacks of dried and salted codfish, the season's catch, ready to be shipped for profit—to buy calico, yarn, sweaters, boots. Men prophesied a serene winter. Then the fish-giving sea howled unwontedly. A great swoop of water slapped against the shore. It fell back, slapped up again and again. Rent, twisted, smashed, into flotsam went wharves, stores, homes, people. Devastation: more than...
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