Considering the Past: Topics in M.C. History

In October 1954, the category 4 hurricane “Hazel” struck North Carolina. In these photos from the Class of 1955’s Class Box, we can see the impact the storm had on the Meredith College campus. For her class’s 50^th Anniversary memory book, Margaret Brunson Simkus recalled her experience with the storm:

When Hurricane Hazel hit campus, not wanting to miss the excitement, several of my friends and I went out on the breezeway between Faircloth and Brewer dorms at the height of the storm to watch, wait and pray for the wooden classrooms to be blown away. In order not to be blown away ourselves, we lay down and held on to the railings with all our might. Huge oak trees all over campus toppled like dominoes, but the classrooms remained steadfast.

In hoping for the "wooden classrooms to be blown away," Simkus is referring to several "temporary" buildings built in 1926 along with the six brick building of the original "quad." These buildings housed the laboratories, studios, gymnasium, classrooms and auditorium until they were replaced in the 1950s and 1960s.