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Homes Dispersed Along the Seashore
1929
Burin, Dominion of Newfoundland

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Part III - James Hussey
Eight houses were lifted from their foundations and carried to sea with the speed of fast motor boats. At Corbin a family was sitting down to tea when their house was suddenly lifted high and washed into the bay. It returned to land and then to sea again. The third time it came back to land the father smashed a door open, and taking a child in each arm and his wife on his back, jumped to safety. His house disappeared beyond the waves. The Honorable George Bartlett, a prominent Burin merchant, was aboard the S.S. Daisy when the giant wave crashed. He dashed up on deck and saw the land disappearing under the rush of water. "The place is sinking!" he cried.
And that was just what it looked like...the village seemed to sink into the sea, drowning in the water that had meant life to it for decades. Seconds after the crew of a little coastal steamer had been looking up at the shore cliffs, they found themselves lifted high on the crest of the wave. Looking down on the tops of the cliffs, and a moment later they were helplessly aground. A home forty feet above sea level filled with water up to three feet on its first floor. The startled owner waded outside and saw the harbor filled with houses and wreckage. Damage was estimated at over a million dollars, and 27 lives were lost.