The storm reached its zenith at about noon, when the gusts touched 120 knots and the waves measured about 80 feet from trough to crest.93 According to the captain of the Dewey, the rain and scud was so thick that men on the bridge could not see the bow. If a man was exposed to it, “it felt like a barrage of thousands of needles against the face and hands,” and it “removed the paint from metal surfaces in many places like a sandblaster.”
