A survey conducted by the Red Cross on the Sunday after the storm revealed that 995 homes were damaged by the water, 26 suffered major damage, and five homes were destroyed.

Retired Coast Guardsman John Marshall told a reporter: "When the tide started to come up that night, I kept thinking, 'It's bound to stop now and go back.' But it didn't. It just kept coming up, and the surf started coming across Main Street. I never saw the likes of it. We had to get to my brother-in-law's house next door, on the upstairs. I watched my house go. Then sheds across the street all tore apart and the bits of them came across the yard to the front of my place. They beat it down."  Marshall lost everything, "even my teeth are in there," he said as he pointed to the ruins of his home.

Island native Ronnie Reed reported that the flood trapped him, his wife, and their three children in their home while they slept. Reed said they survived by hacking a hole in the bedroom ceiling, pushing a bed spring up through and across it, and perching there for 18 hours until neighbors came looking for them in a boat.