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There aren’t a lot of upsides when you’re talking about hurricanes. Hurricane Dorian was huge and powerful, leaving death and destruction throughout the Bahamas before moving to brush the southeastern coast of the United States.
There, it brought carnage and left floodwaters and debris, but it also uncovered something pretty special: two Civil War cannonballs that experts are saying are well over 150 years old.
Aaron Lattin and his girlfriend Alba stumbled on the find when they were walking on Folly Beach (near Charleston) on September 6th. They first thought the objects were rocks, but soon realized they’d found something pretty cool and very historical.
In 2016, Hurricane Matthew uncovered 16 similar cannonballs around the same area; it’s not unusual, since Folly Island was used as a Union base during the war. More than a few items left from their artillery battery can be stumbled upon up and down the shoreline.
Like unexploded WWII bombs uncovered in Britain, old cannonballs need to be treated with caution. In this case, police and bomb disposal technicians were called to the most recent scene to ensure the cannonballs were no longer a danger.
Mother Nature taketh away, but sometimes she gives, too. And for lovers of history everywhere, we’ll take what we can get.
