The Great Hurricane: 1938

A gift for my grandmother who lived through it, she was so thrilled to have the story told.

Note: I listened to this as an unabridged audio download and my comments pertain to the audio edition. The Great Hurricane of 1938 received relatively little notice in the news of the day, as it was overshadowed by the Czechoslovakian crisis then looming, and it is little remembered today. But it should be. For those who experienced it first-hand, it is still a traumatic memory and all the survivors know of people who weren't so lucky. Moreover it is important to recall how recently people had little or no early warning system that bad weather was coming--no satellite tracking or emergency broadcasts, no television or news media coverage to educate people as to the danger a hurricane presents. The Hurricane of 1938 was a whopper of a storm, an anomaly that grew stronger rather than weaker as it rushed northward from the warm tropics, and a storm with a faster forward motion (over 60 MPH!) than any other storm ever recorded. The lack of knowledge about hurricanes and storm surges and the total lack of warning combined with the size and speed of the storm to create disaster when it struck Long Island and New England on the afternoon of September 21, 1938. Over 700 people lost their lives, and there was massive loss of homes and businesses spread over several states. Cherie Burns tells the story of this little known storm in The Great Hurricane: 1938. She gives some background information on the growth of the storm, storm tracking of the day and the history of hurricanes striking as far north as Long Island and New England, but for the most part stays focused on a cast of characters in the various areas about to be struck. She begins with their actions in the 24 hours prior to the hurricane and then follows them through the next day as their lives are suddenly upended and threatened. It makes for a riveting tale, and the bravery and stubbornness of the survivors is heartening, as the losses of those not so lucky are tragic. The material is strong enough to rise above some weak writing, as Burns becomes repetitious in her reminders that this was the tail end of the Depression and people were frugal, the rich were supposed to be unostentatious with their wealth, and that people had no mass media to warn and educate them about hurricanes. This became slightly wearying but the power of the story kept me going. The audio edition was unabridged, and even so is relatively quick going at under 6 hours. The reader is effective and it made for a good listen, making me happy to be safe, warm and dry as I listened to the stories of people who, one fall day in 1938, weren't so lucky.

Excellent tale of this little known hurricane is well told. Hitler had the headlines in taking over Czechoslovakia at this time, and this monstrous (probably cat 5) hurricane that slammed head on into Long Island, Connecticut and Rhode Island was back page news not shared by the rest of the country. You live it through the lives of many people whose harrowing experience you share as the waters come crashing through seawalls and homes. We meet high society ladies, merchants, school children, and people from all walks of life, country and city, including Katherine Hepburn. From narrow escapes to tragic losses you are in the action of the tale. Could not put it down. The book is over too soon.

These types of books are great reminders to us about how far we have comes in the past 50 years or so in being able to predict the intensity and path of a major storm. Back in 1938 there was no such ability, and this kiler storm crept upon Long Island and southern New England without any serious warning. The devastation was incredible, and the loss of life amazing. It's a cautionary tale for weather forecasters everywhere about the dire consequences of incorrect or misleading weather information. There are many human interest stories interwoven in this book, some of them with happy endings, some with heartbreak. It's a part of our history that is mostly forgotten now, but deserves to be remembered, and I am very glad that this book was written.

As author Cherie Burns notes more than once in her wonderful new book, "The Great Hurricane: 1938", it's hard to believe that with all the advances in meteorology over the past half-century that there could still today have been a time in people's memories where they were taken by surprise by such a large and deadly hurricane. Yet, that's exactly what happened on September 21, 1938 when New England (and Long Island) bore the brunt of this storm. What struck me immediately was the fact that people didn't refer to such storms in New England as "hurricanes"...those were storms that hit Florida and the Caribbean. New Englanders were used to "nor'easters" and this one was referred to as the "big blow". The results, after only four hours of onslaught were, of course, devastating. Moving at an incredible sixty miles per hour, "GH38" (as the author calls it) made landfall on the eastern shore of Long Island, creating havoc there before it slammed into Connecticut. Rhode Island suffered the most damage, death and injury as GH38 wiped out most of the shoreline, including an entire small community, Napatree Point, before surging waters overwhelmed the city of Providence. More than seven hundred people died overall and the cost in terms of casualties and property loss would be counted for weeks. Ms. Burns has an eye for detail and a dramatic narrative style that lends itself well to a book about a natural disaster. She relates that the United States was recently emerging from the shadows of the Depression and gives us reminders not just of life in general, but of people's every day activities. It's her careful approach to this aspect which helps put down a foundation for her story. The bonding elements, though, are those people who actually lived through that awful day...the reader gets to know them as if they were our own next-door neighbors. Her compilation of the collective memories of those she writes about are stirring. Some managed to keep a sense of humor as their worlds were falling apart around them while others simply suffered terrible consequences from the wrath of the storm. The most famous survivor of GH38 was Connecticut's Katharine Hepburn, whose house in Fenwick floated one third of a mile downstream. But this book really belongs to another Catherine...Catherine Moore, whose Rhode Island house broke apart after her family and others had taken refuge in the attic. Just after the wind blew the roof off, they managed to make the attic floor a raft and away they sailed, ending up on Barn Island in Connecticut. Catherine's split-second decisions combined with a fair amount of luck, undoubtedly saved her family. As she nears the end of the book, Cherie Burns sums up the catastrophe in largely human terms. I laughed out loud when I read about the irony of a lumber mill operator in Brookline, Massachusetts. The farm lost two hundred trees and the author writes, "the owner set up a sawmill to salvage building lumber, and the rest was stacked in woo