Forget the Blizzard of 1978. New England's storm of the century was the Hurricane of 1938. Sometimes called the "Long Island Express" because it rolled through there on the first day of autumn, the hurricane tore northward straight through the heart of New England, wreaking death and destruction with virtually no warning.
The storm registered peak sustained winds of 121 miles per hour, and one gust registered 186 at the Blue Hills Observatory outside Boston. Seawater killed plant life 20 miles inland, and ocean salt sprayed windows in Montpelier, Vermont. An estimated 275 million trees were uprooted or damaged. About 20,000 miles of power and telephone lines were knocked down. Along the shore, 7,000 cottages and 2,000 other houses were destroyed, and the human death toll was estimated at 680. More had died in previous U.S. storms, but given the concentration of population and development on Long Island and in New England, the hurricane of 1938 was the costliest natural disaster in American history to that time.
In The Hurricane of 1938, you will read the sometimes tragic, sometimes heroic stories of the men, women, and children who experienced the storm, and you will learn how the hurricane shaped and reflected American life during the Great Depression.
The storm registered peak sustained winds of 121 miles per hour, and one gust registered 186 at the Blue Hills Observatory outside Boston. Seawater killed plant life 20 miles inland, and ocean salt sprayed windows in Montpelier, Vermont. An estimated 275 million trees were uprooted or damaged. About 20,000 miles of power and telephone lines were knocked down. Along the shore, 7,000 cottages and 2,000 other houses were destroyed, and the human death toll was estimated at 680. More had died in previous U.S. storms, but given the concentration of population and development on Long Island and in New England, the hurricane of 1938 was the costliest natural disaster in American history to that time.
In The Hurricane of 1938, you will read the sometimes tragic, sometimes heroic stories of the men, women, and children who experienced the storm, and you will learn how the hurricane shaped and reflected American life during the Great Depression.
