Great New England Hurricane of 1938

Hurricane

Date: September 21, 1938

Place: Northeastern United States

Classification: Category 3

Result: About 680 dead, more than 1,700 injured, nearly 20,000 requests for aid, $400 million in damage

Some analysts call the Great New England Hurricane of 1938 a triple storm: hurricane, flood, and tidal surge. Unusually heavy rains beginning September 18, 1938, caused rivers and streams to rise and flood low-lying areas, and the rain that accompanied the up to 100-mile-per-hour winds during the brief course of the hurricane added to these conditions. In shoreline areas and cities on tidal rivers additional flood conditions were caused by the tidal surges common to hurricanes, when the high winds drive the tide upon itself. Several towns and cities also suffered from fires that were started when electrical wires were short-circuited by water or by ships that were driven by high winds and the tide into buildings along the coast.

The Formation of the Storm. June of 1938 was the third-wettest June in New England weather records, followed by an abnormally wet and mild summer. It is suggested that a French meteorological observation at the Bilma Oasis in the Sahara Desert on September 4 noting a wind shift would, with modern radar tracking and satellite imagery not available then, have given the first hint of trouble. The shift resulted in an area of storminess off the west coast of Africa, entering the Atlantic in the Cape Verde region. On September 16 a storm of hurricane strength was reported northeast of Puerto Rico by a lightship and the Jacksonville office of the U.S. Weather Bureau. The bureau followed the storm’s rapid progress westward, issuing a hurricane warning for southern Florida on September 19. The storm slowed and turned north, sparing Florida, and initially it was assumed to be heading out to sea.

This hurricane was abnormal in that it traveled northward at an average speed of 50 miles per hour rather than the more usual 20 to 30 miles per hour. In twelve hours it moved from a position off Cape Hatteras to southern Vermont and New Hampshire. More important from the standpoint of criticisms of inadequate warning by the Weather Bureau is the fact that less than six hours elapsed from its leaving the Florida area, traveling over water, until it hit Long Island, New York. Because of its rapid progress, the hurricane had destructive winds about 100 miles east of its center, while there was relatively little damage to property on the west side. Therefore, the worst of the destruction was concentrated on Long Island, Rhode Island, eastern Connecticut, central Massachusetts, and southern Vermont and New Hampshire. High winds lasted only about an hour and a half in any one area.

The Aftereffects. In spite of its brief tenure, the hurricane had tremendous temporary and some important lasting economic impact. Whole seaside communities along the Connecticut and Rhode Island coasts were wiped out by wind and tides, which ranged from 12 to 25 feet higher than normal. New beaches were cut, islands were formed as the water ran through strips of shore, and navigational charts of the time became worthless. Roads and railroad tracks along the shore were undermined, buckled, and tossed. Railroad service was interrupted from seven to fourteen days while crews removed trees, houses, and several good-sized boats from the tracks.

Inland, bridges were wiped out, roads buckled where undermined by usually small streams, and trees fell on roads and buildings. Winds blew roofs, walls, and often top stories off brick and wooden buildings. Dams were breached by the high waters. Apples ready for harvest were blown off the trees, and whole groves of maples were snapped, affecting the maple-syrup industry for years to come. It was a rare church whose steeple escaped being torn down, and village greens were permanently altered by the toppling of stately mature elms and oaks that had lined the streets. Most important, some mills upon which a town’s economy depended were never rebuilt after the damage. In New England, all old mills were originally powered by water, so they were located on dammed rivers.

Although not as hard hit, portions of northern Vermont and New Hampshire also suffered from fallen trees and flooding. Maine was the least affected, escaping flooding and damaged only by diminishing, although still high, winds. Boats were driven ashore from Portland south, and train schedules were disrupted and road traffic affected by downed trees.

Examination of the Storm. The major New England rivers were already at flood stage before the hurricane struck. The wet summer meant that the heavy rains in the three days preceding the high winds did not soak into the ground but ran off into streams, which in turn fed the rivers. Tributaries most affected were the Farmington, Chicopee, Millers, Deerfield, and Ashuelot Rivers of the Connecticut; the Quinebaug and Shetucket of the Thames; and the Contoocock and Piscataquog of the Merrimack.

New England is not often subjected to serious floods or hurricanes and is even less affected by tornadoes. Accounts of the 1938 hurricane are compared to the Great Colonial Hurricane of August 14 or 15, 1635 (as recorded by Increase Mather in his Remarkable Providences of 1684); the Great September Gale of September 23, 1815, recorded by Noah Webster and others; the ice storm of 1921; and floods of 1927 and 1936, the latter providing benchmarks for high water two years later.

The 1938 storm was termed “unique,” “unusual,” and “most interesting” by meteorologists, and a “freak,” the “worst in the history of the northeast” by Dr. Charles C. Clark, acting chief of the U.S. Weather Bureau. It was not a tropical hurricane in the strict sense of the word because before it reached the northeastern states it was transformed into an extra-tropical storm, with a definite frontal structure and two distinct air masses—tropical maritime and polar continental, a peculiar temperature and wind distribution in the upper atmosphere. Although winds of 60 miles per hour were common at the hurricane’s worst, geographic conditions contributed to winds up to 100 miles per hour in some areas. At slightly higher elevations, weather devices recorded much higher velocities: 186 miles per hour at the Harvard Meteorological Observatory at the top of Blue Hill in Milton, Massachusetts, and 120 miles per hour at the top of the Empire State Building in New York City.

The Extent of the Destruction. Statistics, especially the count of dead and injured, vary considerably. An estimated 680 to 685 lost their lives. Estimates of those injured range from 700 to over 1,700. Nearly 20,000 applied for aid. There is no uncertainty, however, in the assessment that the $400 million in total damage was the highest for any storm to its date. One account lists 4,500 homes, summer cottages, and farm buildings destroyed; 2,605 boats lost and 3,369 damaged, with a total $2.6 million estimated in fishing boats, equipment, docks, and shore plants destroyed; 26,000 cars smashed; 275 million trees broken off or uprooted; nearly 20,000 miles of power and telephone lines down; and numerous farm animals killed. Some 10,000 railroad workers filled 1,000 washouts, replaced nearly 100 bridges, and removed buildings and 30 boats from the tracks. Bell System crews came from as far away as Virginia, Arkansas, and Nevada to help restore service. About half the estimated 5 million bushels of the apple crop was unharvested and destroyed.

On Fire Island, New York, the tide crossed from the ocean to the bay side over the land, sweeping everything from its path. In Westhampton, Long Island, only 26 of 179 beach houses remained, and most were uninhabitable. Every house in Watch Hill, Rhode Island’s Napatree Point-Fort Road area was swept into Naragansett Bay, and only 15 of the 42 occupants in the 39 houses survived. Downtown Providence, Rhode Island, was flooded under 10 feet of water. New London, Connecticut, suffered $4 million in damage from water, 98-mile-per-hour winds, and the worst fire since General Benedict Arnold’s troops burned the city in 1781. The fire was started by electrical wires short-circuited when a five-masted schooner was driven into a building. The town of Peterborough in southern New Hampshire also suffered from fire as well as wind and water damage when wires were short-circuited by floodwater. In one instance along the Connecticut shore, a railroad engineer nudged a cabin cruiser and a house off the tracks, loaded all his passengers into the dining and first Pullman cars, disconnected the remainder of the train, and brought his riders to safety. In several towns and cities, including Ware and North Adams, Massachusetts, and Brandon, Vermont, rivers changed their courses and took over main streets. While portions of Springfield, Massachusetts, and Hartford, Connecticut, were flooded, these cities were not damaged as much as might have been expected because of dikes built after the 1936 flood and sandbag walls added by volunteers in 1938.

On September 23, two days after the storm had passed, the Connecticut River crested at 35.42 feet. This was 2 feet below the 1936 record, but nothing else approaching this had been recorded since 1854. A total of 17 inches of rain had fallen in the Connecticut Valley in four days. However, the amount of rain varied greatly from one area to another, as did the velocity of the wind.

Electrical, telephone, and railroad services were interrupted for up to two weeks, and other services and activities were disrupted as well. Flooding and wind damage to buildings in town and city centers made food and provisions hard to find for days. Roads were blocked as well while crews removed the trees that had fallen across them, interrupting school activity and preventing many from reaching their homes. Business and public buildings as well as churches and homes had to be repaired or rebuilt. The disruption to lives cannot be adequately reflected in any of these statistics.

Bibliography

Allen, Everett S. A Wind to Shake the World: The Story of the 1938 Hurricane. Beverly, Mass.: Commonwealth Editions, 2006.

Burns, Cherie. The Great Hurricane—1938. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005.

Cummings, Mary. Hurricane in the Hamptons, 1938. New York: Arcadia, 2006.

Goudsouzian, Aram. The Hurricane of 1938. Beverly, Mass.: Commonwealth Editions, 2006.

Minsinger, William Elliott, comp. and ed. The 1938 Hurricane: An Historical and Pictorial Summary. East Milton, Mass.: Blue Hill Observatory, 1988.

Scotti, R. A. Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938. Boston: Little, Brown, 2003.

Vallee, David R., and Richael P. Dion. Southern New England Tropical Storms and Hurricanes: A Ninety-Eight-Year Summary (1909-1997). Taunton, Mass.: National Weather Service, 1998.