Hurricane of 1938 Trivia | New England by the Numbers
Facts and trivia about the Hurricane of 1938, the most powerful hurricane on record to hit New England.
By Julia Shipley|Aug 24 2016|
Coffee By Design | Portland, Maine
Photo Credit : Katherine KeenanPhoto Credit : Public Domain
HURRICANE OF 1938 | FACTS & TRIVIA
9/21/1938 date when the most powerful hurricane on record hit New England
47 mph speed at which the storm zoomed from Long Island up through New England
25,000 homes damaged
26,000 automobiles destroyed
430,000 logging truckloads’ worth of downed timber
10,121 miles of road cleared by the axes and handsaws of the New England Forest Emergency crew
5 billion $: adjusted cost of infrastructure repairs
186 mph strongest hurricane land gusts ever recorded
600 estimated lives lost in New England
1 lighthouse keeper perished: Walter Eberle, swept away when Rhode Island’s Whale Rock Light collapsed
15 million acres (three times the size of Massachusetts): footprint of the storm’s damage
32–52 years: projected wait until the next catastrophic hurricane hits Rhode Island and Cape Cod
Read more: Thirty-Eight: The Hurricane That Transformed New England by Stephen Long (Yale, 2016)
In all the accounts of the New England “38” hurricane the accompanying flood of the Merrimack River gets little or no mention.
As a grade school-er living in Concord, NH, I remember being dismissed early and helping my mother transfer what we could to the second floor of our Hall St home. The police came door to door advising residents to evacuate-as previously in 1936 many people were stranded and had to be removed by rowboat.
Our family was relatively new to Concord and my father drove us to his workplace, a large brick auto garage somewhere in downtown Concord where we rode out the storm.
Later a kind fellow worker invited us to stay in his home for the duration. Ourselves and our neighbors would gather on high ground and watch the water sweep through our homes while we pointed out various out buildings that floated by. On returning home, we hoed out inches of mud from the lower floor-my mother spread phonograph records in the sun to dry- they all warped!
The hurricane was of course the big news but the flood had its share of drama.
Did this storm have a name? If so, what was it?
“Sudden Sea” authored by ProJo reporter, R.A. Scotti, is a compelling account – a must read if ’38 is of any interest to you.
I was only eight months of age. living in Keene, New Hampshire. Too young to realize this historical event, but since that time my curiosity has allowed my interest to be researched.
How much is a 1938 Yankee Magazine worth
I remember the ‘38 hurricane well, we lived in Riverside RI about a half mile from the ocean at Sabins Point. We weathered the storm but lots of our neighbors didn’t. The day after the storm my dad and I walked up to the beach to check on the damage and found most of the beachfront houses gone. One of our friends had a small house on the beach which was picked up and moved about a quarter mile down the beach without hurting a thing inside……..not even a dish was broken ! Of course they were not in it. Another thing I remember was seeing an oil tanker which had washed up in the center center of a town. It was a huge vessel, and I always wondered how they ever got it back in the water. I still have the magazine of pictures of the devastation from the air, which I believe was put out by the Hartford Courant.