Facts and trivia about the Hurricane of 1938, the most powerful hurricane on record to hit New England.
By Julia Shipley
Aug 24 2016
Damage in Island Park, Rhode Island | Hurricane of 1938 Trivia
Photo Credit : Public Domain9/21/1938date 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
430,000logging 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
32–52years: 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)
Contributing editor Julia Shipley’s stories celebrate New Englanders’ enduring connection to place. Her long-form lyric essay, “Adam’s Mark,” was selected as one of the Boston Globes Best New England Books of 2014.
More by Julia Shipley