Search -
The Hurricane Of 1938 (New England Remembers)
The Hurricane Of 1938 - New England Remembers Author:Aram Goudsouzian Forget the blizzard of 1978. New Englands 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... more » 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.With this gripping narrative by Aram Goudsouzian, Commonwealth Editions inaugurates a new series, New England Remembers, dedicated to the great events and people that have shaped what we know and love as New England. Like The Hurricane of 1938 and The Big Dig (see facing page), each book in the series will be written by a historian or a writer intimately familiar with the subject. Each book will have a uniform design featuring about 15 archival images. Forthcoming titles include Sacco and Vanzetti, The Cocoanut Grove Fire, James Michael Curley, and Lizzie Borden.« less