Toyandgadgetguy

As I sit in my livingroom, I look out my windows and see rain falling yet again. A storm is here again. Total rainfall of 4-8” is being forecasted. The weatherman on News 12 says that high level sustained winds can be expected once again. It wasn’t more than two weeks ago when Long Island was hit with a fairly severe noreaster that left thousands without power for days. There were wind gusts that hit up to 74mph. There were sustained 40+ mph for hours on end. I can’t recall winds like that in my lifetime. Not from a noreaster, anyway. The damage in some areas was incredible. There was flooding and downed trees. Our local gas station lost it’s overhang to the high winds. Two blocks over, a tree crashed through the side of someone’s home. Dozens of vehicles were damaged. Hundreds of telephone poles were snapped. Uncountable power lines were taken down to the ground on block after block. It was a real mess… but it was hardly the worst storm this island has ever seen.

The year was 1938, and the storm was nick-named “The Long Island Express” or “The Great Hurricane of ‘38”. Of course, it got it’s nicknames AFTER the damage was done. A large part of the problem, was that nobody saw the storm coming. Well, actually, Charlie Pierce did, but nobody listened. Charlie was a meteorologist, but was over-ridden by his seniors. Keep in mind, that weather forecasters did not have the technology available to us today.

Originally, forcasters assumed that the storm that was heading up the east coast of the United States would veer off to the east instead of making landfall. However, it seems that folks should have heeded Charlie’s advice and braced for the worst. The storm moved fast, and hit hard. Quite a few sources still site the Great Hurricane of ’38 as being the fastest moving storm on record. They say it made it from Cape Hatteras to New England in roughly 6 hours. It’s recorded as moving at 70mph. The entire storm moved over the ocean at 70mph, and slammed into the south shore of Long Island around 2 or 3:00pm on September 28th, leaving devastation in it’s wake. Winds gusted up to 180mph! (last weekend’s storm hit 74 at it’s worst… how’s that for perspective?) High tide was at an all time high, due to the Autumnal equinox and a new moon. The storm surge and surf registered seismographs in Alaska!

Most of the damage that took place wasn’t due to the high wind speeds as much as it was the storm surge. The surge was from 15 to 25 feet across most of the south shore. Now, this storm was huge. The eye of it, alone, was 50 miles in size. Two story waves pounded the shore of Long Island. Manhattan caught the “easier”, western edge of the storm, and the east end of Long Island was hit by the worst of it. Without this storm, there would have been no Shinnecock inlet, as the storm cut through the barrier beach. The ocean washing in caused Montauk to be separated from the mainland for a time. The area where Dune road now lies was washed over. The steeple of the Old Whaler’s church in Sag Harbor (a landmark) was destroyed. A movie theater floated two miles out to sea before completely breaking up. Now only about 100 people from around Long Island died during the storm, but please keep in mind that this was 1938. The island was far less populated. Damage was in the millions then… which is billions worth of damage in today’s dollars. Had the island been more densely populated… the losses would be much, much higher. To give you a rough idea… there were roughly 180 homes on Dune Road when the storm hit, and roughly 30 standing when the clouds cleared (some of those suffered serious damage as well). Some of the tree damage across the island could still be seen into the 1950’s.

I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but we’re due for another big one. Are you prepared?