Customer Reviews

The Great Hurricane: 1938

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

As author Cherie Burns notes more than once in her wonderful new book, "The Great Hurricane: 1938", it's hard to believe that with all the advances in meteorology over the past half-century that there could still today have been a time in people's memories where they were taken by surprise by such a large and deadly hurricane. Yet, that's exactly what happened on September 21, 1938 when New England (and Long Island) bore the brunt of this storm.

What struck me immediately was the fact that people didn't refer to such storms in New England as "hurricanes"...those were storms that hit Florida and the Caribbean. New Englanders were used to "nor'easters" and this one was referred to as the "big blow". The results, after only four hours of onslaught were, of course, devastating. Moving at an incredible sixty miles per hour, "GH38" (as the author calls it) made landfall on the eastern shore of Long Island, creating havoc there before it slammed into Connecticut. Rhode Island suffered the most damage, death and injury as GH38 wiped out most of the shoreline, including an entire small community, Napatree Point, before surging waters overwhelmed the city of Providence. More than seven hundred people died overall and the cost in terms of casualties and property loss would be counted for weeks.

Ms. Burns has an eye for detail and a dramatic narrative style that lends itself well to a book about a natural disaster. She relates that the United States was recently emerging from the shadows of the Depression and gives us reminders not just of life in general, but of people's every day activities. It's her careful approach to this aspect which helps put down a foundation for her story. The bonding elements, though, are those people who actually lived through that awful day...the reader gets to know them as if they were our own next-door neighbors. Her compilation of the collective memories of those she writes about are stirring. Some managed to keep a sense of humor as their worlds were falling apart around them while others simply suffered terrible consequences from the wrath of the storm. The most famous survivor of GH38 was Connecticut's Katharine Hepburn, whose house in Fenwick floated one third of a mile downstream. But this book really belongs to another Catherine...Catherine Moore, whose Rhode Island house broke apart after her family and others had taken refuge in the attic. Just after the wind blew the roof off, they managed to make the attic floor a raft and away they sailed, ending up on Barn Island in Connecticut. Catherine's split-second decisions combined with a fair amount of luck, undoubtedly saved her family.

As she nears the end of the book, Cherie Burns sums up the catastrophe in largely human terms. I laughed out loud when I read about the irony of a lumber mill operator in Brookline, Massachusetts. The farm lost two hundred trees and the author writes, "the owner set up a sawmill to salvage building lumber, and the rest was stacked in woodpiles to burn in stoves and fireplaces. The supply would last until 1980, when her grandson burned the last bundle". This warm, humorous anecdote helps to offset the tragedy of the great hurricane of 1938. Cherie Burns has put together a terrific book about a terrible day, and as I read it in one sitting, I highly recommend it.

What a disappointment! I'd looked forward to reading this book and now I'm sorry I wasted my money. It covers the same ground as Scotti's "Sudden Sea" but does so with far less ability.

It's repetitious and as another reviewer mentioned, reads like an eighth-grade report on a hurricane. Early on in my reading, I was blaming the editor. The repeated references to there being no satellite or radar tracking of storms in 1938 (does the author really think we need frequent reminders of this?) and rich folks playing down their wealth, the overusage of words like "portentous" and "anyhow" and the unfortunate metaphor of hurricane as "cat" could have been cleaned up (along with some typos) by a good editor. The author thanks her editor in the acknowlegments, so the mind boggles at what the manuscript must have looked like before the final edit.

But what pushed me over the edge were the frequent factual errors, the blame for which lies solely with the author, not the editor. Here are a few:

The author claims that in 1938, the start of the school year fell around October 1. That gave me pause, but I was willing to go with it until I found multiple references in the remainder of the book to children on their way to or from school on the day of the storm.

The author describes the newroom of the Providence Evening Bulletin (which she later refers to, incorrectly, as the "Providence Bulletin") during the storm and in the next sentence says "things weren't going any better for workers at the Providence Journal." Well, duh. The Providence Evening Bulletin and the Providence Journal were the evening and morning editions of the same paper, published on the same presses, from the same newsroom at the same address and by the same reporters.

The author describes someone as being able to look up the bay and see "the lights on the bridge from Barrington to Bristol." There is no such bridge. There is a very small bridge from Barrington to Warren, whose lights were not likely to be visible outside the harbor, and a much larger bridge, the Mt. Hope Bridge, visible up and down the bay, which connects Bristol to Aquidneck Island.

The author references the situation at City Hall in Providence and in the next sentence says "next door at the Hope Club". The Hope Club is not next door to City Hall, nor is it anywhere downtown. The Hope Club is on College Hill, on Benefit Street.

The author describes action taking place at the intersection of Orange St. and Fawcett St. in downtown Providence. There is no Fawcett St. in Providence. Did she mean Friendship Street? Who knows?

In recounting tree damage, the author says, "In Providence, Goddard Park..." Goddard Park is not in Providence, it's in North Kingstown, approximately 20 miles away.

There are more, but after factual error piled upon factual error, I lost the will to go on reading. All of these errors could have been easily fixed with the most cursory of fact-checking. But clearly, the author couldn't be bothered.

What lessons do we learn from ferocious weather? This planet is our home and our playground and it's easy to forget that we're at the mercy of the elements -- until Mother Nature throws us a hard ball like the Great Hurricane of 1938. Thundering into Long Island, Connecticut and Rhode Island, this great storm devastated homes, farms and commercial areas. Hundreds of thousands of trees were blown down, transportation and essential services were disrupted, and seven hundred people lost their lives.

Author Cherie Adams sets the scene: 1938 is poised between the Great Depression and the start of World War II. The front-page stories are focusing on the annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland region by the Third Reich. Weather prediction is slow and unreliable, so nobody worries that the inside pages of the newspaper are predicting high winds and heavy rain.

The eastern coastal regions are enjoying the last weeks of nice weather along the shore. In comes the hurricane, with an exceptional forward speed of 60 miles per hour. Whatever difference warning might have made, there is no warning and the winds, rain and solstice-swelled storm surge wreck everything in their path.

Adams' weather scenes are vivid and her statistics at the end are quite awesome. Her sources are letters, newspaper stories and other written reports, as well as whatever eyewitness accounts are available so long after the event. She presents the human side of the disaster in strobe-like jumps from one "character" to another, never developing any of them fully so that they blur into a confusion. Some stand out--the wedding party, the schoolboy in a new suit, the cameo appearance of actress Katharine Hepburn--but most are like too many snapshots of strangers in someone's old album.

I'm not sure what I wanted from this book. A better understanding of life in 1938? Meteorological context? Most of all, probably, insight into the strength of character that helps individuals survive a cataclysmic loss. I came away feeling that I would have done better to re-read Sebastian Junger's "The Perfect Storm," or even--reaching back to 1977--"Condominium" by John D. McDonald. Or the best idea of all, one might find the original stories, articles, memoirs, and read them in the writers' own words.

I listened to an unabridged audio presentation of this book so did not have the benefit of any maps or photos, of which I understand from other reviewers there were too few. The book shows intensive research and the writing is effective, though the organization is not what I would have preferred. Three stars.

Linda Bulger, 2008

These types of books are great reminders to us about how far we have comes in the past 50 years or so in being able to predict the intensity and path of a major storm. Back in 1938 there was no such ability, and this kiler storm crept upon Long Island and southern New England without any serious warning. The devastation was incredible, and the loss of life amazing. It's a cautionary tale for weather forecasters everywhere about the dire consequences of incorrect or misleading weather information. There are many human interest stories interwoven in this book, some of them with happy endings, some with heartbreak. It's a part of our history that is mostly forgotten now, but deserves to be remembered, and I am very glad that this book was written.

Having grown up on Long Island, I'd never heard of the Hurricane of 1938. So I was very interested in reading about this forgotten episode in Long Island history. While I found the subject matter interesting, I came away ultimately disappointed by this book's lackluster narrative. While other writers (Sebastian Junger and Erik Larson to name just two) have managed to combine personal drama with local history and the science of storms), Burns fails to bring the elements together.

The author's storytelling is delivered in a manner which reads like an extended People magazine story. In some ways this is a good thing. Her focus on personal struggles for survival makes for compelling reading. However, Burns' account is dragged down by an overly simplistic and occasionally repetitive descriptions of the storm itself and the problems faced by beleaguered residents. There are several mentions of how the weather service, still in its infancy and lacking technology, was unable to track the storm. Also mentioned several times, is the fact that once the storm hit shore, power outages and downed phoned lines thwarted communications.

Burns' attempts to give life to the storm by comparing it to "a big cat" early on is almost laughable given how many lives were lost and the extent of damage done to property and business. The cat reference disappears the mid-story but makes a silly comeback near the end to when the storm has "thrown its last wild tantrum... and leapt out of sight with a final hiss." Describing the devastation, Burns also makes a weak and unnecessary comparison to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Also, while there is a map which gives an overview of the path the storm took from the Bahamas to Connecticut, the book would have benefited from a close up map of the east end of the Island as well as the many mainland towns that Burns mentions in her text.

There is an interesting story to be told about the Hurricane of 1938. Unfortunately, it can't be found here.

Note: I listened to this as an unabridged audio download and my comments pertain to the audio edition.

The Great Hurricane of 1938 received relatively little notice in the news of the day, as it was overshadowed by the Czechoslovakian crisis then looming, and it is little remembered today. But it should be. For those who experienced it first-hand, it is still a traumatic memory and all the survivors know of people who weren't so lucky. Moreover it is important to recall how recently people had little or no early warning system that bad weather was coming--no satellite tracking or emergency broadcasts, no television or news media coverage to educate people as to the danger a hurricane presents.

The Hurricane of 1938 was a whopper of a storm, an anomaly that grew stronger rather than weaker as it rushed northward from the warm tropics, and a storm with a faster forward motion (over 60 MPH!) than any other storm ever recorded. The lack of knowledge about hurricanes and storm surges and the total lack of warning combined with the size and speed of the storm to create disaster when it struck Long Island and New England on the afternoon of September 21, 1938. Over 700 people lost their lives, and there was massive loss of homes and businesses spread over several states.

Cherie Burns tells the story of this little known storm in The Great Hurricane: 1938. She gives some background information on the growth of the storm, storm tracking of the day and the history of hurricanes striking as far north as Long Island and New England, but for the most part stays focused on a cast of characters in the various areas about to be struck. She begins with their actions in the 24 hours prior to the hurricane and then follows them through the next day as their lives are suddenly upended and threatened.

It makes for a riveting tale, and the bravery and stubbornness of the survivors is heartening, as the losses of those not so lucky are tragic. The material is strong enough to rise above some weak writing, as Burns becomes repetitious in her reminders that this was the tail end of the Depression and people were frugal, the rich were supposed to be unostentatious with their wealth, and that people had no mass media to warn and educate them about hurricanes. This became slightly wearying but the power of the story kept me going.

The audio edition was unabridged, and even so is relatively quick going at under 6 hours. The reader is effective and it made for a good listen, making me happy to be safe, warm and dry as I listened to the stories of people who, one fall day in 1938, weren't so lucky.

For the first time in my memory, I was unable to finish a book about a subject that fascinated me. Ms. Burnes tale reads like an eighth grade research paper. It is filled with inaccuracies: e.g. on average four tropical storms form in the Atlantic each year? There is no sense of narrative. She references the Perfect Storm several times, but the two books could not be more different. Junger's story was gripping, Burnes' is sleep inducing. It is truly awful. Instead, read Isaac's Storm, about the 1900 hurricane that hit Galveston.

Overall this book was riventing reading for me. Loving nature disaster stories like I do, I was glued to the pages till the storm petered out. However, I do have one complaint and that is the lack of detailed maps of the area included in the book. Anyone not familiar with the area is going to be at a loss without an atlas of the area for reference. Towns are named that mean nothing to me without a map, not to mention distances. Perhaps in further editions a good map of the area hardest hit could be included, otherwise a gripping read. Meanwhile, dear readers, read this with an atlas on your lap but do read it.

Excellent tale of this little known hurricane is well told. Hitler had the headlines in taking over Czechoslovakia at this time, and this monstrous (probably cat 5) hurricane that slammed head on into Long Island, Connecticut and Rhode Island was back page news not shared by the rest of the country.

You live it through the lives of many people whose harrowing experience you share as the waters come crashing through seawalls and homes. We meet high society ladies, merchants, school children, and people from all walks of life, country and city, including Katherine Hepburn. From narrow escapes to tragic losses you are in the action of the tale. Could not put it down. The book is over too soon.

If you happened to live on eastern Long Island or along the Southern New England coast there seemed to be nothing remarkable about the weather when you arose on September 21, 1938. The forecast did call for some heavy rain later on in the afternoon but there was absolutely no reason to believe that anything out of the ordinary was in store for you that day. What these folks had no way of knowing of course was that a powerful hurricane with winds of up to 160 miles per hour was churning up the eastern coast at a phenomenal 60 miles per hour! By the end of this fateful day many would lose their lives, hundreds more would be injured and the landscape of these areas would be changed forever. In "Great Hurricane: 1938" Cherie Burns transports her readers back to that tragic day and gives them a glimpse of just what is was like to live through such a tumultuous event.

In putting together "Great Hurricane: 1938" Cherie Burns scoured newspaper accounts and interviewed survivors. As a result, we experience the horrors of this storm through the eyes of several different families. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to see family members, neighbors and friends washed away in the fury of this storm. Likewise, the survivors speak of the terror they felt and of the courage they had to muster simply trying to survive during these 3 or 4 hours. Like the old "Cinerama" movie technology of the 1960's, Cherie Burns has the uncanny ability to put you the reader into the picture. There are stories in this book that I will simply never forget.
Being from Rhode Island I have heard about the 1938 Hurricane since I was a kid. I have seen documentaries on the subject, talked to survivors and read Rhode Island native R.A. Storti's splendid "Sudden Sea" which is another marvelous account of this disaster. "Great Hurricane: 1938" is a significant addition to the historical record of this legendary storm.

There was very little to smile about in the aftermath of the Great Hurricane. However, I must make mention of a headline that appeared in the Providence Evening Bulletin a couple of weeks after the storm. During the height of the hurricane Downtown Providence was inundated with 18 feet of water. It took about three weeks of cleanup before the city was ready to reopen for business. In a story about the ramifications of the downtown area being closed the Evening Bulletin noted that most beauty shops had still not reopened. The headline read "WOMEN'S FACES REVERTING TO STATUS ORIGINALLY DESIGNED BY NATURE". I laughed out loud at that one. I think you will find that "Great Hurricane: 1938 is a well written, informative and entertaining book. Recommended.