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Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938
The massive destruction wreaked by the Hurricane of 1938 dwarfed that of the Chicago Fire, the San Francisco Earthquake, and the Mississippi floods of 1927, making the storm the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. Now, R.A. Scotti tells the story.
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First published September 3, 2003
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June 5, 2022
I don't think anyone wakes up in the morning and thinks 'today is the day I'm going to die'. We might think about the work to be done that day or the food we would like to eat or many other items, but not about death. But then, death can sometimes outrace you.
The Great Hurricane of 1938 was one of the worst natural catastrophes to hit the East Coast of the United States. Specifically, it aimed for the New England area, which has had massive hurricanes almost every 100 years. This one was a doozy. It was a weather system that moved so quickly, no one knew it was on its way. New Englanders who were raking their leaves at noon ended up dead by suppertime. It hit Long Island and Connecticut, but the worst damage was reserved for little Rhode Island, a state that never did anything to anyone.
The storm destroyed every measuring instrument then available. It not only tore leaves from trees but sucked the juice from them. A pair of sisters owned 50 shorefront acres on the day before the storm. On the day after, they owned...2 acres. The reason it was so dangerous was because it raced toward New England at such a high speed, no one could have been prepared to flee. 600 miles in less than 12 hours! You can't even outdrive that.
The Great Hurricane changed the United States Weather Bureau forever. Prior to the event, the organization relied on gut feeling and the vast experience of their elder statesmen. A junior colleague sensed the storm would not only get worse but it would head toward New England. No one listened to him, as he relied upon facts and formulas (though even if they had listened, there was no time to flee). The hurricane also changed the East Coast. Small shops were replaced by pizza parlours and slot machines. Sand dunes that had taken centuries to build were wiped out in two hours.
In reading this book, I learned a healthy respect for storms. The worst one I've ever experienced was on the Turks & Caicos, and I hid under my cottage bed (as though that would save me). It wasn't even a tropical storm, so I can only imagine the terror in facing the most devastating storm to hit Rhode Island. The author outlines the storm from its inception, showing how close it came to bearing down on Florida before it decided to turn north. We get introduced to families and parents and drivers and children and lighthouse keepers, who don't survive. Actress Katherine Hepburn was in her house, on the water, when it hit, and she and her family lost everything.
While we might think of hurricanes as more wind-centric, the devastation was in the waves. Similar to tsunamis, the storm generated massive waves that continued to smash, one right after the other. Think about that...a tsumani can be huge, but it also tells you it's coming and requires time between each of the waves to hit, usually in just three main waves. In the 1938 Hurricane, the waves were enormous and came by the hundreds. Even if someone was a strong swimmer, they simply didn't stand a chance. There's a stunning picture in the book which shows Napatree, Rhode Island the day before the storm, full of large beach homes. The next picture shows it the following morning. It's just sand.
God keeps one for every three he returns. It is an old belief.
For me, this was very close to being a five-star book, simply because of the subject matter. It's well-researched with plentiful interviews of the survivors. But I deducted one star because I had to go back and find the characters when they were first introduced, as they appear and then suddenly leave the story, then re-appear. Also, I wish there was one central map section, as I got lost trying to find the different ones throughout the book. I am not really familiar with the New England area, so it would have been helpful to have it all in one place.
The book subject has stayed with me. It reminded me that we should not take anything for granted or presume we can outwit Mother Nature. We can build all we want on barrier islands, but the sea will always take it back, along with any life living on those sands.
A young boy survived the storm, which overwhelmed his school bus. A strong swimmer as a child, he managed to conquer the water. A few years later, on his last day of WWII service, he celebrated by swimming off the shore of Saipan, where an undertow took him. The sea always takes back what it should have kept.
Book Season = Autumn (I don't really trust September)
The Great Hurricane of 1938 was one of the worst natural catastrophes to hit the East Coast of the United States. Specifically, it aimed for the New England area, which has had massive hurricanes almost every 100 years. This one was a doozy. It was a weather system that moved so quickly, no one knew it was on its way. New Englanders who were raking their leaves at noon ended up dead by suppertime. It hit Long Island and Connecticut, but the worst damage was reserved for little Rhode Island, a state that never did anything to anyone.
The storm destroyed every measuring instrument then available. It not only tore leaves from trees but sucked the juice from them. A pair of sisters owned 50 shorefront acres on the day before the storm. On the day after, they owned...2 acres. The reason it was so dangerous was because it raced toward New England at such a high speed, no one could have been prepared to flee. 600 miles in less than 12 hours! You can't even outdrive that.
The Great Hurricane changed the United States Weather Bureau forever. Prior to the event, the organization relied on gut feeling and the vast experience of their elder statesmen. A junior colleague sensed the storm would not only get worse but it would head toward New England. No one listened to him, as he relied upon facts and formulas (though even if they had listened, there was no time to flee). The hurricane also changed the East Coast. Small shops were replaced by pizza parlours and slot machines. Sand dunes that had taken centuries to build were wiped out in two hours.
In reading this book, I learned a healthy respect for storms. The worst one I've ever experienced was on the Turks & Caicos, and I hid under my cottage bed (as though that would save me). It wasn't even a tropical storm, so I can only imagine the terror in facing the most devastating storm to hit Rhode Island. The author outlines the storm from its inception, showing how close it came to bearing down on Florida before it decided to turn north. We get introduced to families and parents and drivers and children and lighthouse keepers, who don't survive. Actress Katherine Hepburn was in her house, on the water, when it hit, and she and her family lost everything.
While we might think of hurricanes as more wind-centric, the devastation was in the waves. Similar to tsunamis, the storm generated massive waves that continued to smash, one right after the other. Think about that...a tsumani can be huge, but it also tells you it's coming and requires time between each of the waves to hit, usually in just three main waves. In the 1938 Hurricane, the waves were enormous and came by the hundreds. Even if someone was a strong swimmer, they simply didn't stand a chance. There's a stunning picture in the book which shows Napatree, Rhode Island the day before the storm, full of large beach homes. The next picture shows it the following morning. It's just sand.
God keeps one for every three he returns. It is an old belief.
For me, this was very close to being a five-star book, simply because of the subject matter. It's well-researched with plentiful interviews of the survivors. But I deducted one star because I had to go back and find the characters when they were first introduced, as they appear and then suddenly leave the story, then re-appear. Also, I wish there was one central map section, as I got lost trying to find the different ones throughout the book. I am not really familiar with the New England area, so it would have been helpful to have it all in one place.
The book subject has stayed with me. It reminded me that we should not take anything for granted or presume we can outwit Mother Nature. We can build all we want on barrier islands, but the sea will always take it back, along with any life living on those sands.
A young boy survived the storm, which overwhelmed his school bus. A strong swimmer as a child, he managed to conquer the water. A few years later, on his last day of WWII service, he celebrated by swimming off the shore of Saipan, where an undertow took him. The sea always takes back what it should have kept.
Book Season = Autumn (I don't really trust September)
February 9, 2021
Bravo to R.A. Scotti.
Sudden Sea is an engaging, thrilling and honest record of the Category 5 hurricane that slammed into New England in September of 1938. Hardest hit was Rhode Island where 433 residents died (most from the storm surge) and where the author Scotti later grew up.
Scotti has written numerous fiction books, she did a great deal of research on New England hurricanes and it is clear she knows how to weave a story. The editing in this book is also quite good. At 244 pages the book is a fast read.
The early chapters cover the storm as it formed in the Azores, worked its way to Florida alarming meteoroligists and made a right turn up the coast. Once the hurricane veered away to the north and provided sighs of relief to Florida residents, the books covers the failure of the meteorologists in the mid Atlantic states to issue proper hurricane warnings as the hurricane made its way north. The speed of the hurricane was unheard of as it moved 600 miles from off the coast of Florida to Rhode Island in only 12 hours which explains some of the failure of notification. The other explanation is that the last hurricane of any note to hit New England was more than a 100 years earlier and the only real deadly one had occurred way back in the 17th century.
When the hurricane hit Long Island and an hour later hit Rhode island, no one was prepared. There are vignettes of many people in the earliest hours watching their summer homes wash away including Catherine Hepburn. Entire beach communities were wiped out.
As the hours progressed, the flooding and storm surges took substantial numbers of lives. Now floating in the water, residents held on to driftwood and parts of their now destroyed homes to avoid drowning. Many watched as loved ones disappeared into the froth of the surging ocean.
The story mostly follows the stories of the residents of Beavertail Island and Jamestown Island in the Narragansett Bay, these were the areas demolished by the hurricane. The story of the children on the school bus trapped in the storm surge was quite emotional. One of those wait, what just happend to those kids moments.
Beyond the human fatalities, there were numerous wilderness areas along the coast that were forever stripped of trees and farms destroyed. Most of the cottages along the beaches that were not made of stone or anchored to stone foundations were wiped away. Hundreds of thousands of surivors were displaced as the storm barreled inland through Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. More than half of Vermont's sugar maple trees were said to have been lost. It was, in short, one mother of a storm and the fourth deadliest hurricane on record until Katrina.
Closing out the story there was the scene of the 19 people who took shelter in the Napatree Fort on the peninsula jutting out into Long Island Sound. Only four of the nineteen clammers huddled there survived. Lilian and Jack, two of the survivors, married one year after the hurricane. Their son later said "If they could weather the 'thirty-eight hurricane together, they believed they could go through anything."
Despite the fact that so many lost their lives, oddly enough I did not find this book depressing. Rather I think it was a real heart felt homage to those who lost their lives and to those survivors who had to experience the loss of loved ones, some of whom they were holding on to when the storm surge swallowed them up.
Here are some other excellent history books on American natural disasters that I can highly recommend, although due to the gravity and weight of the subject matter I would not suggest reading all in a row:
Isaac's Storm - Erik Larson's book about the 1900 Galveston Hurricane
The Johnstown Flood - David McCullough's book on the 1889 flood
Hemingway's Hurricane - Phil Scott's book about the 1935 hurricane in the Florida Keys
The Big Burn - Timothy Egan's book about the 1910 Fire in Idaho and Montana
Under a Flaming Sky - Daniel James Brown's book about Minnesota fire of 1894
Five Days at Memorial - Sheri Fink's book about Hurricane Katrina in 2013
Sudden Sea was the most personal of these seven great reads for me. Maybe it was the recency and the Anglo-Saxon-Protestant backgrounds of all those who died that especially resonated with me. The vignettes stand out in this book and many of the younger survivors were still alive in 2003 and some interviewed when the book was written. Most of the other books, with the exception of Five Days at Memorial, covered events from long ago where there weren't any survivors still alive at the time of publication.
5 Stars.
Sudden Sea is an engaging, thrilling and honest record of the Category 5 hurricane that slammed into New England in September of 1938. Hardest hit was Rhode Island where 433 residents died (most from the storm surge) and where the author Scotti later grew up.
Scotti has written numerous fiction books, she did a great deal of research on New England hurricanes and it is clear she knows how to weave a story. The editing in this book is also quite good. At 244 pages the book is a fast read.
The early chapters cover the storm as it formed in the Azores, worked its way to Florida alarming meteoroligists and made a right turn up the coast. Once the hurricane veered away to the north and provided sighs of relief to Florida residents, the books covers the failure of the meteorologists in the mid Atlantic states to issue proper hurricane warnings as the hurricane made its way north. The speed of the hurricane was unheard of as it moved 600 miles from off the coast of Florida to Rhode Island in only 12 hours which explains some of the failure of notification. The other explanation is that the last hurricane of any note to hit New England was more than a 100 years earlier and the only real deadly one had occurred way back in the 17th century.
When the hurricane hit Long Island and an hour later hit Rhode island, no one was prepared. There are vignettes of many people in the earliest hours watching their summer homes wash away including Catherine Hepburn. Entire beach communities were wiped out.
As the hours progressed, the flooding and storm surges took substantial numbers of lives. Now floating in the water, residents held on to driftwood and parts of their now destroyed homes to avoid drowning. Many watched as loved ones disappeared into the froth of the surging ocean.
The story mostly follows the stories of the residents of Beavertail Island and Jamestown Island in the Narragansett Bay, these were the areas demolished by the hurricane. The story of the children on the school bus trapped in the storm surge was quite emotional. One of those wait, what just happend to those kids moments.
Beyond the human fatalities, there were numerous wilderness areas along the coast that were forever stripped of trees and farms destroyed. Most of the cottages along the beaches that were not made of stone or anchored to stone foundations were wiped away. Hundreds of thousands of surivors were displaced as the storm barreled inland through Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. More than half of Vermont's sugar maple trees were said to have been lost. It was, in short, one mother of a storm and the fourth deadliest hurricane on record until Katrina.
Closing out the story there was the scene of the 19 people who took shelter in the Napatree Fort on the peninsula jutting out into Long Island Sound. Only four of the nineteen clammers huddled there survived. Lilian and Jack, two of the survivors, married one year after the hurricane. Their son later said "If they could weather the 'thirty-eight hurricane together, they believed they could go through anything."
Despite the fact that so many lost their lives, oddly enough I did not find this book depressing. Rather I think it was a real heart felt homage to those who lost their lives and to those survivors who had to experience the loss of loved ones, some of whom they were holding on to when the storm surge swallowed them up.
Here are some other excellent history books on American natural disasters that I can highly recommend, although due to the gravity and weight of the subject matter I would not suggest reading all in a row:
Isaac's Storm - Erik Larson's book about the 1900 Galveston Hurricane
The Johnstown Flood - David McCullough's book on the 1889 flood
Hemingway's Hurricane - Phil Scott's book about the 1935 hurricane in the Florida Keys
The Big Burn - Timothy Egan's book about the 1910 Fire in Idaho and Montana
Under a Flaming Sky - Daniel James Brown's book about Minnesota fire of 1894
Five Days at Memorial - Sheri Fink's book about Hurricane Katrina in 2013
Sudden Sea was the most personal of these seven great reads for me. Maybe it was the recency and the Anglo-Saxon-Protestant backgrounds of all those who died that especially resonated with me. The vignettes stand out in this book and many of the younger survivors were still alive in 2003 and some interviewed when the book was written. Most of the other books, with the exception of Five Days at Memorial, covered events from long ago where there weren't any survivors still alive at the time of publication.
5 Stars.
June 22, 2025
The 1938 Great New England Hurricane was a monster for a variety of reasons. First, it was a Category 5 which is the highest classification in the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale. Second, it targeted New England mostly which is not an area accustomed to strong hurricanes. Third, meteorologists still didn’t have a great handle on forecasting (still don’t, I kid, I kid). Finally, when it made landfall, it did so at high tide which made the storm surge that much worse.
What did it result in? 682 deaths and $306 million in damages. In today’s money, it would have been about $5.1 billion in damages.
Sudden Sea by R.A. Scotti is a mixture of compelling (and heartbreaking) stories. Scotti focuses on specific people and places to drive home the overwhelming might of the storm. The time leading up to the storm showcases just how completely unprepared many people were for a storm of that magnitude. This book is simply a well-done case of a disaster story which is neither gratuitous or so high level to lose the humanity of the narrative. I highly recommend it.
What did it result in? 682 deaths and $306 million in damages. In today’s money, it would have been about $5.1 billion in damages.
Sudden Sea by R.A. Scotti is a mixture of compelling (and heartbreaking) stories. Scotti focuses on specific people and places to drive home the overwhelming might of the storm. The time leading up to the storm showcases just how completely unprepared many people were for a storm of that magnitude. This book is simply a well-done case of a disaster story which is neither gratuitous or so high level to lose the humanity of the narrative. I highly recommend it.
October 20, 2018
Sudden Sea by R.A. Scotti
If you live near the sea, you WILL experience storms, and most likely a hurricane. As I’m sure you know, hurricane Michael, a category 4, devastated parts of the Florida Panhandle, and the after affects of hurricane Florence are still making the lives of thousands of families and businesses miserable.
The author tells the story of the 1938, cat 5 storm, also titled a 100 year storm, which devastated most of the Long Island coast, Manhatten, most of the state of Rhode Island and parts of Massachusetts. It happened on September 21, within hours of what started as a bright sunny day without warning. It originally was mapped to hit Florida and alerts went out, but it veered out to sea, and no other mention of a hurricane was broadcast to the northeast. It became the worst Natural disaster that has happened in United States history, more than the San Francisco earthquake and the Chicago fire.
I recently stayed at my NC beach home during hurricanes Florence and Michael. After reading this account of the 1938 storm, I will not “ride out” another hurricane.
R.A. Scotti gives the reader first hand accounts, having done his research well. The technology for tracking storms back then was nowhere near what it is today, which made his job so much more difficult. Nor was the National Weather Service much of an entity, and there was no NOAA. It is a factual and scary read.
Highly recommended.
If you live near the sea, you WILL experience storms, and most likely a hurricane. As I’m sure you know, hurricane Michael, a category 4, devastated parts of the Florida Panhandle, and the after affects of hurricane Florence are still making the lives of thousands of families and businesses miserable.
The author tells the story of the 1938, cat 5 storm, also titled a 100 year storm, which devastated most of the Long Island coast, Manhatten, most of the state of Rhode Island and parts of Massachusetts. It happened on September 21, within hours of what started as a bright sunny day without warning. It originally was mapped to hit Florida and alerts went out, but it veered out to sea, and no other mention of a hurricane was broadcast to the northeast. It became the worst Natural disaster that has happened in United States history, more than the San Francisco earthquake and the Chicago fire.
I recently stayed at my NC beach home during hurricanes Florence and Michael. After reading this account of the 1938 storm, I will not “ride out” another hurricane.
R.A. Scotti gives the reader first hand accounts, having done his research well. The technology for tracking storms back then was nowhere near what it is today, which made his job so much more difficult. Nor was the National Weather Service much of an entity, and there was no NOAA. It is a factual and scary read.
Highly recommended.
January 26, 2019
On September 21, 1938, southern New England prepared for a glorious late-summer day. Summer had been hot, muggy and stormy, but this day promised a wonderful respite of lowered humidity, brilliant sun and flat sea. Until, that is, a freak Category 5 hurricane (poorly forecast and under-reported) that was supposed to head harmlessly out to sea after missing Florida instead took a fast track up the Atlantic coast, savaged Central Long Island and barreled right into Narragansett Bay. In just a couple of hours, it whipped away scores of summer homes, beach clubs, restaurants and other aspects of the leisurely life and left several hundred Rhode Islanders dead or missing. As late as mid-afternoon the glorious day was still in full swing; but by suppertime any pretense of normality or historical permanence had been swept away. The pleasure of a well-heeled summer life was "gone with the wind" -- and with water that flattened everything a dozen miles or more inland.
The late R.A. Scotti has given us a very enlightening and fast-paced account of what happened that day, to numerous breakdowns in government forecasting and local news media to what families were forced to improvise to keep themselves, their servants and children out of the maelstrom and fighting for life. She wrote this book vividly and well, with lovely touches like white-capped bay water that was "foamy as ale poured out too fast."
In fact, this book is so intensely readable that I was tempted to rate it five stars. Unfortunately, though, a couple of errors took some of the fun out of it for me. The author states on page 47 of this book that one of the measures humankind had tried to weaken a hurricane over the years included "detonating a nuclear device within the eye of the storm" -- this is simply untrue. There was some speculation by Americans working for the government's "Project Plowshares" (peaceful use of the atom) in the early 1960's that it might be a possibility, but it never happened any more than atom bombs were used to carve out another trans-Isthmus canal in Central America. (For reasons why it was a dumb idea from the git-go, check out National Geographic magazine's November, 2016 article, "Nuking Hurricanes: The Surprising History of a Really Bad Idea.")
A more minor error, but one that shows a tremendous ignorance toward American popular culture or at least nonexistent copy editing, comes on page 115 when the author refers to one beachfront family's car, a "Cadillac La Salle." There was never such a vehicle: La Salle was a division of General Motors designed to fill a price gap between the comfortable Buick line and the luxurious Cadillac. To refer to a "Cadillac La Salle" makes no more sense than speaking of a "Lincoln Ford" or a "Lexus Toyota" as though they were distinct car models rather than separate car lines.
Sadly, author R.A. Scotti died in 2010, or perhaps she'd have lived to have any such errors ironed out of future editions. I still recommend this book heartily, but keep a (no pun intended) weather eye out for factual bloopers of this kind.
FROM THE BOOK:
From Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938 by R.A. Scotti.
Photo: A 1934 La Salle automobile:
The late R.A. Scotti has given us a very enlightening and fast-paced account of what happened that day, to numerous breakdowns in government forecasting and local news media to what families were forced to improvise to keep themselves, their servants and children out of the maelstrom and fighting for life. She wrote this book vividly and well, with lovely touches like white-capped bay water that was "foamy as ale poured out too fast."
In fact, this book is so intensely readable that I was tempted to rate it five stars. Unfortunately, though, a couple of errors took some of the fun out of it for me. The author states on page 47 of this book that one of the measures humankind had tried to weaken a hurricane over the years included "detonating a nuclear device within the eye of the storm" -- this is simply untrue. There was some speculation by Americans working for the government's "Project Plowshares" (peaceful use of the atom) in the early 1960's that it might be a possibility, but it never happened any more than atom bombs were used to carve out another trans-Isthmus canal in Central America. (For reasons why it was a dumb idea from the git-go, check out National Geographic magazine's November, 2016 article, "Nuking Hurricanes: The Surprising History of a Really Bad Idea.")
A more minor error, but one that shows a tremendous ignorance toward American popular culture or at least nonexistent copy editing, comes on page 115 when the author refers to one beachfront family's car, a "Cadillac La Salle." There was never such a vehicle: La Salle was a division of General Motors designed to fill a price gap between the comfortable Buick line and the luxurious Cadillac. To refer to a "Cadillac La Salle" makes no more sense than speaking of a "Lincoln Ford" or a "Lexus Toyota" as though they were distinct car models rather than separate car lines.
Sadly, author R.A. Scotti died in 2010, or perhaps she'd have lived to have any such errors ironed out of future editions. I still recommend this book heartily, but keep a (no pun intended) weather eye out for factual bloopers of this kind.
FROM THE BOOK:
"As swift and sure as a Joe Louis punch, the hurricane darted up the Atlantic Coast at fifty, sixty and seventy miles an hour, faster than most cars could travel in 1938. No hurricane had ever raced as fast. It arrived unannounced. It struck without warning, and it showed no mercy. Entire beach communities that seemed secure at lunchtime were wiped off the map by supper.”
From Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938 by R.A. Scotti.
Photo: A 1934 La Salle automobile:
December 10, 2012
Growing up in Connecticut, I never thought about hurricane threats until August of 1976 when I was newly married and mother of an eight-month-old baby. Even though we lived 50 miles inland I remember listening to the weather report with great alarm, taping our windows and battening down the hatches, and waiting for the arrival of Hurricane Belle. She turned out to be a non-event.
Nine years later, in September of 1985, Hurricane Gloria arrived. By then we were living in a shoreline town, so we decided to evacuate inland to stay with my parents. On our way up we stopped to pick up my aunt who lived in a mobile home. Our children were bubbling over with excitement until my aunt reprimanded them saying, “You think this is funny? You have no idea what a dangerous thing a hurricane is!” She went on to describe the horror of living through the hurricane of 1938, when she was a young 24 year-old mother.
My father was 17 years-old, walking home from school, about 25 miles inland, when The Great Hurricane of 1938 struck Connecticut suddenly and with no warning. Hurricane Sandy and the destruction her storm surge caused to our city beach impressed me, living here a mile away from the water. But when we showed our pictures to my dad, who is now 90, he shrugged and said it was nothing compared to the devastation left by the 1938 storm.
That's when I decided to learn more about The Great Hurricane he and my aunt survived, and that is what led me to find this book. It was compelling and heartbreaking reading so many frightening stories told by some of the people who lived through it. I get it now – my aunt's reaction and my father's as well. I could scarcely put the book down until I was finished and am grateful to R. A. Scotti for helping me to get a much better picture of that horrific, sudden storm. Her writing certainly made that historic event come alive for me.
Nine years later, in September of 1985, Hurricane Gloria arrived. By then we were living in a shoreline town, so we decided to evacuate inland to stay with my parents. On our way up we stopped to pick up my aunt who lived in a mobile home. Our children were bubbling over with excitement until my aunt reprimanded them saying, “You think this is funny? You have no idea what a dangerous thing a hurricane is!” She went on to describe the horror of living through the hurricane of 1938, when she was a young 24 year-old mother.
My father was 17 years-old, walking home from school, about 25 miles inland, when The Great Hurricane of 1938 struck Connecticut suddenly and with no warning. Hurricane Sandy and the destruction her storm surge caused to our city beach impressed me, living here a mile away from the water. But when we showed our pictures to my dad, who is now 90, he shrugged and said it was nothing compared to the devastation left by the 1938 storm.
That's when I decided to learn more about The Great Hurricane he and my aunt survived, and that is what led me to find this book. It was compelling and heartbreaking reading so many frightening stories told by some of the people who lived through it. I get it now – my aunt's reaction and my father's as well. I could scarcely put the book down until I was finished and am grateful to R. A. Scotti for helping me to get a much better picture of that horrific, sudden storm. Her writing certainly made that historic event come alive for me.
October 11, 2023
A horrifying read. Again, not good timing for me. I live thirty miles from Galveston and hurricane season has just begun. Very hard for me to read.
I've heard all my life about the storm of 1900 that devastated Galveston, but I've never heard anything about this storm. It was the only category five hurricane to hit the mainland of the United States.
The book is well written, with stories from the storm you'd never believe if they were sold as fiction. The photographs were powerful and shocking.
Reading this book made me want to put my house up for sale.
I've heard all my life about the storm of 1900 that devastated Galveston, but I've never heard anything about this storm. It was the only category five hurricane to hit the mainland of the United States.
The book is well written, with stories from the storm you'd never believe if they were sold as fiction. The photographs were powerful and shocking.
Reading this book made me want to put my house up for sale.
December 29, 2020
A great read! This one is firmly near the top of my favorite nonfiction books of all time.
I wrote a review on my blog: https://chriswolak.com/2020/10/10/sud...
I wrote a review on my blog: https://chriswolak.com/2020/10/10/sud...
August 6, 2016
For Rhode Islanders this is probably as close to must-read as it gets. The author was a Rhode Islander and made great efforts to give it a strong RI flavor. RI took the brunt of the hurricane and suffered the greatest loss in lives and property damage so that seems about right.
Setting my RI roots aside I thought the book was good and at times very good but overall not better than a solid 3. If I could give partial stars I'd rate it somewhere between 3.25 and 3.5.
The opening chapters are very good and reminded me of Sebastian Junger's digressive style of providing just enough scientific information to lift the story.
Here's an example from chapter 3:
"For a hurricane to form, the sea must be at least two hundred feet deep and the water surface more than 26 degrees Celsius or about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. The cloud cluster must be close to the equator, but not too close. Five degrees north or south of the equatorial line and there's not enough planetary spin to create a cyclone. Thirty degrees north or south and there isn't enough humidity in the air to fuel the storm."
Unfortunately she went a little berserk with bad metaphors like this one from chapter 5:
"In the first furious squall, the sea hissed like a thousand snakes."
When the storm hits, the resulting destruction reads like those classic Irwin Allen disaster films of the 1970s - over-the-top and a bit unreal. It seemed at times like the author was writing more for effect than to tell the story. The accompanying pictures do, however, support the narrative.
The book does regain its strong footing with some very good final chapters about the aftermath of the hurricane.
Setting my RI roots aside I thought the book was good and at times very good but overall not better than a solid 3. If I could give partial stars I'd rate it somewhere between 3.25 and 3.5.
The opening chapters are very good and reminded me of Sebastian Junger's digressive style of providing just enough scientific information to lift the story.
Here's an example from chapter 3:
"For a hurricane to form, the sea must be at least two hundred feet deep and the water surface more than 26 degrees Celsius or about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. The cloud cluster must be close to the equator, but not too close. Five degrees north or south of the equatorial line and there's not enough planetary spin to create a cyclone. Thirty degrees north or south and there isn't enough humidity in the air to fuel the storm."
Unfortunately she went a little berserk with bad metaphors like this one from chapter 5:
"In the first furious squall, the sea hissed like a thousand snakes."
When the storm hits, the resulting destruction reads like those classic Irwin Allen disaster films of the 1970s - over-the-top and a bit unreal. It seemed at times like the author was writing more for effect than to tell the story. The accompanying pictures do, however, support the narrative.
The book does regain its strong footing with some very good final chapters about the aftermath of the hurricane.
September 2, 2018
It has been a year since Hurricane Irma hit Florida, and when I think back on it I still get chills remembering the dread I felt as the storm headed my way. We were fortunate, extremely fortunate, considering that just 24 hours before the storm hit, the Tampa area where I live was right in the bullseye of the projected path and forecasters predicted it might still be at CAT-4 strength when it hit.
I remember trying to sound calm and reassure out of state family members who were calling, but in all honesty, I was scared. And the reason I was scared is because we were trapped, and that is not a comforting feeling when a monster is heading your way and there is nothing you can do but hunker down and hope for the best. Callers were saying "Get out. Evacuate". But what they didn't understand was that, as Mother Nature so often does, she dealt us a hand that was unexpected and unlike anything forecasters had ever experienced in handling a hurricane. It was one of those "perfect storms" that sound like a cliche unless you are someone who has experienced one.
I won't get into details about Irma, but I wanted to emphasize the point of being trapped because it came to mind while I was reading of the New Englanders experience with the Hurricane of 38.
I'm always having friendly debates with family and friends in California where I grew up about what is worse; earthquakes or hurricanes (being a native Californian, I have experienced my share of earthquakes, so I've been on both sides of the fence). They've asked me how I could live in Florida with all the hurricanes coming our way, and I always counter with saying that earthquakes are worse because you can't see them coming, but you can always see a hurricane coming. Well, I have to give them the nod, this time, because even though we saw Irma coming, because of the way she came, we had nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
I know there are people who would say you should have just evacuated when you knew it was going to hit you. But it wasn't that simple. Because it was a given that the hurricane was going to make land-fall somewhere between Miami and The Keys, as early as a week or more before the storm, masses of people from south Florida began to evacuate, and they only had one way to go; north. Cars began to stall in the mad rush, vehicles ran out of fuel, and before you knew it, the roads out of town were blocked. So, now here comes Irma, her cross-hairs are right over Tampa, and guess what we are hearing on broadcast TV? Find shelter, go to an emergency shelter if needed, go to high ground, and whatever you do, DO NOT TRY TO GET OUT ON THE ROADS. We were warned that there was a high probability that we would be trapped on the road if we tried to get out and that because of the storm surge that was predicted there was a real danger of drowning. (by the way, to give you a better visual, I live on a peninsula where I have The Gulf of Mexico on one side and Tampa Bay on the other. I am surrounded by water) So, a few family members who lived too close to the beach came to my house and the Wife and I boarded up the windows and pulled everything into the house and garage that could be sent sailing through the air. We sat, watching the storm on TV as long as we could, knowing that the power would be going out (and it did). Was I scared? Hell yeah. There's nothing like sitting in the dark and hearing the wind, muffled because of the boarded windows but still sounding like a freight train at times, and hearing shit bang against your house.
Well, even though I was worried, hoping the big trees around the house wouldn't come down, hoping the roof would stay on, I actually received a little relief before the power went out. As the storm hit The Keys and started northward, it shifted slightly toward the east and it was also dying down faster than predicted. The storm still hit us but because it wasn't a direct hit we were only in the CAT1 range. There was minimal damage to my property; tree limbs, fence, roof shingles, but the biggest thing is that no one was hurt.
Hurricane Irma devastated most of the Florida Keys and much of South Florida. And there was loss of life. I was fortunate, I didn't nearly suffer as much as those Floridians and those in the Hurricane of 38, but I know the feeling of realizing that something is coming at me and not being able to do a damn thing about it but grit my teeth and be prepared to hold on for dear life. I know the feeling of being trapped.
Remembering that feeling was what kept coming back to me when I read this account. Those folks were trapped. It happened in a different way and for different reasons but they were trapped nevertheless. Unfortunately, that was an era when they did not have the warning systems, the tracking systems, that we now have. The folks there were trapped by the unexpected. Reminiscent of the tsunami's in 2004 and 2011, the storm surge from the 1938 hurricane hit New England so fast that without warning, the ocean rose up like a tidal wave, and before onlookers could climb stairs or jump in cars to flee, they were washed away and many drowned. Houses were picked up off their foundations and carried away or completely demolished. Babies were ripped from their mothers arms, and the wind and currents were so fierce that most of the survivors were either nude or partially nude in the aftermath. There was one account where parents came to pick up children where a school bus dropped them off and as they watched, a wave rose up and washed the children away.
There had been warnings in Florida and the Carolinas, but because of primitive technology and lack of experience, all the professional forecasters assumed the storm would turn east and die out as they always did. As with Irma and many other of Mother Natures surprises, the 38 monster continued on course and slammed into New England. Because of no warning, by the time anyone realized what was hitting them, they were trapped. The death toll for the 38 Hurricane was over 600 people and it is considered one of the top ten worst hurricanes in US history.
Obviously, this book had more meaning for someone like myself who has experienced a hurricane, and for an outside reader I will say it still has some heart wrenching moments and gives a thorough description of the forecasting system that was in place at that time. The introduction to some of the people involved and some of the victims was a little slow at times but overall this was an informative and powerful book.
And last but not least... I'll still take the hurricanes over the earthquakes.
July 27, 2016
I know that we are in an "instant gratification/I want it NOW" world. I don't know if that contributed to me being bored the first half of the book or not. There was just too much build up of information before the hurricane finally hit. I almost felt bad that I was like "Come on, let's get to the hurricane already!" After I read the book, I almost cried. It really touched me that certain people passed away. The build up of meeting the people in the beginning, learning about their lives, and continuing up until they perished, was very emotional for me. Particularly, the children. Now, I am not contradicting myself that I didn't like the buildup of information, but I liked the buildup of characters. That was two different things for me. I did not like the technical aspect of the hurricane. I was hoping more for the emotional/human aspect of the story. I was finally given it, and I was glad that I stuck with it. I don't know how to give it 3 1/2 stars, so I am giving it a 4 for the children.
May 30, 2019
I did not learn about this catastrophe until we became regular visitors to Rhode Island, where the storm is more remembered by locals because so many people from there died. It was given to me to read after I had mentioned Erik Larsen's Isaac's Storm (about the Galveston Hurricane of 1900).
What both incidents had in common was the element of complete surprise because weather forecasting in 1938 was not much better than it was in 1900, especially as politics and ego got in the way. Both storms "broke all the rules" in that they did not veer into the Atlantic like all the others did. The only guy who got it right in 1938 was dismissed as an upstart because, unlike all the more senior "experts," he predicted that the unusually hot summer in New England combined with a "Bermuda High" (a weather pattern which would prevent the classic curve east into the Atlantic) would pull the storm straight up the East Coast.
Thus, most of those killed were locals who took advantage of the last nice beach weather after the tourist season ended (and a train traveling between New Haven and Stonington, CT also got swept into the sea). For anyone who hesitated even a moment, there was simply no escape and people were either tossed by the immense storm surge to a safe landing (sometimes many miles away), or they drowned. This storm seemed to pack more punch than anything before or since (Katrina might be the only exception), because it hit so many densely populated areas and flattened everything in its path. While it caused havoc and high winds in New York City, it totally devastated Long Island, Westerly, Providence/Newport, and Buzzards Bay, Massachussetts before veering inland to destroy entire forests in Vermont and New Hampshire.
Reading it certainly felt like a white knuckle ride, not only because you don't know who will survive, but also because I am familiar with many of the locations like Watch Hill and Westerly. You have to wonder about people today who continue to build houses on breaker islands made of sand.
What both incidents had in common was the element of complete surprise because weather forecasting in 1938 was not much better than it was in 1900, especially as politics and ego got in the way. Both storms "broke all the rules" in that they did not veer into the Atlantic like all the others did. The only guy who got it right in 1938 was dismissed as an upstart because, unlike all the more senior "experts," he predicted that the unusually hot summer in New England combined with a "Bermuda High" (a weather pattern which would prevent the classic curve east into the Atlantic) would pull the storm straight up the East Coast.
Thus, most of those killed were locals who took advantage of the last nice beach weather after the tourist season ended (and a train traveling between New Haven and Stonington, CT also got swept into the sea). For anyone who hesitated even a moment, there was simply no escape and people were either tossed by the immense storm surge to a safe landing (sometimes many miles away), or they drowned. This storm seemed to pack more punch than anything before or since (Katrina might be the only exception), because it hit so many densely populated areas and flattened everything in its path. While it caused havoc and high winds in New York City, it totally devastated Long Island, Westerly, Providence/Newport, and Buzzards Bay, Massachussetts before veering inland to destroy entire forests in Vermont and New Hampshire.
Reading it certainly felt like a white knuckle ride, not only because you don't know who will survive, but also because I am familiar with many of the locations like Watch Hill and Westerly. You have to wonder about people today who continue to build houses on breaker islands made of sand.
May 31, 2022
4.5 stars Probably not the best beach read, but if you like good narrative nonfiction, this book is fascinating. It reminded me of “The Perfect Storm”
July 9, 2019
The second best book about an historically devastating hurricane I've read this year. "Isaac's Storm" was better written but "Sudden Sea" took place in an area I know better so it had more of a personal impact. For fans of extreme weather and the history of New England.
April 18, 2024
4.5 stars. Meticulously researched. Well written in narrative style.
Documents the 1938 hurricaine which unexpectedly hit northeast - destructive, heaviest devastation in Rhode Island. Author was able to describe technical aspects, celebrity moments, and area history - all compellingly.
Documents the 1938 hurricaine which unexpectedly hit northeast - destructive, heaviest devastation in Rhode Island. Author was able to describe technical aspects, celebrity moments, and area history - all compellingly.
May 30, 2013
I was completely impressed by this detailed and gripping story of the famous but little known about hurricane (outside of NE, that is) that hit on the eve of the Great Depression..No one saw it coming except a few because it was thought New England was too far north to get hurricanes...Images such a Jamestown school bus full of children being sweep away only to have an 11 yr old boy survivor die 7 years latter during a WW2 battle will never leave me...His little sister's dying words of "Dont get wet!" are especially heart rending...Then there is the brave Rhode Island family who had a summer home on Pinegret Point, directly in the path of the storm who climbed the top of their house only to be tossed into the adjacent pond which saved them from being sweep out to sea....One little daughter stoically asks her mother if they will drown and the mother says "No, but you may need to swim".....Providence RI experienced over 15 feet of water downtown and many inland towns like Worcester MA 40 miles way were not spared the wrath of the storm, as flood waters and high winds peaking at high tide created a wide swath of devastation...Actress Katherine Hepburn was completely unaware of the pending storm and took a long swim in the ocean only hours before the hurricane hit her CT coastal summer home...An absorbing read for weather buffs and lovers of NE history..
May 4, 2013
I had never heard of this hurricane before and, being from the Northeast, I was curious about this. Much of the book was interesting, and I did like the various stories. The organization, however, did not always seem the greatest; I wasn't always sure what the logic was, and I sometimes forgot who the people were the author was referring to because of the skipping around. There were also parts that were redundant or boring, especially in the first quarter of the book. Scotti gets into the science aspect to some extent, but not enough to provide an in-depth understanding. For this idea of the hubris of man and the ignorance of hurricanes, Erik Larson's Isaac's Storm is far superior. He also does a much better job of covering specific stories. One of the things that confuses me about Scotti's book is that she refers to this as being the most devastating U.S. hurricane, yet the 1900 Galveston hurricane resulted in far more deaths, and, I believe, remains the worst natural disaster in this country. This book is worth reading to learn about a little known hurricane, but don't expect it to be riveting.
December 12, 2019
Not quite as good as 'Isaac's Storm,' but still excellent.
August 1, 2009
This was great. A lot of science was thrown in here. I found out more about hurricanes than I probably ever wanted to know.
Many personal stories in here. I had previously seen a PBS documentary on the storm. And it told in detail the story of the Moores and their wild ride on the roof of their house ... after it came loose from the house. It is a terrifying story. You don't usually think of hurricanes in Rhode Island or even Long Island.
There is one horrendous story after another. My kind of book. I adore a good disaster book. Especially if it is non-fiction. It REALLY happened! People really survived this.
It is this storm that made people start checking the weather before they leave the house in the morning.
Many personal stories in here. I had previously seen a PBS documentary on the storm. And it told in detail the story of the Moores and their wild ride on the roof of their house ... after it came loose from the house. It is a terrifying story. You don't usually think of hurricanes in Rhode Island or even Long Island.
There is one horrendous story after another. My kind of book. I adore a good disaster book. Especially if it is non-fiction. It REALLY happened! People really survived this.
It is this storm that made people start checking the weather before they leave the house in the morning.
July 1, 2013
Oooh, this was "Can't-put-it-down. Kids,-just-leave-me-ALONE" book. I had heard about the hurricane of 1938 and had even seen the PBS documentary years ago (I'm going watch it again). I read A Hundred Summers recently. That book ends with the Hurricane of 1938; so my interest was piqued. This book was written before Sandy and the author's remarks about a similar storm hitting the northeast are prescient.
December 5, 2011
This is the type of non-fiction book that makes me want to read more fiction. It seemed to me it was mostly a recitation of facts, with little narrative to pull the reader in. I thought it was boring, and gave up halfway through. I have "Rising Tide" on my To Read list, and hope that will be more engrossing.
May 31, 2020
Peril of Ignoring Nature’s Wrath
Weather forecasting was primitive in 1938, and not much better by 1954 when my wife as a toddler and her family on holiday on a coastal strip of sand in Old Lyme, Conn., narrowly escaped injury from a hurricane that year. Even in 1954 there was no radio nor a telephone in their rental cottage and nothing to indicate a beautiful day was about to turn dangerous.
Weather forecasting and communication with residents in the path of a storm has vastly improved since then, but such advances are to some extent offset by population density, building in shoreline susceptible to hurricanes, and to the power and frequency of hurricanes themselves.
This book written in 2003 addresses the imprecision of hurricane weather forecasting. The hurricane of 1938 took an unusual path, defying predictions that such hurricanes as they pass up the East Coast take a right turn and move out to sea as they move north. It is also an indictment of bureaucracies, in this case the weather service, where the concerns of a young, junior meteorologist were ignored by those in a more senior position. Timely warnings were never given.
Largely, however, this is a collection of anecdotes based on the recollections of those who survived the storm. Katherine Hepburn and her family narrowly escaped to higher ground only to see their family home washed away. Survivors recalled seeing people in boats too far from shore to reach safety or clinging to the debris of a destroyed house, never to be seen again.
Author R.A Scotti examines one of the more controversial incidents which continued to be debated for years — the fate of children on a school bus. Did the driver display poor judgement and once in trouble could he have done more to save them? What about a bystander whose warnings were drowned out by the wind but who might himself have saved children had he been willing to risk his own life?
I am a resident of Connecticut and this was a selection of our book club which includes members in their 80s. Some had lived through the hurricane of 1938 and one even had photos of himself posed in front of his family’s coastal property “before and after”. Many of us were familiar with the geography of communities in the book. For example, if one visits downtown Providence, R.I., today, it doesn’t take great imagination to visualize the effect of a tidal wave being pushed up Narragansett Bay and rising 14 feet into the narrow confines of the city streets.
Scotti’s stories likely will resonate less with those who live elsewhere. That’s because the book is a random collection of disaster scenarios from a time that seems, based on the author’s style, to be long ago and quaint. For better or for worse, Scotti might have written in the same vein about the sinking of the Titanic, but her narrative doesn’t match the best of disaster chronicles. And just as ocean crossings seem part of a different era, so too does the Hurricane of 1938 as described here.
Not explored in a book written before such climate issues became so much a part of public debate: What zoning and other measures are necessary at a time of rising oceans and warming seas? Government, in the form of weather forecasting and communications, failed in 1938. The potential loss of life today may be much greater, due to failure to have realistic policies about coastal development including relocation of populations in the most vulnerable settings. Demand for change is more likely to arise from contemporary natural disasters than from lessons learned in an event that occurred 82 years ago.
Weather forecasting was primitive in 1938, and not much better by 1954 when my wife as a toddler and her family on holiday on a coastal strip of sand in Old Lyme, Conn., narrowly escaped injury from a hurricane that year. Even in 1954 there was no radio nor a telephone in their rental cottage and nothing to indicate a beautiful day was about to turn dangerous.
Weather forecasting and communication with residents in the path of a storm has vastly improved since then, but such advances are to some extent offset by population density, building in shoreline susceptible to hurricanes, and to the power and frequency of hurricanes themselves.
This book written in 2003 addresses the imprecision of hurricane weather forecasting. The hurricane of 1938 took an unusual path, defying predictions that such hurricanes as they pass up the East Coast take a right turn and move out to sea as they move north. It is also an indictment of bureaucracies, in this case the weather service, where the concerns of a young, junior meteorologist were ignored by those in a more senior position. Timely warnings were never given.
Largely, however, this is a collection of anecdotes based on the recollections of those who survived the storm. Katherine Hepburn and her family narrowly escaped to higher ground only to see their family home washed away. Survivors recalled seeing people in boats too far from shore to reach safety or clinging to the debris of a destroyed house, never to be seen again.
Author R.A Scotti examines one of the more controversial incidents which continued to be debated for years — the fate of children on a school bus. Did the driver display poor judgement and once in trouble could he have done more to save them? What about a bystander whose warnings were drowned out by the wind but who might himself have saved children had he been willing to risk his own life?
I am a resident of Connecticut and this was a selection of our book club which includes members in their 80s. Some had lived through the hurricane of 1938 and one even had photos of himself posed in front of his family’s coastal property “before and after”. Many of us were familiar with the geography of communities in the book. For example, if one visits downtown Providence, R.I., today, it doesn’t take great imagination to visualize the effect of a tidal wave being pushed up Narragansett Bay and rising 14 feet into the narrow confines of the city streets.
Scotti’s stories likely will resonate less with those who live elsewhere. That’s because the book is a random collection of disaster scenarios from a time that seems, based on the author’s style, to be long ago and quaint. For better or for worse, Scotti might have written in the same vein about the sinking of the Titanic, but her narrative doesn’t match the best of disaster chronicles. And just as ocean crossings seem part of a different era, so too does the Hurricane of 1938 as described here.
Not explored in a book written before such climate issues became so much a part of public debate: What zoning and other measures are necessary at a time of rising oceans and warming seas? Government, in the form of weather forecasting and communications, failed in 1938. The potential loss of life today may be much greater, due to failure to have realistic policies about coastal development including relocation of populations in the most vulnerable settings. Demand for change is more likely to arise from contemporary natural disasters than from lessons learned in an event that occurred 82 years ago.
July 15, 2025
As a New England Native (okay I was born in Jersey but in CT by the time I was 3) I will admit I knew very little about the hurricane of 1938 other than it was a surprise and a monster and took out a good portion of the infrastructure in Old Saybrook. So from this perspective,Sudden Sea made the human toll much more real to me. The narrative follows several families and communities up and down the NE coast through the storm focusing predominantly on the Hamptons and Rhode Island. With only general familiarity with these areas, I found it hard to follow at first since specific areas of the Narragansett Bay Area were reference, but the map came in handy. I also needed to follow a map for the changes in LI.
The part that was very hard to follow was the jumping around from family and location and trying to remember what I had last read about them, where they were located, how many family members etc. reference back (memory jogs) would have been helpful when returning to each area or family over the timeline of the storm.
I struggled with the writers format and with some glaring inaccuracies that made me consider was this historical fiction, a narrative, a documentary?
For example referring to New London CT:
“Crackling power lines and furious winds turned the downtown district into an inferno. The city burned for the second time in its history. (The first fire was set by Benedict Arnold to halt the British advance.)”. Arnold was a British Officer and burned the wharfs to stop goods, colonial ships and privateers from accessing New London. He was not trying to stop the British. Unfortunately the fire spread and a good portion of New London was burned.
“She could spend the perfect beach day with her husband and daughter at their home on Thimble Island, just off the coast of New London. Mrs. Lewis would not win the election. Her cottage was washed out to sea, and she and her husband drowned.” Thimble Island is off the coast of Branford 42 miles south of New London.
There were also incorrect references about the protection of Connecticut by Long Island.
It was a decent read although at time frustrating, but I guess that comes with writing a book about a killer storm affecting such a large portion of the NE.
The part that was very hard to follow was the jumping around from family and location and trying to remember what I had last read about them, where they were located, how many family members etc. reference back (memory jogs) would have been helpful when returning to each area or family over the timeline of the storm.
I struggled with the writers format and with some glaring inaccuracies that made me consider was this historical fiction, a narrative, a documentary?
For example referring to New London CT:
“Crackling power lines and furious winds turned the downtown district into an inferno. The city burned for the second time in its history. (The first fire was set by Benedict Arnold to halt the British advance.)”. Arnold was a British Officer and burned the wharfs to stop goods, colonial ships and privateers from accessing New London. He was not trying to stop the British. Unfortunately the fire spread and a good portion of New London was burned.
“She could spend the perfect beach day with her husband and daughter at their home on Thimble Island, just off the coast of New London. Mrs. Lewis would not win the election. Her cottage was washed out to sea, and she and her husband drowned.” Thimble Island is off the coast of Branford 42 miles south of New London.
There were also incorrect references about the protection of Connecticut by Long Island.
It was a decent read although at time frustrating, but I guess that comes with writing a book about a killer storm affecting such a large portion of the NE.
September 25, 2023
I was inspired to read this after completing “A Hundred Summers” by Beatriz Williams. It included a storyline about a young couple who were at a remote beach one day in September 1938, when the mother of all hurricanes came in with almost no warning. They survived by riding it out in an abandoned fort at the end of what is basically a sandbar off the coast of Rhode Island. Reading that part of the story, I was in a bit of disbelief. It just didn’t seem plausible. Then I read the author’s notes and was intrigued to find out that it was based on a true story!
In her author’s notes, Williams recommended “Sudden Sea” for more background on what really happened to this young couple and thousands of others who were ambushed by the great New England hurricane of 1938.
This was one amazing storm. Due to forecasting errors and the general lack of technology that we enjoy today, people simply had no idea that this monster was barreling at them at 60 mph -- yes -- 60 mph, the fastest forward speed of any hurricane in recorded history. The results were stunning. There is anecdote after anecdote of people going about their business -- mowing their lawns, riding school buses, going to weddings and birthday parties on what started out as a perfectly normal Wednesday -- and suddenly finding themselves in the midst of a Category 3, possibly Category 4 hurricane. One gust was recorded at 186 mph. A tsunami-like storm surge up to 30 feet high soon followed. Entire communities were scrubbed bare. Homes, hotels, businesses were simply lifted up by the sea and crushed or pushed miles inland by the wall of water.
My reading progress was slowed because I couldn't resist continually putting the book down to go to Google for further details on some of the survivors’ stories. In particular I was taken by the re-telling of what happened at Napatree Point, a narrow stretch of sandbar where 39 cottages and their families were washed away.
I was mesmerized by this story and recommend it if you are interested in a look back at a defining moment in New England history.
In her author’s notes, Williams recommended “Sudden Sea” for more background on what really happened to this young couple and thousands of others who were ambushed by the great New England hurricane of 1938.
This was one amazing storm. Due to forecasting errors and the general lack of technology that we enjoy today, people simply had no idea that this monster was barreling at them at 60 mph -- yes -- 60 mph, the fastest forward speed of any hurricane in recorded history. The results were stunning. There is anecdote after anecdote of people going about their business -- mowing their lawns, riding school buses, going to weddings and birthday parties on what started out as a perfectly normal Wednesday -- and suddenly finding themselves in the midst of a Category 3, possibly Category 4 hurricane. One gust was recorded at 186 mph. A tsunami-like storm surge up to 30 feet high soon followed. Entire communities were scrubbed bare. Homes, hotels, businesses were simply lifted up by the sea and crushed or pushed miles inland by the wall of water.
My reading progress was slowed because I couldn't resist continually putting the book down to go to Google for further details on some of the survivors’ stories. In particular I was taken by the re-telling of what happened at Napatree Point, a narrow stretch of sandbar where 39 cottages and their families were washed away.
I was mesmerized by this story and recommend it if you are interested in a look back at a defining moment in New England history.
May 4, 2020
VERY INTERESTING AND INFORMATIVE.
“A one-hundred-year storm is one of the most misunderstood terms in meterology. It refers to a hurricane that in a given year has a 1 percent probability of striking a particular stretch of land. Although this may sound unlikely, the Great Hurricane of 1938 was such a storm. It was the most destructive natural disaster in U.S. history — worse than the San Francisco earthquake, the Chicago fire, or any Mississippi flood.” (Kindle Location 1,081)
I spent my first eight years, in the 1940s, growing up in southeastern Massachusetts on the border with Rhode Island, within 20 miles 0f Providence, Newport, and Narraganset Bay—places prominently mentioned in R. A. Scotti’s excellent book, Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938, as receiving incredible devastation in the great hurricane of 1938. I’d always thought oft hurricanes as a common happening in that area; and was quite surprised to read: “Hurricane was a foreign word in New England. People didn’t know how to pronounce it. They didn’t know what it meant, and whatever it meant, they were sure it couldn’t happen to them, until September 21, 1938.” (Kindle Location 282) It seems the last major hurricane in the area had been way back in 1815.
Recommendation: Highly recommended, especially for anyone who has read and enjoyed Eric Larson’s book, Isaac’s Storm.”
“The Great Hurricane of 1938 was the worst weather disaster New England has ever experienced and the fourth-deadliest storm in U.S. history. In the number of lives lost, the amount of property damaged, and the breadth of the devastation, no other natural disaster in America’s history came even close. Besides almost seven hundred lives, the hurricane claimed a centuries-old way of life.” (Kindle Location 2,635)
Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition. 3,322 Kindle Locations. 277 pages.
“A one-hundred-year storm is one of the most misunderstood terms in meterology. It refers to a hurricane that in a given year has a 1 percent probability of striking a particular stretch of land. Although this may sound unlikely, the Great Hurricane of 1938 was such a storm. It was the most destructive natural disaster in U.S. history — worse than the San Francisco earthquake, the Chicago fire, or any Mississippi flood.” (Kindle Location 1,081)
I spent my first eight years, in the 1940s, growing up in southeastern Massachusetts on the border with Rhode Island, within 20 miles 0f Providence, Newport, and Narraganset Bay—places prominently mentioned in R. A. Scotti’s excellent book, Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938, as receiving incredible devastation in the great hurricane of 1938. I’d always thought oft hurricanes as a common happening in that area; and was quite surprised to read: “Hurricane was a foreign word in New England. People didn’t know how to pronounce it. They didn’t know what it meant, and whatever it meant, they were sure it couldn’t happen to them, until September 21, 1938.” (Kindle Location 282) It seems the last major hurricane in the area had been way back in 1815.
Recommendation: Highly recommended, especially for anyone who has read and enjoyed Eric Larson’s book, Isaac’s Storm.”
“The Great Hurricane of 1938 was the worst weather disaster New England has ever experienced and the fourth-deadliest storm in U.S. history. In the number of lives lost, the amount of property damaged, and the breadth of the devastation, no other natural disaster in America’s history came even close. Besides almost seven hundred lives, the hurricane claimed a centuries-old way of life.” (Kindle Location 2,635)
Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition. 3,322 Kindle Locations. 277 pages.
September 13, 2023
The Great Hurricane of 1938 hit New England on September 21, 1938. There is some dispute about whether it was a Category 4 or 5, but the damage and lives lost make that distinction a bit irrelevant, in my opinion. There were between 600-800 fatalities, as some bodies were never recovered or were unable to be identified properly. Entire communities vanished in just a few hours. The details of the storm surge in this book were absolutely terrifying.
This book was a fairly short read, at just over 300 pages. The author did a terrific amount of research on weather and this particular event. I have to admit that one of my favorite parts of this book was a poem included about clothes being stolen by the gale force winds and a child's misery over his lost pants. The author did a good job on focusing on people and what happened to them without being excessively grim or insensitive, as can happen sometimes when discussing natural disasters. This was one of the better disaster books I have read in some time.
This book was a fairly short read, at just over 300 pages. The author did a terrific amount of research on weather and this particular event. I have to admit that one of my favorite parts of this book was a poem included about clothes being stolen by the gale force winds and a child's misery over his lost pants. The author did a good job on focusing on people and what happened to them without being excessively grim or insensitive, as can happen sometimes when discussing natural disasters. This was one of the better disaster books I have read in some time.
July 22, 2024
Storms and hurricanes routinely thrash at our sensitive coastal lands, but the violent impact of the legendary 1938 “surprisie” hurricane on our RI community will never be forgotten. Vestiges of the wreckage remain in the landscape and in family histories along the coast. I especially remember the story (not in the book) of a family friend who was a young girl at the time. After the rising waters at Napatree beach forced Joy Lee up into her attic, she spotted a garage door floating outside the window. She grabbed her little dog, and together they rafted across the river to safety in Connecticut!
January 19, 2026
I really liked the format of the book, how the more scientific side of the hurricane was at the beginning and then we got more into individual experiences and stories later in the book. I do think there could have been more scientific aspects about the hurricane I would have been interested in that. But I think the way it was written made you feel more for the tragedy it was.
October 21, 2025
This was a well-researched and well-written book about the worst hurricane to ever hit New England. The writer uses a number of first-person accounts to illustrate the power of the storm. She also uses facts and figures to give context and a frame to the stories.
September 3, 2023
I could not put it down. What an unnecessary tragedy.
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