The Great Hurricane of 1938

The Great Hurricane of 1938, or known to many as the Long Island Express, was known as one of the most disastrous hurricanes to hit New England. It wasn’t the high winds, heavy rain, and high waves/storm surge that gave this hurricane its title in history. The Great Hurricane had a fourth deadly weapon; the element of surprise. It was the beginning of September, a time where many packed up their summer clothes, boarded up their houses, and left to return back to the real world leaving their summer homes behind. When symptoms of a storm approached New England, many locals convinced themselves and others that it was just the normal “line storm” which occasionally comes in September. It wasn’t until Sept 21 that people realized the so-called impossible was actually happening and they weren’t prepared. The misinterpretation by the people and Weather Bureau’s naïve manager’s decisions cost many lives and losses in New England. In this essay I will argue that Washington’s Weather Bureau’s interpretation error gave the New England residents a false sense of security for the hurricane of 1938 by using three class readings and the book Sudden Sea by R.A. Scotti.

In the reading “Genesis” from the book Divine Wind I have learned that most storms need a trigger to develop into a hurricane. An example of a believed trigger is the atmospheric disturbances known as African easterly waves. They develop over the sub-Saharan Africa, thanks to the Sahara Desert’s heat, and move off the west coast. Most will keep traveling west and somewhat northward. The easterly waves may turn into hurricanes when, “especially in late summer and early fall, the amount of convection associated with a particular wave increases, and winds near the surface evolve f...

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...icane instead of sending out reports calling it a “tropical disturbance”.

It is understandable that they did not have the technology we have today. But Charles Pierce did calculate a theory that not only occurred once before; the Great September Gale of 1815, it was supported by obvious evidence pointing to the path of the hurricane. The carelessness of believing in experience rather than evidence, misleading storm update reports, and misinterpretations from the Weather Bureau gave New England residents and visitors a false sense of security about the true nature of the Great Hurricane of 1938. Although we have new and advanced technology for storm readings, we still cannot detect a hurricane before twenty-four hours notice. Hopefully, one day the warning time will lengthen so another disaster like the Long Island Express doesn’t repeat itself for the third time.