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.

With masterful storytelling skill, Burns follows the punishing path of the Great Hurricane of 1938, which hit the eastern seaboard, from Long Island to Connecticut and Rhode Island, in a seamless and suspenseful narrative, preserving for posterity the personal stories of survivors and the legend of the storm.

Pictorial images of the devastation of New England's coast after a devastating hurricane in 1938.

The hurricane that pummeled the northeastern United States on September 21, 1938, was New England’s most damaging weather event ever. To call it “New England’s Katrina” might be to understate its power. Without warning, the storm plowed into Long Island and New England, killing hundreds of people and destroying roads, bridges, dams, and buildings that stood in its path. Not yet spent, the hurricane then raced inland, maintaining high winds into Vermont and New Hampshire and uprooting millions of acres of forest. This book is the first to investigate how the hurricane of ’38 transformed New England, bringing about social and ecological changes that can still be observed these many decades later. The hurricane’s impact was erratic—some swaths of forest were destroyed while others nearby remained unscathed; some stricken forests retain their prehurricane character, others have been transformed. Stephen Long explores these contradictions, drawing on survivors’ vivid memories of the storm and its aftermath and on his own familiarity with New England’s forests, where he discovers clues to the storm’s legacies even now. Thirty-Eight is a gripping story of a singularly destructive hurricane. It also provides important and insightful information on how best to prepare for the inevitable next great storm.

"On September 21, 1938 the great New England hurricane hit the shores of New York and New England unannounced. The most powerful storm of the century, it changed everything, from the landscape and its inhabitants' lives, to Red Cross and Weather Bureau protocols, to the amount of Great Depression Relief New Englanders would receive, and the resulting pace of regional economic recovery"--Provided by publisher.

More than 150 historical photographs, many taken by survivors of the storm, capture the devastating impact of the 1938 hurricane on the Hamptons area of Long Island. Original.

As the 1938 hurricane approaches Rhode Island, another storm brews in this New York Times bestselling beach read from the author of The Golden Hour and Husbands & Lovers. Lily Dane has returned to Seaview, Rhode Island, where her family has summered for generations. It’s an escape not only from New York’s social scene but from a heartbreak that still haunts her. Here, among the seaside community that has embraced her since childhood, she finds comfort in the familiar rituals of summer. But this summer is different. Budgie and Nick Greenwald—Lily’s former best friend and former fiancé—have arrived, too, and Seaview’s elite are abuzz. Under Budgie’s glamorous influence, Lily is seduced into a complicated web of renewed friendship and dangerous longing. As a cataclysmic hurricane churns north through the Atlantic, and uneasy secrets slowly reveal themselves, Lily and Nick must confront an emotional storm that will change their worlds forever... READERS GUIDE INCLUDED

A gripping description of New England's storm of the century.

A gripping chronicle of the most powerful hurricane to ever hit the United States and its devastating aftermath details the fiercest storm of September 1935 from the perspectives of survivors of the storm, Federal Emergency Relief Administration employees, and government officials. Reprint.

A bucolic resort setting -- the summer colony and locals are caught in the path of a sudden and devastating hurricane in this brilliant and prophetic fiction that is a warning of storms to come. “For those few who still remember, the images are seared into their brains: the corpses floating down Main Street; the boats that drifted into the living rooms of flooded houses; the dead dogs and featherless chickens; the muck and fish stink; the moonscape of flattened houses; the residue of the last great hurricane to hit Long Island, the storm of 1938. “ - The New York Times This is a story of that day – a day that began much like any other day at the ragtag end of the summer season on the eastern end of Long Island – better known as The Hamptons. The storm came without warning landing at three in the afternoon bringing with it unprecedented wind and rain and waves so high and powerful they were recorded on seismographs 5000 miles away in Alaska. But A DAY LIKE ANY OTHER is not just a hurricane novel. The storm is a framing device for an historical tableau vivant of this near mythical place – The Hamptons – brought to life via the stories of townspeople, the wealthy summer colony, the fishing folk and the art crowd. Written by a natural tale-spinner and masterful portraitist of character and place, it does have one wild, furious storm at its center – an historic tempest that wreaked havoc on the little towns and villages that line the ocean front of the South Fork of Long Island. Could it happen again? Yes - it will almost certainly happen again and no matter how many moguls build seaside monuments defying the odds, another hurricane like 1938 will surely be the deadliest in American history.