Sudden Sea : The Great Hurricane of 1938

by Scotti, R.A.

• ISBN13: 9780316739115
• ISBN10: 0316739111
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-09-03
• Publisher: Little Brown & Co

Summary

On September 21, 1938, the fastest hurricane on record caught the Northeast by surprise and left a wake of death and destruction across seven states. Traveling at record speeds, the storm raced up the Atlantic coast, reaching New York and New England ahead of hurricane warnings and striking with such intensity that seismographs in Alaska registered the impact. Winds clocked at 186 miles per hour stripped cars of their paint. Walls of water fifty feet high swept homes and entire families out to sea.

Author Biography

R. A. Scotti, a former journalist for the Providence Journal-Bulletin and Newark Star-Ledger, is the author of five novels. A native Rhode Islander, Scotti grew up hearing stories of 1938, including one of an aunt who returned from work at the phone company in a rowboat and another about her grandmother's best friend, who stepped out onto the porch of her house and was never seen again. She summers at Narragansett Pier, Weekapaug, and Jamestown and lives the rest of the year in New York City

Table of Contents

Prologue: Gone with the Wind	3	(4)
A Perfect Day	7	(18)
The Way It Was	25	(8)
A Shift in the Wind	33	(4)
Hurricane Watch	37	(14)
At Sea	51	(10)
All Aboard	61	(10)
A Bright Young Man	71	(12)
Upside Down, Inside Out	83	(4)
Battening the Hatches	87	(6)
A One-Hundred-Year Storm	93	(6)
How Do You Lose a Hurricane?	99	(6)
The Long Island Express	105	(14)
Crossing the Sound	119	(6)
The Atlantic Ocean Bound Out of Bed	125	(12)
The Dangerous Right Semicircle	137	(24)
Providence	161	(10)
The Tempest	171	(18)
Cast Adrift	189	(14)
All Quiet	203	(6)
The Reckoning	209	(16)
The Last of the Old New England Summers	225	(10)
Afterword	235	(4)
Appendix: A Nickel for Your Story	239	(6)
Author's Acknowledgments	245	(2)
Sources and Chapter Notes	247	(10)
Selected Bibliography	257	(8)
Index	265