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Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938 | 
 enlarge | Author: R.a. Scotti
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $9.81
You Save: $5.14 (34%)
New (7) Used (10) from $6.24
Avg. Customer Rating:  53 reviews
Sales Rank: 573311
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.3 x 1
ISBN: 0895862085
Dewey Decimal Number: 973
EAN: 9780895862082
ASIN: B000Y8ZKB2
Publication Date: August 24, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
It was the Perfect Storm. But instead of raging far out in the Atlantic, the Great Hurricane of 1938 left a wake of death and destruction across seven states. It battered J. P. Morgan's Long Island estate, wiped out beach communities from Watch Hill to Newport, flooded the Connecticut Valley, and flattened Vermont's prized maples.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 ferocity that seismographs in Alaska picked up the impact. Winds, clocked at 186 mph, stripped cars of their paint. Walls of water 50 feet high swept homes and entire families out to sea. Sandwiched between the Great Depression and World War II, the storm had a profound impact upon a generation. 'The day of the biggest wind has just passed,' the newswires read the next day, 'and a great part of the most picturesque America, as old as the Pilgrims, has gone beyond recall or replacement.' Drawing upon newspaper accounts, the personal testimony of survivors, forecasters, and archival footage, SUDDEN SEA recounts that terrifying day in gripping detail. Scotti describes the unlikely alignment of meteorological conditions that conspired to bring a tropical cyclone to the Northeast. A masterful storyteller, Scotti follows the trajectory of that awful wind-and recovers for posterity the lost stories of those whose lives, families, and communities were destroyed by the Hurricane of 1938.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 48 more reviews...
 Sudden Storm June 8, 2008
If you enjoyed "The Perfect Storm", you'll love this book! It combines the chronological events of the 1938 Hurricane with personal stories of those who endured it. It had special meaning to me, having been born in Rhode Island, and both my parents - before they had even met - were trapped in buildings in Providence by the storm surge. I had heard all the local stories growing up, but this book took the storm from its beginning off Florida to its end in Maine.
The Worst Northeast Hurricane February 25, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
In 1938, the most powerful hurricane to ever strike the Northeast of the US hit Long Island and New England. The hurricane was completely unpredicted and the death toll reflects that fact. There were 682 dead and 1,754 injured. Every state in New England other than Maine had deaths but no state suffered like Rhode Island with 433 killed. Barrier beaches on Long Island and Rhode Island were swept clean of houses with the only survivors being those who had fled at the first sign of the storm or those who rode the roof of a broken building to the mainland.
R.A. Scotti has captured the feel for the day by letting us meet some of the people who experienced the hurricane and hearing about that day from them. She starts by introducing us to some of the children who live on the island of Jamestown, Rhode Island and some of the residents of Napatree, a barrier beach right in the path of the hurricane. The author then shifts our focus, bringing us into a discussion of the incredibly powerful hurricane and the men whose job it is to track it. And as their failures come into focus, as the hurricane is lost by the Weather Service but is still aimed at Long Island, the author brings us back to the people who will be the first to experience this beast.
This is the best part of the book. Her descriptions of how the hurricane changed the geography of the places it struck, how it changed the economy of the area, and mostly how it effected the people are all well captured. By showing us through the eyes of a few witnesses, the author gives us more than just a glimpse into that terrible day. The horror of the storm is shown through the deaths of so many adults and children. Scotti's writing is good - journalistic - if not poetic. The pictures are well chosen to help tell the story. The pictures and maps of Napatree, for example, before and after the storm shows a beach crowded with homes turned into a vacant sand dune. The maps show a barrier beach moved, breached, and destroyed.
The end result is a well written book that tells an interesting story without piling on too much detail. At about 250 pages, the book is long enough to tell the story but not so long as to fill the book with more that the story required. If you are interested in the history of weather or the history of Long Island or southern New England, then I can easily recommend this book.
unbelievable chaos February 13, 2008
Hurricanes and their results have always fascinated me. This book really tells the story of people that were unfortunate enough to be there when this horrific storm struck.
Shocking December 28, 2007
This is a very well written tale of a natural disaster that is not often discussed. Like the 1919 Flu Epidemic, the survivors seemed to bury the memories. This book resurrects the memories and, at the same time, gives an excellent technical account of the hurricane. As a reader you can't help but compare the 1938 hurricane to Katrina and conclude that, considering the 55 years of advances in forecasting, communications, and travel, the Katrina response was much worse than you first thought.
 More problem "facts" December 14, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I generally liked the book. However, I think it is badly scarred by sloppy fact checking, poor geography and proof reading. In addition the the faulty "facts" mentioned in other reviews, page 229 states that "Ferryboats took a beating, too. From Bridgehampton (land locked should be Bridgeport, CT.) to Port Jefferson is a short hop - just twelve miles (this too is obviously incorrect) between the two Long Island towns." Page #240 Mastic(k) Beach, Long Island is spelled incorrectly. All of these problems were anoying because they forced the reader to interupt their train of thought to figure out the actual facts. The ommission of any mention the 1900 Galveston Hurricane with a loss of life of 8,000 was also glaring to me . I have lived in "The Hamptons" for thirty-five years and it is apparent from reading this book that the local politicians have been neglegent in preparing for future Hurricanes or natural disasters.(While dithering about worrying about the Man Made Global Warming Hoax.) Insignificant sea level rise taking centuries to occur (if at all) compared with those experienced in minutes in '38. There is only one road in and out of here, even with today's advanced communications / forecasting, an orderly/timely evacuation would be impossible, particularly given the excessive number of Manhattan "drivers". Too bad, this could have been a great book.
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