Thirty-Eight: The Hurricane That Transformed New England

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A groundbreaking account of the cataclysmic hurricane of 1938 and its devastating impact on New England’s inland forests 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.

Hardcover: 272 pages

Publisher: Yale University Press (March 22, 2016)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0300209517

ISBN-13: 978-0300209518

Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.2 x 8.3 inches

Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #194,349 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #63 in Books > Science & Math > Earth Sciences > Atmospheric Sciences #151 in Books > Science & Math > Earth Sciences > Natural Disasters #153 in Books > Science & Math > Earth Sciences > Rivers

“In five hours across a footprint of fifteen million acres, Thirty-Eight made Swiss cheese of the canopy. Knocking down thousands of entire stands and perforating the canopy in hundreds of thousands of small patches, it created more gaps in those five hours than might normally occur over the course of fifty years or ordinary disturbance.” -- page 64Over the years I have read a number of books about the 1938 Hurricane including “The Great Hurricane: 1938 by Cherie Burns and R.A. Scotti’s marvelous “Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938”. As I recall both of these titles focused largely on the havoc the storm wreaked along the southern New England coastline. Stephen Long is a founder and former editor of “Northern Woodlands” magazine. Long believes that a rather significant portion of this gut-wrenching story has never really been told. He has corrected this oversight with his eye-opening new book “Thirty-Eight: The Hurricane That Transformed New England”. The author devotes most of his book to the devastating effects this colossal storm had on portions of interior New England. You will see how these hearty Yankees coped individually and collectively with the difficult situation they faced. The reality was that for the overwhelming majority of these people life would never be the same again. Furthermore, Long spells out in considerable detail the ecological changes wrought by the storm that can still be observed today.When you take a look at the raw numbers they are positively mind-boggling. More than 1000 square miles of forest were destroyed in the storm which translates to roughly 2 billion trees. Furthermore, Long reports that trees were blown down in 904 townships across 51 counties in 6 states. It has been estimated that 2.

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