Note: Salem meteorologist Arthur Francis was 10 years old and living in Malden when the hurricane struck in 1938. At the peak of the storm, two huge elm trees crashed into his home and the house next door, breaking the water main in the street and cutting off the water for three days. Three windows on the south side of his home were blown in. It was this event that spurred Francis' interest in weather and provided the incentive to become a meteorologist. At 80 years old, Francis still teaches part time at Salem State College.
The great New England Hurricane made Sept. 21 a date never to be forgotten in New England.
The devastation from that catastrophic storm has not been equaled since that infamous day when the churning tropical hurricane zeroed into the heart of unsuspecting New England. It was the first major hurricane to strike New England since 1869.
Fortunately, the North Shore was spared the most severe elements of the storm. Even so, there were extremely high tides and coastal flooding, especially along south-facing shores from Winthrop, Nahant and Marblehead north to Gloucester. Waves as high as 50 feet were observed on Cape Ann. Rainfall over coastal Massachusetts was actually much less than expected for a storm of this intensity.
In Salem, commuter traffic by train and bus was stalled during peak rush hours. The last train from Boston to Salem took eight hours to complete the journey. A railroad bridge over the Pines River on the Revere-Saugus line was the prime cause of the railroad stoppages. Thousands of commuters were stranded in Boston.
Driving conditions were extraordinarily dangerous due to fallen trees and debris everywhere. Many streets were impassable.
Trees down, yachts damaged
Some roofs were blown off. Salem Willows and Winter Island were especially hard-hit. The Coast Guard Air Station hangar roof was torn off, and their wind measuring instruments became inoperative.
Electricity was out in Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody and Salem, to name just a few communities.
The wind played havoc in Marblehead, where hundreds of trees, including 50 ancient elms, were brought down. In Marblehead Harbor, many yachts were still in their summer moorings and were severely damaged. Some were dashed upon the shore and some completely destroyed.
Although the vicious wind and gusts of this storm were exceptionally strong, it was the unprecedented high tides and flooding that caused most of the damage and loss of life. Even without the hurricane, tides were abnormally high on that day since it was a time of the astronomical tides. These very high tides occur when the sun and the moon are in line with Earth and the moon is relatively close to Earth.
Making matters worse, the high tide occurred just after the storm made landfall. The tides, combined with the high winds and forward movement of the hurricane, resulted in extraordinary destruction.
Forecasting failure
One of the biggest factors in the loss of life — in all, 700 were killed as the storm swept through the Northeast — was that people were unprepared. They simply were not warned of the impending disaster.
Today, we have vastly improved technology in the observation and forecasting of these terrifying storms. But in 1938, there were no weather satellites, weather buoys or radar. The U.S. Weather Bureau knew there was a storm out over the Atlantic, and it was a big one. At 7:30 on the morning of the 21st, it was fairly well pinpointed east of Norfolk, Va.
Unfortunately, its destructive potential for New England was not realized at the time, since forecasters predicted it would recurve northeastward, out to sea.
Instead, the storm suddenly began to accelerate due north. Its forward speed increased to 60 miles per hour, then 70 — an unheard-of forward speed for a hurricane. Until that time, hurricanes were not thought to be capable of such rapid forward movement.
Winds of full hurricane force battered the unprotected shoreline from Long Island to southern Massachusetts. The storm surge raced toward shore and swept people, sometimes entire families and their homes, into the sea. Many topographical features along our sandy shores were drastically changed by the sea's relentless fury. The impact of the millions of tons of sea water as it reached the shore was so intense that it actually was recorded on the earthquake seismograph at Fordham University in New York.
For the most part, peak wind speeds were recorded as lower than they really were, because much of the wind-measuring equipment was blown away from the supporting masts. The highest winds (actually measured and recorded by wind instruments) were practically in our own backyard. The Blue Hill Observatory in Milton recorded steady wind of 121 miles per hour for five minutes, with gusts to 186 miles per hour. This was probably the highest actual (not estimated) wind speed ever observed near sea level in our region during the passage of a hurricane.
Petering out
The center of the storm reached Long Island, N.Y., at 3 p.m., and by 5 p.m. was racing across southwestern Massachusetts. The tropical giant died after reaching southern Vermont, since there was no more energy available from the warm ocean to refuel it. Gradually, it dissipated as it entered Quebec around midnight, ending the reign of terror that it had spawned.
After the storm, utility crews from all over the eastern United States came to New England to answer the plea for help to return power and telephone service. This took many days and nights, in some cases weeks. Nevertheless, the restoration was much quicker and more efficient than some of the efforts of today.
THE 1938 NEW ENGLAND HURRICANE
Peak winds: 121 miles per hour
Peak recorded gust: 186 miles per hour, at Blue Hill Observatory, Milton
Lowest pressure: 27.94 inches in Bellport, N.Y.
Storm surge: 17 feet over usual high tide (Category IV) in Point Judith, R.I.
Wave heights: 50 feet in Gloucester
