History Channel

[The Mom]

Did anyone else watch the History Channel's story about the Hurricane of 1938?

My mother was a teenager living in Warren, RI (a town on Narragansett Bay)when it hit. She told me many stories of the devastation, and when in downtown Providence I always stopped to look at the high water markers on The Outlet Department Store's wall (they were well over my head), but I never fully appreciated the incredible strength of this storm!

Wind gusts were clocked at 186 MPH AFTER it had travelled inland to the Boston suburbs; the sustained winds were 120 MPH. It travelled at 50-60 MPH up the coast. That means that if Ernesto, for example, was travelling at that rate, he could travel from Key West to Jacksonville in about 12 hours or less!

Then Hurricane Carol came along and hit in 1954 and did almost as much damage to RI. I was just a little girl, so I don't remember it very well. I only remember the kerosene lanterns.

I think the most heartening thing is that many people who survived 1938 (during The Great Depression) were able to rebuild and survive Carol. (During RI's "mini" depression)

It gives me hope for the tenacity of the human spirit.

 

[Nemo14]

Did anyone else watch the History Channel's story about the Hurricane of 1938?

My mother was a teenager living in Warren, RI (a town on Narragansett Bay)when it hit. She told me many stories of the devastation, and when in downtown Providence I always stopped to look at the high water markers on The Outlet Department Store's wall (they were well over my head), but I never fully appreciated the incredible strength of this storm!

Wind gusts were clocked at 186 MPH AFTER it had travelled inland to the Boston suburbs; the sustained winds were 120 MPH. It travelled at 50-60 MPH up the coast. That means that if Ernesto, for example, was travelling at that rate, he could travel from Key West to Jacksonville in about 12 hours or less!

Then Hurricane Carol came along and hit in 1954 and did almost as much damage to RI. I was just a little girl, so I don't remember it very well. I only remember the kerosene lanterns.

I think the most heartening thing is that many people who survived 1938 (during The Great Depression) were able to rebuild and survive Carol. (During RI's "mini" depression)

It gives me hope for the tenacity of the human spirit.

My mother also used to tell us about the hurricane of 1938, and one of my best friend's grandmother died in that storm. I vividly remember Hurricane Carol, and Hurricane Diane the following year, although I was quite young then. The biggest reason for the devastation then was that they didn't have the means to track hurricanes back then, so people were not prepared for them.

We're long overdue for a big one up here in RI, and yet people continually build right on the coast, and think that preparing for the possibility of a hurricane means going to Stop 'n Shop and buying bread and milk!

 

[The Mom]

Except that even if they HAD good tracking, the storm travelled from Jacksonville to RI in less than 24 hours! They might have been able to save some lives (schools could have either been closed, or students not sent out into the storm, and the same with factories and businesses) , but I fear that many still would have been lost. Nothing would have prevented the flooding and destruction.

 

[Wilt Dasney]

50-60 MPH??

So if you were doing the speed limit on I-95 (today), you'd barely be able to outrun the thing!

That's just freaky.

 

[The Mom]

50-60 MPH??

So if you were doing the speed limit on I-95 (today), you'd barely be able to outrun the thing!

That's just freaky.

Exactly! When Floyd was heading our way, our neighbors decided to join the people who were evacuating (even though we are not in an evacuation zone). They headed for relatives in Tifton, GA, about 120 miles away. It took them 15 hours in traffic. Even using today's technology, there would be no way for people on the coast to outrun a storm moving that quickly.

And even had people been warned, so few of them had transportation, phones, etc. These were people who were poor (at least the majority) before the storm hit (The Depression) with no financial resources. Only the wealthy had cars, phones, or even radios. TV didn't really exist. They were less able to withstand a storm than even the poorest in New Orleans. So even had they had warning, they wouldn't have been able to adequately prepare.

People living in the beaches are now told to only plan on getting away from the beach, not completely out of the storm's path. We have a few "beach buddies" who will be heading to our house. :lol:

I agree with Nemo; too many people have built in areas that were destroyed, and don't seem to believe that it could ever happen again. How many people now wait until a warning is issued before purchasing even the minimum? How many people have an emergency plan? How many stock the essentials to survive not only hurricanes, but blizzards, thunderstorms, or any other event that might knock out power for a few days, or more?

Which reminds me, time to nag The Daughter about HER emergency supplies. :lol:

 

[Nemo14]

I don't know if you still lived up here during the blizzard of '78, but that should have been a wake-up call to people here. I was stranded for a week, but at least I was at a friend's house who happened to have heat (a fireplace) and I always keep an emergency bag in my car with a change of clothes and a few necessities. Others didn't have it so easy. Yet the knee-jerk reaction here whenever a storm is forecast is that everyone buys milk and bread and thinks they're all set! It's only a matter of time before we get hit again - either with a blizzard or a hurricane, and so few people will be prepared. You'll see them on the 6 o'clock news!

 

[The Mom]

I don't know if you still lived up here during the blizzard of '78, but that should have been a wake-up call to people here. I was stranded for a week, but at least I was at a friend's house who happened to have heat (a fireplace) and I always keep an emergency bag in my car with a change of clothes and a few necessities. Others didn't have it so easy. Yet the knee-jerk reaction here whenever a storm is forecast is that everyone buys milk and bread and thinks they're all set! It's only a matter of time before we get hit again - either with a blizzard or a hurricane, and so few people will be prepared. You'll see them on the 6 o'clock news!

Actually, I was.

Do you remember the ice storm that hit a few weeks before? We were stuck eating Omaha steaks every day(we had gotten a box from my in-laws), and used what few canned vegatables I had in the cupboard. I went out and IMMEDIATELY stocked the cupboards, and also made sure we had firewood!

My husband was stuck at the hospital for a couple of days, and finally walked home. I was due to go into work when the blizzard started (night shift) but by that time the roads were impassable. It was a light snow when I went to bed, and a blizzard when I awoke.

I also started keeping an emergency blanket, water, and an empty container in my car, as my SIL was stuck on the I-95 bridge for hours.

So I weathered the blizzard of 78 quite well, although I was lonely.

There's along story that has become family lore about the crazy lady who arrived, and was escorted away by the police (on a snowmobile) while my husband was obliviously soaking in the tub after his walk home. :lol:

 

[Nemo14]

Actually the ice storms were the reason that I kept an emergency bag in my car. I was living in Foster (home of "No School Foster-Glocester") and teaching in Warwick. My friends convinced me that I was crazy to try to make it home during storms like that, so I just kept my bag packed just in case. I'll never forget it though - thank heaven I had friends nearby!