Today In Weather History - And I Was There

[SEAZSky]

TODAY IN WEATHER HISTORY – SEPT. 21, 1938 -The "Long Island Express";

New England's greatest hurricane on record,
slammed into Long Island at a forward speed in excess
of 60 mph. The pressure at Bellport on Long Island dropped to
27.94 inches, the lowest pressure ever recorded in the
northeastern U.S. Blue Hill Observatory in Milton,
Massachusetts had 121 mph sustained winds with a peak gust of
186 mph. A massive storm surge with waves 30 to 40 feet high
caused extreme devastation on the Long Island, Rhode Island and
southeast Massachusetts coastlines. Providence, Rhode Island
was inundated with a record 13.75 foot storm surge. 600 people
were killed and total damage was 387 million dollars.

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AND – I WAS THERE…….

I was 7 years old in the Bronx, New York City, and at about 3 pm local
time, I was walking home from grade school – 3 blocks to my home
apartment (no school busses in those days).

The wind and rain were so intense that I had to walk along the school
yard chain-link fence – holding on to it to help me walk against the wind
towards my apartment. The storm raged for about 4 hours in my area,
before abating to less severe conditions, but the rain continued for another
3 hours. Since there were no trees in my neighborhood, I didn’t see any
vegetative damage, or notice any structural damage.

Today is the 70th anniversary of this event.

Stan - 77 years young

[Shoshana]

Wow. That's pretty cool reading a first hand account! Thank you.

Isn't interesting to look back at stuff like that and when you are that little how big an impact it made on you? I wasn't there (my parents would have been but really too little to remember) but I've been thru other events growing up that I really remember - and it's mostly weather events - tornado outbreaks, ice storms, blizzards, record breaking heat waves, an 80 mph downdraft and a big blackout.

I'm actually pretty happy I've never been through a hurricane or tropical storm.