Sudden Sea (27 page)

The hurricane reaches the South County coast of Rhode Island.
NOAA Photo Library

Stunned Long Islanders survey what remained of Westhampton Beach.

The Shinnecock Inlet on Long Island’s South Shore did not exist until the
1938
hurricane breached the barrier island.
Beach Erosion Board Archives

Westhampton Beach lost
153
houses, and like this beachfront mansion, most of those remaining were shells.
Courtesy of Gretchen Greene Royce

Patricia Driver, one of the children at the Greenes’ Westhampton Beach party

The Greenes’ home, beaten but still standing
Courtesy of Gretchen Greene Royce

Some houses—like this one in Stonington—were simply upended.
Hurricane Collection of George H. Utter, Westerly, R.I.

Katharine Hepburn played her best game of golf, shooting a hole in one on the ninth hole of the Fenwick golf course, the morning of the hurricane.

Somewhere between Mystic and Stonington, the storm derailed the
Bostonian,
the
11
a.m.
Shore Line Limited, from New York to Boston.
© 1938 Southern New England Telephone Company. All rights reserved.

The
10,000
-ton lighthouse tender
Tulip
interrupted train service on the New York, New Haven & Hartford line— and that was the least of New London’s woes.
both Courtesy of www.railroadextra.com

Wind, water, and fire devasted the city’s waterfront.
© 1938 Southern New England Telephone Company. All rights reserved.

Car roofs looked like stepping-stones in the swirling water that turned downtown Providence, R.I., into a lake, seventeen feet at its deepest point.

Fort Road, Napatree, as seen from Watch Hill. (The Watch Hill Beach Club is in the forefront, the Geoffrey Moore house is the big, light-colored one toward the point.)
Hurricane Collection of George H. Utter, Westerly, R.I.

Napatree from the same spot, a day later
Hurricane Collection of George H. Utter, Westerly, R.I.