Review of Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938 by R.A. Scott
Rating ***
I’m a fan of weather disaster stories — tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts, snowstorms, etc. That’s what drew me to this book. I like the ordinary‑people‑caught‑in‑extraordinary‑circumstances vibe, and I enjoy reading about life in the not‑too‑distant past. This book has those qualities but lacks one crucial factor: focus. The 1938 hurricane killed almost 800 people and displaced thousands. Rather than concentrate on a few individuals and follow their experiences in depth, the author seems determined to include every harrowing story she encountered. As a result, I never got the chance to experience the event from an individual perspective. It becomes one anecdote after another, with the only cohesive thread being that some survived and some did not. That’s not to say the book has nothing to offer — it’s still an interesting story.
I found the before‑and‑after sections of the book the most compelling. As the author points out toward the end, this disaster took place between two world‑altering events: the Great Depression and WWII. And despite my criticism about the lack of focus, there are a few people she follows throughout, like the school bus driver and his load of children, and the novice weather forecaster who correctly predicted the tragedy but not in time for his warnings to make a difference.
I enjoyed the section about Howard Hughes and Katharine Hepburn, but once Hughes departs on his around‑the‑world flight, Hepburn largely fades from the narrative — even though she personally endured the 1938 hurricane at her family’s beach house in Fenwick before escaping as it began to break apart.
Among the anecdotes that caught my attention was one about a woman who rode out the storm on top of her piano, and another about a woman who offered two boys $50 if they would rescue her dog on the beach. The two boys did not survive. Another story that stood out involved a man who desperately tried to reach his family in New England after traveling from New York. His train was forced to stop when the tracks ahead were washed out. He switched to an automobile, but his drive ended when the road to his family’s home simply no longer existed. Houses along the shoreline had been obliterated. But as he walked the beach in despair, his family appeared — along with several neighbors who had survived by sheltering in one of the few homes sturdy enough to withstand the hurricane. I think that story is the one I would have focused on.
It was a time when there were no satellite images and no monitoring devices at sea, just information radioed in from ships. And despite the billions in losses, only 5% of the structures destroyed had insurance. The hurricane was so devastating that it reshaped parts of the northeastern coastline. No hurricane since has matched the 1938 storm’s speed, surprise, or level of destruction in New England.