The Great Hurricane: 1938
by Cherie Burns
Buy the book: $18.86

With masterful storytelling skill, Burns follows the punishing path of the Great Hurricane of 1938, which hit the eastern seaboard, from Long Island to Connecticut and Rhode Island, in a seamless and suspenseful narrative, preserving for posterity the personal stories of survivors and the legend of the storm.

 

This is a sobering investigation into how disaster struck, and how, comparatively, things are vastly improved these days for those in the path of a hurricane. That was a surprise (for me) to hear! I appreciate the author's insights into the nature of memory and the obliteration PTSD over time, in the memories of those who lived through such an event.

About ten years ago, the American Experience series on PBS featured a gripping documentary on this hurricane, which captured some of what has changed since 1938, both for better and worse. I'm still haunted by the words (which I'm paraphrasing) of one survivor, now an elderly woman, recounting being trapped with her family in the top of her house as it washed into the ocean: "I knew I was going to die, and in those days, that meant going to heaven." In that instant, there was a flash of the ten-year-old she'd been. I've put a hold on this audiobook at my library.