One of the most powerful hurricanes to ever hit New England arrived on September 21, 1938. Several hundred people were killed and the storm caused widespread damage to buildings, roads, cars, utility poles, and forests. Hurricanes were not named at that time, but the 1938 storm would later be known as “The Long Island Express.” After slamming into the southern New England coast with sustained winds of 120 miles per hour, the eye of the storm traveled directly up the Connecticut River Valley, where the winds and rain caused tremendous damage.
Images from William Elliott Minsinger’s The 1938 Hurricane- An Historical and Pictorial Summary attest to the destruction in the town of Ware, in Hampshire County, Massachusetts. The region received ten to seventeen inches of water in a very short period of time as heavy rains several days before the hurricane combined with additional rain from the storm. Floodwaters in Ware reached a height of 18.2 feet as the swollen Ware River surged down Main Street in the wake of the hurricane. The town was stranded for days, with no one able to get in or out. Loaves of bread, medicine and vaccines had to be dropped from airplanes. It is estimated that the damage was $916,000 for the town with a population of 8,000.
