Hurricane Earl like Great Hurricane of 1938 (video) Long Island Express - Newport remembers

Two giant hurricanes with similar scenarios. Hurricane Earl is being compared to New England's greatest hurricane, "The Long Island Express," the Great Hurricane of 1938 which became a Category 5 hurricane and hit Long Island as a Category 3, killing an estimated 800 people, most of whom were Rhode Islanders. The property losses were estimated at 4.75 billion in terms of 2010 monetary evaluations. The Great Hurricane of 1938 is noted as the greatest national disaster ever. Watch the video of how this storm wreaked havoc and destruction on Rhode Island and New England.

News reporters from the Weather Channel, standing on Jones Beach, Long Island, today, were remembering the Great Hurricane of 1938, as Hurricane Earl, now classified as a Category 4 hurricane is taking the same path with equal wind strength as The Long Island Express, Great Hurricane of 1938.

The strongest winds ever recorded in the New England region occurred at the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory.* located south of Boston and built in 1885, with sustained winds of 121 mph and a peak gust of 186 mph. Sustained winds of 91 mph with a gust to 121 mph was reported on Block Island. Providence, Rhode Island recorded sustained winds of 100 mph with a gust to 125 mph. Downtown Providence was submerged under a storm tide of nearly 20 feet.

The parallels between the two storms are more than just weather related, as the Great Hurricane of 1938 took place during the Great Depression, with much the same unemployment as Rhode Island is experiencing in 2010. As a result, stores were looted by mobs in downtown Providence before the flood waters had subsided. Some of the only structures in the storm's direct path that survived were the immense stone mansions on Newport's Bellevue Avenue and Ocean Drive.

Older Newporters remember the 1938 well and speak of neighbors who drove down to Newport's Easton's Beach to watch the hurricane and never returned home. The wall at Newport's First Beach, also called Easton's, was built by the WPA during the Depression. The video below which shows the devastation of this worst natural disaster ever is recorded by the WPA, Works Progress Administration, part of President's Roosevelt's New Deal.

Read more about the Great Hurricane of 1938 - Perfect Storm of Historic Proportions

*Photo courtesy of Blue Hill.org, now registered as a National Historical Landmark. Great Blue Hill is home to the oldest continuous weather record in North America.

resources: http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/38hurricane/weather_history_38.html, the Weather Channel, NOOA

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