Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938 - Hardcover

R. A. Scotti

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0786258993 ISBN 13: 9780786258994

Publisher: Thorndike Press, 2003

Synopsis

On the morning of September 21, 1938, the coastline from Cape May to Cape Cod was the wealthiest and most populous in the world. By evening, it was a wasteland. Drawing on newspaper accounts, survivors' testimony, and archival sources, R. A. Scotti has written an unforgettable account of an ocean rising up to wreak total destruction on a way of life the world would never see again.

About this title

About the Author:

R. A. Scotti, a former journalist at the Providence Journal, is the author of numerous thrillers and novels of international espionage. She lives in New York City. This is her second work of nonfiction.

From Publishers Weekly:

Former journalist and mystery novelist Scotti successfully applies her skills in both genres to this detailed retelling of the 1938 hurricane that ripped across seven Northeastern states and killed 682 people, "the most destructive natural disaster in U.S. history-worse than the San Francisco earthquake, the Chicago fire, or any Mississippi flood." Although the enormity of the destruction has been written about before, Scotti focuses on "a few experiences that seem representative of many more" through interviews with hurricane survivors, their families and friends, as well as previously published recollections by survivors, including the late Katharine Hepburn. Scotti's detailed look at the general extent of the hurricane's destruction adds poignancy to individual stories, such as those of Joseph Matoes, who sees his children swept away from their school bus as they are battered by huge waves; Lillian Tetlow and Jack Kinney, two sweethearts who survive a storm that destroys Napatree, R.I., and who later marry; and Charles Pierce, a "green and unsure" junior forecaster for a woefully underprepared U.S. Weather Bureau (now the National Weather Service) who stands against his experienced superiors as the only forecaster to recognize the danger of the hurricane. Scotti also skillfully presents the details of a hurricane, although she reminds us that "after decades of study and with all the technological tools of the trade... we still cannot predict a hurricane more than twenty-four hours in advance."
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Thorndike Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0786258993
• ISBN 13: 9780786258994
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 380