It was a monster of a storm. The eye was 50 miles across. The storm was moving at the speed of a fast passenger train, estimated at 70mph, when it made landfall on Long Island and New England. When that was added to the winds of the storm itself, the winds on the eastern side of the hurricane reached over 180mph.
The storm hit during the high tides caused by a full moon. The land was saturated from earlier rains, which added to the flooding.
The damage was almost unimaginable. A few coastal towns were obliterated. Eastern Long Island, Connecticut and Rhode Island were devastated. Rescue efforts were hampered by track damage to the New Haven railroad. Hundreds died.
Few people had any warning that the storm was coming. The weather forecasters thought that the storm was tracking out to sea. And even if they had thought that it would make landfall the storm was moving about four times faster than hurricanes had been seen to move.
While a 1938 storm could happen again, it wouldn't sneak ashore, not with weather satellites and hurricane hunters keeping an eye on it.
However, the Federal government has been, over the last decade or more, extremely short-sighted in planning to replace the constellation of weather satellites.* Which is stupid based on both public-safety and military perspectives.
Expecting the politicians these days to focus on what needs to be done, rather than engaging in stupid and pointless political theater, is akin to hoping for sparkling unicorns.
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* Probably because they can't drop bombs from them.
We so need the WPA again, for both the unemployed and the infrastructure repair. We can't have 'nice things' because it would make the Black Guy look good.
ReplyDeletew3ski