Irene conjures memories of 'great' storm of 1938

[Story]

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- What Evelyn Katzman remembers most about the Great New England Hurricane of 1938 are the floating store mannequins.

A self-described Army brat, she had recently moved to Providence with her parents from Atlanta. She was 30, newly employed at Cherry and Webb, a specialty store downtown. It was Sept. 21, a Wednesday.

The elevator wasn't working - the power had just cut out - so she went to tell her supervisor. That's when she saw them: two human forms, from the coat shop across the way, floating down Westminster Street.

The manager of another department store had just called to sound a warning.

"He said, `Lock the doors, the water's coming in,'" said Katzman, now 103 and living in Providence at an assisted living facility not far from the head of the Narragansett Bay.

It's been nearly 73 years since the so-called Great New England Hurricane - one of the most powerful and destructive storms ever to hit southern New England. The storm now bearing down on the Northeast, Irene, has drawn comparisons to the one from way back then which, according to the National Weather Service, killed nearly 600 people and injured 1,700.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_GREAT_HURRICANE_OF_1938?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=

 

[Cricket]

I think when you live through something like this, I believe it is a memory etched on your soul.

My grandparents lived through the Great Mississippi of 1927. Granted they were only small children, but they still remembered as if it were yesterday the impact the flood had on the state. From fleeing waters to watching whole communities go under in seconds, they remembered it. We recently had a historical flood here again, the Great Flood of 2011. And it will forever be pressed in my mind, just as generations before me have seen their own disasters.

The images, stories and experiences that come with such historic disasters never leave you.

Thanks for sharing this story. I was honestly unaware of it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Irene also conjures up memories of Hollywood costume designers who jump from hotel windows into canopies, and stay there.

 

[Story]

This is the unedited history of the Great Hurricane as reported by The Providence Journal in it's book, "The Complete Historical Record of New England's Stricken Area, September 21, 1938." Selected pages from this book follow the text. More Links to other sites which explain the storm in detail follow the pictures.
http://www.southstation.org/hurr1.htm

 

[MPicciotto]

Another comparison is the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944.

Matt