Sudden Sea by R.A. Scotti

A book with the theme of people against nature is usually a winner with me. And, the book Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938 by R.A. Scotti is no exception. It is a fabulous, suspenseful read. Sudden Sea is the biography of the great hurricane of September 21, 1938, that raced up the east coast from Florida and came ashore across Long Island and into Rhode Island. Wind gusts reached 186 mph and wave surges climbed to 50 ft. In the end, the hurricane swept over seven northeastern states in seven hours, killing almost 700 people and resulting in massive damage to buildings and forests.
For most of the book, Scotti looks at the storm through the lives of a number of people who lived on Jamestown Island and Napatree (a sand spit) off the coast of Rhode Island. Some were permanent residents while others were in the midst of closing up their summer homes for the winter. Some of the people she focused on survived while others perished on that day. She describes in detail the suffering and loss experienced by all of them. She also explains clearly and interestingly how hurricanes form, the way in which they were forecasted in the 1930s, and problems with how the Weather Bureau operated, which added to the suddenness of this storm. An added bonus is the photographs from the time depicting the victims as well as the resulting damage.
All this information is presented in short, fast chapters that make Sudden Sea a fast, riveting read. You will feel as though you are in the midst of the “Great Hurricane of 1938.”
If you like reading nonfiction books about the history of weather and hurricanes, other books to look at are Isaac’s Storm: A Man, A Time and the Deadliest Hurricane in History (about the hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas in 1900) by Erik Larson and The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea by Sebastian Junger (about the Gloucester fishing vessel, the Andrea Gail, that sank off the coast of Nova Scotia in a fierce storm in 1991).