[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 125 (Friday, September 18, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1762]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      REMEMBERING LONG ISLANDERS WHO DIED IN THE HURRICANE OF 1938

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. MICHAEL P. FORBES

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, September 18, 1998

  Mr. FORBES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in the House of Representatives 
to mark a very somber and tragic event in Long Island's history. It was 
60 years ago this Monday, September 21st that a powerful hurricane 
struck the Island's South Shore with devastating force, leaving behind 
a horrific wake of death and ruin. Few hurricanes have ever struck this 
Nation's shores with such fury; when it was over, approximately 100 
Long Islanders--and more than 600 people across the Northeast--were 
left dead, $400 million in property damage had been wrought and the 
shoreline of Long Island was altered forever.
  The 1938 hurricane hit with a surprising power and few areas were 
struck as hard as my hometown of Westhampton Beach and nearby Quogue. 
Without the lifesaving forewarning of modern weather forecasting, the 
residents of these two Southampton communities were caught unaware. 
Thirty-one of them paid for it with their lives.
  The hurricane's early edges pelted the Island as seemingly nothing 
more than a late summer rainstorm. Traveling in excess of 60 miles-per-
hour, the full force of this tempest soon overcame those who were 
lulled into thinking the clouds would quickly pass. Packing winds 
gusting up to 180 miles-per-hour, the hurricane broadsided the South 
Shore. Roofs were torn off homes and scattered like leaves, and the 
storm surge pushed a wall of ocean water six feet high down Westhampton 
Beach's Main Street.
  Local residents struggled to make it to higher ground, some traveling 
several miles inland to Riverhead to wait out the storm. Two hundred 
children huddled in the Six Corner School in Westhampton Beach and 
about 100 Quogue residents sought shelter in their three-year-old 
schoolhouse for safety.
  When the storm passed and people emerged, the aftermath was nearly as 
chaotic as the storm itself. No more than a handful of homes near the 
shore were left standing, bridges were torn from their footings and 
massive inlets were carved from the barrier islands that guard Long 
Island from the Atlantic. Many lives across the East End were lost in 
the storm and the Westhampton Country Club was converted into a 
makeshift morgue. It would be years before Westhampton Beach and Quogue 
would fully recover.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to pause a moment and remember those 
who lost their lives in the hurricane of 1938 as my Long Island 
neighbors mark this tragic anniversary.
  I ask unanimous consent that I may include as part of the official 
Record these first-hand accounts of the 1938 hurricane as compiled by 
the Westhampton Beach and Quogue Historical Societies.

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