DAN'S PAPERS, September 12, 2008 Page 13 www.danshamptons.com
Uh Oh Why You Need to PayAttention to the Hurricane Talk Here By Dan Rattiner Since about half the population on eastern Long Island is under the age of 30, it might be useful to explain what all the fuss is about hurricanes. We haven’t had a big one hit in 23 years, so about half the population has never experienced one that they remember very well. The truth is that prior to Hurricane Gloria in 1985 (our last major one) we had hurricanes of one sort or another hit here or quite near here about every five years. Since then, we’ve had three small hurricanes, all in the ‘90s. None since. And though I’ve made fun of our lack of hurricanes in the past — can’t get us yah yah yah-yah yah — it’s really a serious matter. Thus I can give you a brief survey of the largest hurricanes to hit here in the 20th century, and I will now do so. I have none to tell you about in the 21st century. But you don’t need a group of scientists in white lab coats to tell you we’re going to have one, one of these days. The worst disaster to ever befall Long Island was the hurricane of 1938. It’s considered one of the greatest American disasters of all time.
Several hundred people died here on eastern Long Island, downtown Westhampton Beach was flooded, the Montauk fishing village was destroyed (they rebuilt it four miles away in a more sheltered location) and thousands of homes were washed away. It hit with tremendous force on the barrier beach of Westhampton. And the reason it did was not because of its winds — they were clocked at only 112 miles an hour just outside the eye — but because unlike
counter-clockwise as all Atlantic hurricanes do, its eastern arm roared through at 112 miles an hour, plus the 60 mile an hour forward speed. In other words, from Westhampton to Montauk, it was going close to 200 miles an hour. It hit at high tide. The storm surge was tremendous, some say 20 feet. There is no record of how long the place was without power. But anecdotal evidence suggests that it was more than a month before utilities were restored, and in some cases it was a year or even never. I moved here in 1956, when I was 16. My dad bought the drugstore in Montauk, so Mom and we kids followed. There was Hurricane Carol in 1954. The eye went over Westhampton Beach on August 31. Wind speeds clocked at 100 miles an hour. There was a storm surge of eight to 12 feet. For me, the major evidence of this hurricane in 1956 was a modern Surfside Drive oceanfront home high on a cliff that had its airplane-wing roof completely blown off. There was no crime tape around it. I remember, in 1956, on a sunny day, walking through and seeing all the walls still standing. It was like a dollhouse with the roof off. You could see pictures on the walls and broken furniture. This was two years later. On September 12, 1960, Hurricane Donna hit
We haven’t had a big one hit in 23 years, so half the population has never experienced one.
Dan Rattiner is the founder of Dan's Papers. His memoir, In the Hamptons: Fifty Years With Farmers, Fishermen, Artists, Billionaires and Celebrities is currently available wherever books are sold.
any other hurricane ever recorded, it hit here passing through at 60 miles an hour, which was about four times faster than any had come through before or since. It took only seven hours for it to get from North Carolina to here and so took everybody completely by surprise. (And weather forecasting was in its infancy. They actually lost track of where it was for a time.) It came and went suddenly. And since it swirled
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