A Major Hurricane to Hit New England?
UPDATE 2 PM: We now have a multimedia promotional page with more information and pictures. Also, Reuters has picked up the story. They say, in part:
ORIGINAL POST:
What would happen if a major hurricane like those in the past (Long Island Express of 1938, 1944 Hurricane, Hurricane Carol in 1954) hit New England this season?
Joe Explains From The Hamptons
Joe Bastardi answers these questions on the AccuWeather.com Special Report video today. Open the AccuWeather.com Media Player and click on "Special Report" to view the video, hosted by Cheryl Nelson (PREMIUM | PRO). Apologies to our subscription website users, the video player is not yet available without ads; it will be soon.
Cheryl Nelson Hosts the Video
Joe has serious concerns about the impact a major hurricane would have in places like The Hamptons (Long Island), Narragansett Bay (Rhode Island), and Buzzards Bay (Massachusetts).
Joe Preaches From The Fox Point Barrier
And in Providence, Rhode Island, the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier holds back the storm surge -- but what does that do to surrounding communities? The storm surge must go somewhere and Joe's worried that it will be worse for nearby coastal towns than if the Barrier was not there at all. It's not unlike what sandbagging or seawalling your beach house does (which I heard was outlawed in North Carolina during the 1990's due to the damage and erosion they did to surrounding beach and houses). The Barrier was built in 1966 and has yet to have a major storm surge to test it.
The 1938 Hurricane Hits Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
The storm killed over 500 people and caused $6 billion
in modern-dollar damages.
The Long Island Express Bursts
Over a Long Island Seawall
Track of The 1938 Hurricane*
*The storm is believed to have made landfall on Long Island as a Category 3 Hurricane. However, official track records may show the storm as an 85-knot (barely Cat 2) Extratropical storm after the last coordinate (35.20 -73.10). According to NOAA, the Category 3 status is supposedly the addition of the 85 knots + the forward speed (which was more than the average storm). To avoid confusion, because we don't deliniate Extratropical and Tropical on our archived maps, the map above has been corrected to show the storm as a Category 3 at that coordinate. AccuWeather.com Professional users click here for 150 years of tropical storm tracks).
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