Author to chat ‘38 hurricane

NEWFANE-  On Thursday, September 13, at 7 pm, Steve Long will discuss how the 1938 hurricane transformed New England, bringing about social and ecological changes that can still be observed these many decades later.   
In 1938, not a single living person had ever experienced a hurricane in New England. The previous one had been so long before that people in the Northeast believed that hurricanes only happened down south in Florida, Texas, maybe North Carolina. Not Vermont. Then, without warning,  the most destructive weather to ever hit the Northeast blasted its way through all the way to Quebec.
To call it “New England’s Katrina” might be to understate its power. On Long Island, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, the “Long Island Express” killed hundreds of people and destroyed roads, bridges, dams, and buildings that stood in its path.
Not yet spent, the hurricane then raced inland, maintaining 100 mph winds into Vermont and New Hampshire and uprooting more than a half million acres of forest. It knocked down forests in patches large and small across a region totaling 15 million acres. City streets and rural roads were crisscrossed with a tangle of trunks and limbs, all of which had to be removed with axes and crosscut saws.
Long is the founder of Northern Woodlands magazine and was its editor for 17 years. Copies of his book, “Thirty Eight,” will be available for purchase.  Admission is free.
For more information visit www.historicalsocietyofwindhamcounty.org.