Big blow of '38: When hurricanes brought little advance warning

The hurricanes of 2004 -- one of the worst hurricane seasons ever-- did more than $20 billion in damage but took only 59 lives.That's a mercifully small toll by comparison with the 6,000 who diedin the Galveston hurricane of 1900, the more than 1,800 who died insouthern Florida in 1928 or the 600 who died in New England and LongIsland in 1938. Before weather forecasting became as sophisticatedas it is now, advance warning of major storms was almostnonexistent, with calamitous consequences.

Cherie Burns' vivid account of a 1938 hurricane demonstrates thatall too painfully. It was one of the fiercest storms ever to hit theUnited States. Striking on Sept. 21, when tides …