Cedar Island Cut-off:
Hurricane of '38
by Seth Goldstein
Other than Neville Chamberlain's peace-in-our-time visit with Adolph
Hitler, Larchmont was not concerned about much in September 1938.
The Larchmonter-Times weekly was full of gossip on former resident Claire Trevor, verging on movie stardom (and an Oscar a decade later) and her upcoming marriage to an
assistant producer at 20th Century Fox in Hollywood. Yet her favorite uncle
and aunt, the Morrisons of Willow Avenue, could not convince themselves to
attend the nuptials. Who wants to leave Larchmont, with the Sound a couple of blocks away?
 But for a few hours on September 21, the Morrisons might have wished they
had gone and stayed a while. That was the day the great, unheralded hurricane of '38 struck
the Northeast, knocking down homes and trees and taking lives from Long
Island to New Hampshire.
In an era preceding the Weather Channel and global positioning
satellites, meteorologists were expecting hardly more than a tropical storm even
as the winds began tearing up floorboards that Wednesday afternoon. Actually,
Larchmont got off easy.
The worst-hit section was Cedar Island, cut off from the mainland by a
tide 10 feet over the causeway. Volunteer firemen needed to execute a
seaborne rescue of several residents. One of the boats was reached by 21 year-old
Jane Quinn, daughter of the local Democratic chairman, who disrobed and swam
50 feet to grab it.
"Mute evidence of the power of the sea could be seen today on Pryer Manor
Lane where huge concrete blocks lay tumbled like jackstraws and a 100-foot
section of solid stone wall in front of the Rose estate was flattened like so
much paper," reported the Larchmonter-Times.
Inland, there were hundreds of downed trees, broken power lines, crushed
cars, a few injuries, but no fatalities. "Mayor Goeckler lost a fine cherry
tree of which his wife had been proud," the paper noted, almost with relief.
Mrs. Goeckler wouldn't have noticed until the next day if she were one of 31
members of the Larchmont Women's Club's Art Department who spent the night of
the 21st on a bus stranded in Westbrook, Conn. They were returning from the
sixth annual exhibition of Old Lyme artists. Four tables of progressive
bridge, played in a nearby country store, helped pass the time.
Every available cop, fireman, Boy Scout and village employee went to
work clearing, gingerly, trees and wires with an enthusiasm acknowledged in a
Larchmonter-Times editorial praising "courageous, tireless, and efficient
work."
New York Telephone ran an advertisement (placed under "Buick's the
Beauty... keep in touch with your Buick dealer") paying tribute to the
"splendid cooperation and forbearance of the telephone-using public" and the
1,500 men trying to put the network back together. It would take weeks, "in
some cases months," to rebuild "in permanent form," the company warned.
By year's end, the telephones were back in service, but it would be years before the Manor Park Beach Society would resolve what to do about its storm-ravaged beach pavilion. (for more about the pavilion, see "Did Trustee Tear Down Bathhouse to Suit his View?"
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