New England Hurricane of 1938

Type	Disaster
Date	September 21, 1938

The New England hurricane of Wednesday, September 21, 1938, the most destructive storm in the recorded history of the region, crossed Long Island and Connecticut that afternoon and swept north through central New England in the evening. In Billerica it did its damage by wind. It brought down great numbers of trees in the woods, along the streets and in the cemeteries, damaged roofs, cut the electric power and blocked the roads. A report to the Selectmen described the town the next day: "Acres of timber was fallen, roads blocked, buildings damaged, whole sections entirely demolished, leaving destruction throughout the Town. A tremendous fire hazard condition existed as a result." The town reports name no one killed in Billerica.

The storm left the fire alarm system "broken and tangled all over," and without power to run it, but Chief Ernest N. Bartlett's men ran it from the department's flood lighting plant and had most of it back in service within three days; electric power came back to the Central Station on September 25 at 7:15 p.m. At the Billerica Town Water Supply Pumping Station on Boston Road the wind destroyed the lead wires to the well houses, "ripped a section from our slate roof" and felled trees at the standpipe and on the grounds, and Superintendent Frederick T. O'Hara kept the water supply going on the station's Diesel engine, with help from the Lowell Division of the New England Power Company. The highway department lost its garage, and its truck, snow plows and sand spreaders were damaged. Superintendent of Schools Eugene C. Vining reported that the school department was "fortunate that the hurricane loss and damage was not greater," the worst of it falling on the Howe, the portable school and the Pollard School, where several trees were lost, the wooden fence was demolished and the second story ceilings had to be braced until they could be replaced. He also expected "the loss and destruction caused by the hurricane" to slow for a time the growth of the Pinehurst area, where every school room was then in use.

The shade trees suffered most. Tree Warden Francis J. Dolan wrote that their condition needed no description because everyone could see it; his department worked nine days after the storm before its money ran out, and the giant elm in front of the Odd Fellows' Hall was left dead. The Cemetery Commissioners under Frederick G. Farquhar reported little but routine work in 1938 "except for hurricane of September," and the clean-up in the cemeteries ran on through 1939. The Board of Assessors noted hurricane damage to real estate whose amount could not yet be determined. Billerica's orchards and woodlots were hit hard: the county Extension Service helped fruit growers market their windfall apples and pull back their trees, spent much time getting the government program for salvaging down timber under way, and helped some farmers borrow to cover their hurricane losses. Fish and Game Warden Arthur R. Hallenborg reported that the hunting season was shortened by the state of the woods and that the partridges "suffered greatly as a result of the storm, their roosting trees and heavy covers being entirely destroyed in many cases."

The cleanup was carried out largely with federal relief labor. On September 22 all the town's W.P.A. projects except the water main extensions were suspended and the workers moved to rehabilitation and fire hazard work, leaving the Treble Cove Road improvement and other road jobs unfinished for the year. Under W.P.A. Fire Hazard Project No. 19423 about six hundred men, Billerica's own quota with men from Lowell, Stoneham, Medford and Cambridge, cut and burned the fallen timber; by December 31, 1938 the federal government had spent $28,000 on it with no cost to the town, and about 40 per cent of the work remained. For two weeks after the storm a special police officer patrolled every section of the town to stop all outdoor fires, until the state Department of Conservation set up a fire lookout station in the town. The Selectmen, under Chairman Frank A. Kelley, kept a Special Emergency, Hurricane account of $1,505.16, mostly for labor, and with state approval part of the Chapter 500 highway allotment was turned to emergency repairs. Highway Superintendent Fred R. Lewis reported the damage to his department's equipment.

The work went on into 1939. The annual town meeting of February 1939 authorized the Selectmen "to dispose of the timber in the Gage Lot and Town Forests damaged by the hurricane" (see Martina Gage Conservation Land and Rangeway Town Forest). When the fire hazard project closed on June 20, 1939, 668 acres of timber land had been cleared, the blown down slash burned and the blown down timber limbed and cut, the blocked roads reopened and 80 miles of wood roads and fire lanes cleared. In 1939 the tree department removed 200 stumps and logs, the highway department refilled the holes left by uprooted trunks in every part of the town, and several more trees were found to be dying from the storm, among them the Odd Fellows' Hall elm, which was to be cut. The pumping station roof was repaired with new slates in 1940; in 1941 high winds brought down trees that had been split in 1938, one large elm on High Street taking all the wires with it, and a W.P.A. project was started to repair the tower of Union Hall in North Billerica, damaged "by lightning and the hurricane of 1938."

People

Frank A. Kelley: Chairman of the Board of Selectmen, who signed the 1938 report on the W.P.A. fire hazard project begun the day after the hurricane.
Ernest N. Bartlett: Fire Chief, who restored the storm-wrecked fire alarm system with the flood lighting plant and had outdoor fires banned by special patrol for two weeks after the storm.
Frederick T. O'Hara: Water Superintendent, who kept the water supply running on the Diesel engine after the storm cut the power and damaged the pumping station.
Francis J. Dolan: Tree Warden and Moth Superintendent, who cleared and repaired the town's storm-damaged shade trees in 1938 and 1939.
Fred R. Lewis: Highway Superintendent, whose garage was destroyed and equipment damaged by the hurricane.
Eugene C. Vining: Superintendent of Schools, who reported the storm damage at the Howe, the portable and the Pollard School.
Arthur R. Hallenborg: Fish and Game Warden, who reported the shortened hunting season and the loss of partridge cover after the storm.
Frederick G. Farquhar: Chairman of the Cemetery Commissioners, whose department cleaned up the storm damage in the cemeteries in 1938 and 1939.

New England Hurricane of 1938

New England Hurricane of 1938

People

References