It came without warning, with a ferocity without equal in modern Long Island history -- the hurricane of Sept. 21, 1938.
More than 50 people died across the Island that Wednesday -- 29 of them at or near Westhampton Beach. In little more than three hours, winds believed to have reached more than 125 mph drove 15-foot-high breakers onto the East End's South Shore, burying streets within a mile of the ocean under as much as 6 feet of water.
Only 26 battered shells of houses remained of the 179 summer places that stood between Quogue and Moriches Inlet. Two Coast Guard stations were destroyed, including Moriches, where the dozen crewmen had to flee in motor whaleboats just before their station was swept away.
Pat Shuttleworth of Quogue, now 70, was 10-year-old Patricia Driver, attending a children's party on Dune Road in Westhampton Beach. She was one of 17 adults and kids who survived only by cramming into the tiny attic of a two-story house and praying for help as the thundering water reached almost to the attic and a large section of the house was wrenched away by the raging torrent.
``The adults knew this was a life and death situation for all of us,'' Shuttleworth recalled recently. ``They chopped a hole in the roof of the attic so we could holler or signal if we saw anyone to help us. It was very dark and noisy with howling wind and rushing water. We thought our last moment had come.''
All 17 were rescued about 6 the next morning, the children reunited with distraught parents who'd been told the night before that everyone on the barrier beach probably had died. Many had, including a man who was killed when his garage blew onto him, and the bodies were laid out on a country club lawn in Westhampton Beach the next day.
In one case, more than a dozen people survived after clinging to a floating rooftop for three hours as it was swept from Westhampton Beach to Quogue.
Decades later, survivors have vivid memories of the storm. Ria Del Bene, 78, a lifelong Westhampton Beach resident, was 18 and ``very nosy'' when the wind and tide became ominous in early afternoon. She ventured alone away from her home in the village.
``I saw something that terrified me,'' she recalled recently, ``a tidal wave rolling up Moniebogue Canal, which is just south of Main Street. The water backed away toward the bay then came roaring back up toward Main Street. I knew I had to get out of there. It was already a rushing river on Main Street where I was standing on some steps. I was nosy but not nuts. I ran home.''
Mary Fritchie of Quiogue, 78, then an 18-year-old domestic at a summer home on the north side of Dune Road in Quogue, told of escaping with a cook in a ``long scary walk'' through knee-deep water after the pickup truck they hoped would take them to safety conked out, flooded to the floorboards.
``We went out of the house to tie up a family boat on the bay side and suddenly saw the ocean coming right toward us. It was whizzing around both sides of the house. You don't realize until later how scared you are at such a sight. We knew we had to get out.''
The 1938 hurricane was the worst in recorded history on Long Island in terms of fatalities and property damage, estimated at about $6.2 million, in 1938 prices, between Jones Inlet and Montauk Point.
Lee Koppelman, Long Island Regional Planning Board executive director, figures a similar hurricane now would cause upward of $6 billion in damage.
The maximum wind recorded Sept. 21, 1938, was 96 mph, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but in the chaos little recording apparently was done.
The regional board says the sustained wind likely reached about 125 mph, with higher gusts, on the East End between 3 and 5:30 p.m., based on eyewitness accounts and study of the aftermath.
At the time, there was no radar or weather satellite warning system. The Coast Guard that day was expecting no worse than a seasonal nor'easter.
Lillian Morton, 78, of Islip, was dating her future husband, Thomas Morton, then 22 and an enlisted Coast Guardsman assigned to the Moriches station.
``He always told me they did not know it was a big hurricane coming,'' Morton, whose husband died four years ago, said recently. ``It was so bad the men wanted to leave but the [commanding officer] vowed they were going to stick it out. Fortunately, he came to his senses just in time. They left in their motor boats just before the station was washed away.''
The storm surge left water more than 6 feet deep on Westhampton Beach's Main Street almost a mile north of the bay.
In Montauk, the hurricane ravaged more than 80 fishing boats and 100 houses. Two fishermen drowned trying to save their trawler. Flooding cut off Montauk for two days.
Shortly after 60 people were asked to leave a movie theater in Greenport, the building collapsed in the teeth of the tempest. On Fire Island, two died in Saltaire, where 127 houses were wrecked and 300 people stranded until rescued by the Coast Guard. At Ocean Beach, 300 houses were splintered, along with 91 at Fair Harbor.
Western Long Island was not spared. Gilbert C. Hanse of Babylon, now 84, was an assistant fire chief when he helped rescue several people from flooded, battered houses at Oak Beach. ``I will never forget seeing 30, 40, maybe 50 people standing on roofs or porches waving sheets or towels or anything they could to attract our attention,'' said Hanse, who later became mayor of Babylon.
Hanse and a fellow fireman, the late Teddy Tuddenham, rescued at least eight elderly people before the water on Ocean Parkway flooded Hanse's car. John Tooker, a bayman noted for his poetry, died at nearby Captree Island, entangled in a fish net while trying to secure a boat.
On the North Shore, Robert Pryde of Oyster Bay died at Asharoken when a large wave lifted the boat he was trying to save and dropped it on him.
The only known fatality in Queens was a hitchhiker who drowned in Whitestone while trying to swim away from the stalled car in which he was riding.
By 5:30 p.m., the great hurricane was almost finished with Long Island. Gale winds whined into the night and by 10 p.m. the skies were clear.
Tom Morris is a freelance writer.
Bill Bleyer is a staff writer.