Century stories

5.24.99
When downtown Providence went under water

By KAREN A. DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- The Hurricane of 1938 wasn't supposed to reach New England. Weather forecasters believed that the storm, which bypassed the coast of Florida on Sunday, Sept. 17, was headed out to sea.

On Sept. 21, residents of Providence and all of New England quickly learned that such predictions were wrong -- dead wrong. The storm that trackers had temporarily lost track of had converged upon the Northeast coast around 3 p.m.

By the time the storm had passed, nearly 300 lives had been lost in Rhode Island.

Without little advance warning, winds as high as 100 miles per hour struck the capital city. Formerly tree-lined neighborhoods were stripped of half their trees, telephone and power lines were downed and buildings were damaged or destroyed.

With the wind came torrential rain and a tidal surge that flooded streets, making them treacherous whirlpools of rushing water.

The city's downtown wholesale and retail region was more than 10 feet under water, crippled by having building basements and first floors flooded, inventory waterlogged and its gas and electric equipment damaged.

Frederick C. Williamson, state historic preservation officer, was working in shipping and receiving at the Baird-Norph Jewelry Company, at the corner of Weybosset and Orange Streets that day. After hearing winds whipping through downtown streets, he took a walk toward Exchange Place (now Kennedy Plaza) to see what was going on.

"The winds were howling so loud, like a banshee, and increasing all the time,'' Williamson recalled recently. By the time he headed back to the jewelry firm, "you had to cling to the wall of the building in order to get by. I was afraid I wasn't going to make it back.''

Williamson did make it back in time to warn his co-workers about the storm and the need to ready the store for the worst.

As they rushed to move jewelry from the display windows into the safe, the water began collecting on the streets and "just kept rising and rising.''

Williamson said he led the women employees on a path to safety that took them into the basement, through a connector into the building next door and upstairs to the second floor. He went back to the jewelry store to lead the four salesmen back to the same room, but by the time they started toward the basement, rushing water blocked their path.

They retreated back into the jewelry store, climbed through a transom over the by-then jammed front door and stood in the building entrance, waiting for help, as the water reached chest level.

People tried to throw them ropes from the second floor of a building across the street, but "the winds were too strong, blowing at 120 miles an hour,'' Williamson said. "The water must have risen about 14 feet. We could see trolley cars nearly submerged.''

Finally, the five men were able to grab a log that made its way down the street-turned-river. "We grabbed that log and shoved off.''

After being tossed around a whirlpool, pushed down Orange Street -- and slammed into several buildings along the way -- the current shoved them toward Westminster Street and into the Howard Building, where they joined a large group of workers and shoppers who sought refuge on its upper floors, Williamson said. The group watched in awe from a window overlooking Exchange Terrace, as flood waters crept up street signs and lampposts. They could look across the terrace and see city people seeking refuge on the steps of City Hall.

Many groups remained stranded until about 9 p.m., when the water had subsided enough to allow them to make their way home. Williamson said he walked to his Lippitt Street home on the East Side by following railroad embankments.

Recovery from the storm, which caused millions of dollars in damage, came slowly. Electricity was not restored until two weeks later; restoration of gas, telephone and water service took nearly three weeks or more.

Sources: "The New England Hurricane of September 21, 1938,'' in The Journal of Geography, November 1938, by Robert M. Brown, and Providence Journal archives.