 With all the signals of the sea, none turns the faces of hardy sailors more grim than the flags that spell Hurricane Warning. One morning late in September 1938, the dread signals swung aloft along the Florida coast. Up from the West Indies, cradle of Hurricanes moved the terror, a pit of low atmospheric pressure into which the air rushed from all directions to form a whirling, shrieking vortex of high wind and heavy rain. Hurricane! The Coast Guard watched it warily as it moved northward, paralleling the coast. At night it was off the Carolinas, next morning it was off Maryland and Delaware, apparently swinging harmlessly out into the Atlantic, but a high pressure area at sea deflected the hurricane back toward land. September 21st in mid-afternoon, this tropical terror struck, swept over Outer Long Island, swept into thickly settled, highly developed New England, struck with winds roaring a hundred, a hundred and fifty, almost two hundred miles an hour. Hidleways, thirty to forty feet high, struck a section, unprepared. The great wind-driven waves swallowed the sandy bulwarks of the coast, washed away the pleasant beaches of Long Island's southern shore, literally changed the coastline. Bridges joining islands to the mainland were destroyed almost instantly. Men risked almost certain death trying to swim to their isolated homes, and the Coast Guard restrained them when it could. Flicking New York City with its outer friends, the whirling storm smashed full force across Long Island. Thousands of homes along the seashore were shattered, mansion and modest home alike, the storms tore timber from timber, leaving only tangled wreckage. Millions of dollars worth of yachts and pleasure craft were smashed or swept far up on land, damaged beyond repair. Undermined roadbeds, derailed trains, passengers were marooned, some of them drowned. Great radio stations, keys to wireless communication for the continent, went down as the tempest swung across Long Island Sound. Just back of New London's wrecked strewn waterfront, fire broke out in the night, keeping four business blocks. Automobiles were crushed and twisted by falling trees and whirling timbers. Cutting a wide pathway of ruin inward from the sea, the storm piled up property damage in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and the quiet dignity of colonial meeting houses was reduced to broken lumber. In one breath hour, part of the ancient beauty that was New England's heritage vanished forever. One of the structures which stood out the storm unharmed is this bath house at Scarborough Beach, Rhode Island, built by WPA. Even ocean-going vessels were tossed ashore by mountainous waves flying before the hurricane. Rugged buildings which had stood for decades along the stormy coast collapsed. Northward the tempest swept across Connecticut and Rhode Island, across Massachusetts, into Vermont and New Hampshire, and on to Canada. With communication cut off, the full extent of the disaster was unknown for days. The nation waited fearfully for meager bulletins bearing sad tidings. On the watersheds of New England, the storm brought new torrents to rivers already gorged after three days down-bore, and so flood was added to the burden of the hurricane. Sweeping down from their headwaters in the high mountains, swirling rivers rose to levels rivaling the disastrous floods of 1936, increasing the difficulty of removing refugees and of carrying food and help into the stricken area. The great dam at Holyoke was a cascade of thundering water as the torrent poured over its crest. It was one of several cities along the banks of the Connecticut River to be partially inundated by rising waters. An immediate result of the storm was the complete disruption of transportation. Bridges were washed out. Roads were blocked. Beneath the water in this low-lying underpass are an automobile and the bodies of its two occupants who were trapped. How to get necessary food and medical supplies into the storm zone became a major question. But local relief agencies went into action at once, and the task of rescue began. Before hurried to assist neighbor, private citizens volunteered to aid police civic agencies in the Red Cross. All available boats were drafted into service. Family after family was rescued when rising waters threatened their brief security. True to their tradition of valiant service, the Coast Guard met the emergency with swift action. From the coastal islands, some of which were completely swept by gigantic waves, Coast Guard boats brought survivors to safety. Further inland, armies of workers from private relief agencies from nearby WPA and NYA projects from CCC camps, as well as men recruited from every branch of the military and naval services, erected sandbag barriers to halt the rising waters. For temporary expedience, but elsewhere the rivers were held in check by flood control projects completed by the WPA since the great flood of 1936. On the Nashua River at Fitchburg and on the Connecticut River at West Springfield, these new structures proved their value beyond question. In three days, an army of 110,000 WPA workers had been shifted to emergency storm and flood duty. Every little man with a pick on this map represents 1,000 workers of the WPA, manpower turning from regular public improvements and services into the breach in time of dire need. Where tracks remained to carry trains, thousands of these workers came by rail. Shock troops of disaster, someone has called them, because so many times in recent years they have provided the human sinews for great tasks of reconstruction. As the work of salvage began, sailors from Navy yards and soldiers from army posts aided civilian police in maintaining order. Part of the army of WPA men worked feverishly, helping to locate those trapped or lying dead beneath fallen debris. One man was found alive under 8 feet of wreckage 40 hours after the storm had passed. As New England rallied to the worst disaster of its history, WPA administrator Harry Hopkins flew from California to Providence. The only transportation in the stricken area. He made a quick tour of the ravaged area to plan with New England leaders the task of cleaning up as well as the six months job of rebuilding public facilities. Administrator Hopkins met with the governors of the storm torn states pledging the help of the federal government. Women workers of the WPA along with the Red Cross provided comfort for thousands of refugees. At Chickpea, Massachusetts in an infirmary also built by relief workers, they cared for families left homeless by the storm and provided nourishing meals for children whose own homes had not yet been made habitable. Sewing rooms like this one prepared warm dry clothes for all the needy. Every emergency unit local and federal swung into action to distribute food to the hungry. Trucks were commandeered to deliver food, clothing and surplus commodities to the entire population in the hurricane district. Food centers throughout the stricken area supplied families with provisions which could not be obtained elsewhere. Food centers were set up for the distribution of clothes donated by the Red Cross and those made in the WPA sewing rooms. Many of these badly needed garments were shipped from the sewing rooms of neighboring states outside of the hurricane district. Warm clothing helped to check the danger of serious illness. Stubbornly the ghastly wreckage of the storm gave way and the realization came that it would not be days but months before normal life could be resumed. They clung pathetically to their household treasures. Then did the heavier work and tried to save what they could. Ones like this one in Rhode Island tons of mud and sand washed over the main highways. All of this had to be cleared away before the paralyzed villages could make any headway toward recovery. Food for these workers was a major task in itself. Every truck not otherwise employed was pressed into service and loaded with food for consignment to various emergency projects. These groups of men working shoulder to shoulder were gathered from every sort of work project and they stopped their grueling labor only long enough to refuel their systems with sandwiches and coffee. And needed the help of machinery in his task huge sections of broken homes, roofs, whole wings, porches were dragged to open fields to be burned. These were the well-built homes of peaceful New England destroyed by the awesome power of a tropical hurricane. Every saw in the storm area bit deeply into fallen giants that had been a feature of the beauty of New England. Here youthful NYA and CCC workers vied with older men. Trees were down everywhere across streets on telephone and telegraph wires on houses. And New England could not get going again until they were cleared away. Rivers had roared over their banks in whirling fury during the storm and now tractors and cranes attempted to guide the streams back into their natural channels. Along the Mohawk Trail in Massachusetts whole sections of roadbed were washed into the streams below. Workers piled hundreds of tons of dirt into trucks and filled in the dangerous spots. All over New England were thousands of emergency repairs to be made. Public facilities which must be restored for a resumption of normal living by all the people. A job for manpower. A job once more for the WPA's shock troops of disaster. New England saw them in 1936 fighting flood just as the people along the Ohio River and the Mississippi saw them in 1937. The call may come from a great drought on the plain or a raging fire in the Timberlands. Wherever there is trouble on a heroic scale there you will find this peaceful army recruited from the ranks of the unemployed working hard and well with the other agencies of mercy.