Impact
The storm struck Long Island on September 23, 1815, probably coming ashore near Center Moriches (Ludlum). On the south shore of Long Island it broke through the barrier beach and created the inlet that still isolates Long Beach, which had previously been an eastward extension of The Rockaways. Then in New England it came ashore at Saybrook, Connecticut. The storm delivered an 11-foot (3.4 m) storm surge that funneled up Narragansett Bay where it destroyed some 500 houses and 35 ships and flooded Providence, Rhode Island, where a line on the Old Market Building marked the storm surge that was unexampled in the city until the New England Hurricane of 1938, which brought a 17.6-foot (5.4 m) storm surge. There is still a worn plaque on the Rhode Island Hospital Trust building (built in 1917), along with a newer plaque showing the higher 1938 hurricane water level. At Matunuck, Rhode Island, sediment studies have identified the overwash fan of sediments in Succotash Marsh, where the 1815 hurricane storm surge overtopped the barrier beach.
In Dorchester, Massachusetts, just south of Boston, local historian William Dana Orcutt wrote in the late 19th century of the hurricane's impact: "In 1815 there was a great gale which destroyed the arch of the bridge over the Neponset River. This arch was erected over the bridge at the dividing line of the towns in 1798." Dorchester's First Parish Meeting House was too badly damaged to repair.
The eye passed into New Hampshire near Jaffrey and Hillsborough.
Read more about this topic: Great September Gale Of 1815
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