In the path of the storm

During the Hurricane of 1938, winds gusted at 189 miles an hour at the Blue Hill Observatory in Milton, about 100 miles east of the storm track. The force of the tempest registered on the seismograph at Fordham University in the Bronx as if it were a major earthquake.

About 600 people were killed in New England on Sept. 21, with New Hampshire and Vermont being hardest hit. Millions of acres of trees — of which 70 percent were eastern white pine — were uprooted. Vermont resident Stephen Long, whose career has focused on writing about the region’s forests and people, puts the numbers in context in “Thirty-Eight: The Hurricane that Transformed New England’’ (Yale University).

Even if the environmental impact of the hurricane doesn’t interest you, the first-person accounts make fascinating reading. Fred Hunt was 14 and walking down a road in Rindge, N.H., just before the hurricane swept in. The wind became so loud he didn’t hear a white pine tree, two feet in diameter, crash 15 feet behind him. He ended up taking refuge under it. When the storm passed, he crawled out and saw that every other tree in the forest had come down. “Once I could see there wasn’t much of anything to blow down, why, then I crawled my way through it for the rest of the way home,’’ he said.

Jim Colby, who was then 18, told Long, “The wind began to pick up gradually. When we got home the wind was blowing hard, but nobody could comprehend it was going to blow harder.’’ The Boscawen, N.H., resident continued: “And then all at once the skies opened up and the wind came and all the trees in our dooryard went down . . . Unless you were there and saw it, you just can’t comprehend it.’’

New England has witnessed three hurricanes in five centuries: 1635, 1815, 1938. Meteorologists consider a hurricane in New England normal but rare. Advances in technology might mean we get more notice of an advancing hurricane than people did in 1938 but our advanced technology won’t save us from such a storm’s deadly power. In the aftermath of a hurricane, how will you learn what has happened beyond your neighborhood? Long’s advice is simple: Keep a battery-powered radio on hand.

ICA Reads Ward’s memoir

The Institute of Contemporary Art has selected Jesmyn Ward’s memoir “Men We Reaped’’ (Bloomsbury) for its latest installment of ICA Reads, an annual suite of events organized around a book and highlighting works on view. “Men We Reaped’’ explores issues of race and masculinity through the death of Ward’s brother and four other young black men in rural Mississippi where the author grew up.

She will be in conversation with Boston-based artist and educator Steve Locke whose work focuses on notions of masculinity at 3 p.m. April 10. Free. Tickets will be available two hours before the talk.

Emily Alyssa Owens, who is writing a cultural history of sex and slavery, will co-lead an art and book discussion at 11 a.m. on March 20 and April 3.

Coming out

¦ “Just Fall’’ by Nina Sadowsky (Ballantine)

¦ “Switched On: A Memoir of Brain Change and Emotional Wakening’’ by John Elder Robison (Spiegel & Grau)

¦ “The Summer Before the War’’ by Helen Simonson (Random House)

Pick of the week

Karin Schott of Devaney, Doak & Garrett Booksellers in Farmington, Maine, recommends “Uprooted’’ by Naomi Novik (Del Rey): “The Dragon, a wizard, takes a girl every 10 years as payment for protecting the village. Agnieszka is chosen. Through her own awkward experience she discovers hidden strengths and powers. This fantasy novel has an unlikely romance and a menacing force that propels the story.’’

Jan Gardner can be reached at JanLGardner@yahoo.com.