By State › Connecticut
Connecticut: Risks & Trends
Download all of Connecticut as PDF PrintSame standard as every other page on this site: every figure below is independently sourced, and figures that vary across sources, or measure genuinely different things, are flagged as such rather than collapsed into one number that looks more precise than the underlying data actually supports.
The 1938 Hurricane: nearly unforecast, catastrophic
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| Southern New England deaths | 564-682 (estimates vary by source; some accounts range as high as 800) |
| Injuries | 1,700+ |
| Homes/buildings destroyed | 8,900 |
| Homes/buildings damaged | 15,000+ (more than 57,000 homes damaged or destroyed across the broader region) |
| Boats destroyed | 2,600+ |
| Connecticut River crest at Hartford | 35.4 ft (19.4 ft above flood stage) |
| Power/telephone line miles downed | 20,000 |
| Damage (1938 dollars / 2024-adjusted) | $306 million / ~$4.7 billion |
Why the death toll varies so much across sources
Because this storm predates modern hurricane forecasting and a coordinated national reporting system, contemporary and historical death-toll estimates vary meaningfully, from the low 500s to as high as 800 across the wider Southern New England region depending on the source and what geographic area is counted.
Tropical Storm Isaias (2020): a weak storm, a major grid failure
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| Landfall date | August 4, 2020 |
| Peak winds | ~70 mph |
| Peak power outages | 757,700 customers |
| Connecticut deaths | 1 (struck by a falling tree) |
| National ranking (informal) | One of the largest power outage events in Connecticut's modern history, alongside the October 2011 snowstorm, Hurricane Sandy, and Tropical Storm Irene |
What these two have in common
The 1938 Hurricane and Tropical Storm Isaias, 82 years apart, demonstrate a consistent vulnerability: Connecticut’s infrastructure, first its coastal defenses and inland flood control, more recently its electrical grid, has repeatedly proven less resilient than storm severity alone would predict. A storm well short of hurricane strength still produced one of the state’s largest modern outage events, a useful data point for anyone assuming only a “real” hurricane poses genuine risk here.
Sources
- 1938 Hurricane deaths, damage, and Connecticut River crest: Connecticut History (CTHumanities); WeatherWorks
- Tropical Storm Isaias Connecticut outage and death data: CT Public; NBC Connecticut