1938 - Environment

Environment

Congress creates Olympic National Park to protect 896,660 acres (1,442 square miles) of Pacific Northwest rain forest, 60 glaciers (most of them on 7,965-foot Mount Olympus), coastal beaches, and meadows that support a herd of rare Roosevelt elk, as well as bears, cougar, deer, and many varieties of birds. Three Native American reservations are within the borders of the park, whose forest floor is carpeted with dense moss and large fungi.

Naturalist-author George Bird Grinnell dies at his New York home April 11 at age 88.

Congress passes the new Flood Control Act June 28, authorizing public works on U.S. rivers and harbors.

A tropical hurricane strikes Long Island and much of New England without warning September 21, and in just 10 hours wreaks more havoc than the Chicago fire of 1871 or the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906. The storm takes 682 lives (hundreds drown as the sea breaks up substantial beachfront houses and sweeps them away), destroys 9,000 houses and 2 billion trees, causes $400 million in property damage, and inflicts great and lasting environmental damage, but 60 colonies of beavers in New Jersey's Palisades Park busily maintain their dams through the blow, saving 42,000 acres of land and highways from anything more than minimal flooding.