Doing a little history research in relation to the current Tropical Storm Irene, and came across a site dedicated to the Long Island Express Hurricane of 1938. This storm was unusually intense, due to a number of factors. Number#1, the wind speed sustained was 120 mph, with gusts to 186 mph. The high difference in gust winds is because the storms record forward speed of 70 mph added to it. Oh yeah, because the meterologists forecasted the storm move to the east of the USA, the families and people of Long Island were asleep and totally unprepared for this. Now, the storm surge. It hit at high tide, and it was a big high tide due to the new moon and parallel unorthodox or something like that. Anyways, waves of 30 to 50 feet pounded Long Island, sweeping entire homes to sea, and pounding the shoreline hard enough to register a 3.0 richter scale earthquake to New York detectors. Providence, RI, was under 20 feet of water. Anyways, here are some casualty and damage statistics:

http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/38hurricane/damage_caused.html