Deadliest Atlantic Hurricane: 1780; hit Martinique, St. Eustatius and Barbados; killed 22,000 people
Weird or Little Known Hurricane Facts...
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Weird or Little Known Hurricane Facts...
Since the season is now moving at a snails pace for the time being. I thought an interesting thread to start might be little known hurricane facts or weird hurricane facts. We all have done extensive reading and research on the subject of canes and I'm sure have come across some bizarre facts or stories. I thought this might be a good time to share them. So I'm beginning by a posting a fact about the deadliest Atlantic hurricane recorded so far that alot of people may not know about. I hope others will also contribute some interesting hurricane facts.
Deadliest Atlantic Hurricane: 1780; hit Martinique, St. Eustatius and Barbados; killed 22,000 people
Deadliest Atlantic Hurricane: 1780; hit Martinique, St. Eustatius and Barbados; killed 22,000 people
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senorpepr
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As far as I know, the Houston 1943 hurricane has since been declassified, but most of the data was destroyed since it was old.
Anyway, here's a website about it: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/hgx/projects/hu ... r_1943.htm
Anyway, here's a website about it: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/hgx/projects/hu ... r_1943.htm
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Vb,
I'm glad you brought that up, because I vaguely remember a news story about them finding a sunken German sub in the Gulf not too long ago. I hope I didnt dream it. I may have to do some googling and find that news story it may help to provide some data to put a few missing pieces to this puzzle together.
I'm glad you brought that up, because I vaguely remember a news story about them finding a sunken German sub in the Gulf not too long ago. I hope I didnt dream it. I may have to do some googling and find that news story it may help to provide some data to put a few missing pieces to this puzzle together.
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http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/ ... index.html
10:31 AM 8/19/1999
Mystery storm
Preparedness specialist researches secret 1943 hurricane
By CAROL E. VAUGHN
ThisWeek Correspondent
For years now, industrial hurricane preparedness specialist Lew Fincher has been chasing stories about the "secret hurricane" of 1943, a no-name, power-packed storm with few records of its existence.
"Ever since I was a kid I had heard stories about this storm from my dad's family," Fincher said about the storm that affected his La Porte-based family on July 27, 1943.
"After being told all these tales as I was growing up, I thought someone was telling Texas tall tales in my family after not finding anything that remarkable about the hurricane in the official records," he said.
After digging in local archives, Fincher began to unravel the story.
"That's when I started to dig," he said.
In July, the city of Baytown's annual hurricane meeting focused on the mystery storm that struck Galveston Bay and Baytown during World War II.
The town meeting was filled with seniors who were eager to share anecdotes about the forgotten storm.
Fincher, a technician for the DuPont La Porte Plant, said he received so many stories that he now has more than enough material to write his book, The Surprise Storm of 1943, in collaboration with National Weather Service Meteorologist Bill Read.
Little has been recorded on the storm by the National Hurricane Center other than information that logged the storm as a Category 1 storm, with sustained winds of 95 mph or less.
Other evidence suggests the storm packed winds of 100 mph or more, said Fincher, who has extensive experience in industry and community hurricane preparedness.
In 1943, weather information had been restricted because of national security, Fincher said. In the height of WWII, German U-boats had been expected in the Gulf of Mexico, so all ships' radio broadcasts were silenced, he said.
Adding to the volatile situation was the fact that the Humble refinery in Baytown, now Exxon, was producing high-octane gas to make aviation fuel for Allied forces.
Any incapacity occurring at that a facility might encourage an Axis power counter attack.
"Another reason I feel (the storm was misreported) was that the forecaster felt that the storm as it came inland over Bolivar would only reach tropical storm strength, not becoming a hurricane," he said. "The fear of German U-boats taking advantage of weather information was great as well. We didn't know that all the U-boats had already left the Gulf by the time of the storm."
According to a 1997 National Hurricane Conference report compiled by Fincher and Read, the storm killed 19 people and left hundreds injured, causing estimated property damage of $17 million.
The pair gathered information about the storm supplied by newspaper accounts, insurance reports and personal accounts found in local books to piece together the actual significance of the storm and the damage it caused.
With virtually no reference of the storm in records kept at the local Houston NWS office or the former Galveston office, the National Weather Service recently has begun to recompile information about the storm based on the men's research.
Lifetime Baytown resident Francis Janelle Beaugh Milner wrote a letter to Fincher about conditions that day: "As the morning wore on, the sky turned from 'cloudy' to an oppressive darkness; the wind from 'gusty' to an unrestrained forcefulness; and the rain showers became torrential."
Milner, who worked at the Humble plant, said the storm was upon the employees before they could be warned. As she tried to escape from her office, objects were flying through the air like missiles, she said.
"Power lines were whipping like agitated snakes until they finally broke loose, lethal as land mines," she wrote.
At the Humble refinery, gusts up to 132 mph have been reported, Fincher said, and the Baytown-area was probably the hardest hit.
For a period, he said, production of high-octane fuel production was cut off from the U.S. Armed Forces.
At Ellington Field, air cadets and Army men were marched out to the flight line to stake all the planes down and then hang onto the wings as human weights as the hurricane blew in, Fincher said.
Glen Harbour of Baytown was in the Air Force and based at Ellington when the storm came through. He remembers several of the cadets being taken to the hospital with injuries from the storm.
"The impact of the flying shingles off roofs even tore the paint off of cars and buildings," Harbour said.
Myrtis Richard of McNair was 11 years old when the storm hit.
Her parents told a story about a young woman and her baby stranded in their home, in the process of being rescued.
As the woman left her doorway with the child, the wind caught the baby. The dead infant was found a block away from her destroyed home.
Stories like these are a grave reminder about the power of nature, Fincher said.
Fincher received the 1999 Oustanding Achievement Award from the National Hurricane Conference for his leadership in the DuPont Severe Weather Alert Team.
"The time to prepare for such occurrences is now, before the storm, not during it," he said. "I have always closed my preparedness talks with the words: `You can't raise Cain if you're not prepared for a hurricane.'"
10:31 AM 8/19/1999
Mystery storm
Preparedness specialist researches secret 1943 hurricane
By CAROL E. VAUGHN
ThisWeek Correspondent
For years now, industrial hurricane preparedness specialist Lew Fincher has been chasing stories about the "secret hurricane" of 1943, a no-name, power-packed storm with few records of its existence.
"Ever since I was a kid I had heard stories about this storm from my dad's family," Fincher said about the storm that affected his La Porte-based family on July 27, 1943.
"After being told all these tales as I was growing up, I thought someone was telling Texas tall tales in my family after not finding anything that remarkable about the hurricane in the official records," he said.
After digging in local archives, Fincher began to unravel the story.
"That's when I started to dig," he said.
In July, the city of Baytown's annual hurricane meeting focused on the mystery storm that struck Galveston Bay and Baytown during World War II.
The town meeting was filled with seniors who were eager to share anecdotes about the forgotten storm.
Fincher, a technician for the DuPont La Porte Plant, said he received so many stories that he now has more than enough material to write his book, The Surprise Storm of 1943, in collaboration with National Weather Service Meteorologist Bill Read.
Little has been recorded on the storm by the National Hurricane Center other than information that logged the storm as a Category 1 storm, with sustained winds of 95 mph or less.
Other evidence suggests the storm packed winds of 100 mph or more, said Fincher, who has extensive experience in industry and community hurricane preparedness.
In 1943, weather information had been restricted because of national security, Fincher said. In the height of WWII, German U-boats had been expected in the Gulf of Mexico, so all ships' radio broadcasts were silenced, he said.
Adding to the volatile situation was the fact that the Humble refinery in Baytown, now Exxon, was producing high-octane gas to make aviation fuel for Allied forces.
Any incapacity occurring at that a facility might encourage an Axis power counter attack.
"Another reason I feel (the storm was misreported) was that the forecaster felt that the storm as it came inland over Bolivar would only reach tropical storm strength, not becoming a hurricane," he said. "The fear of German U-boats taking advantage of weather information was great as well. We didn't know that all the U-boats had already left the Gulf by the time of the storm."
According to a 1997 National Hurricane Conference report compiled by Fincher and Read, the storm killed 19 people and left hundreds injured, causing estimated property damage of $17 million.
The pair gathered information about the storm supplied by newspaper accounts, insurance reports and personal accounts found in local books to piece together the actual significance of the storm and the damage it caused.
With virtually no reference of the storm in records kept at the local Houston NWS office or the former Galveston office, the National Weather Service recently has begun to recompile information about the storm based on the men's research.
Lifetime Baytown resident Francis Janelle Beaugh Milner wrote a letter to Fincher about conditions that day: "As the morning wore on, the sky turned from 'cloudy' to an oppressive darkness; the wind from 'gusty' to an unrestrained forcefulness; and the rain showers became torrential."
Milner, who worked at the Humble plant, said the storm was upon the employees before they could be warned. As she tried to escape from her office, objects were flying through the air like missiles, she said.
"Power lines were whipping like agitated snakes until they finally broke loose, lethal as land mines," she wrote.
At the Humble refinery, gusts up to 132 mph have been reported, Fincher said, and the Baytown-area was probably the hardest hit.
For a period, he said, production of high-octane fuel production was cut off from the U.S. Armed Forces.
At Ellington Field, air cadets and Army men were marched out to the flight line to stake all the planes down and then hang onto the wings as human weights as the hurricane blew in, Fincher said.
Glen Harbour of Baytown was in the Air Force and based at Ellington when the storm came through. He remembers several of the cadets being taken to the hospital with injuries from the storm.
"The impact of the flying shingles off roofs even tore the paint off of cars and buildings," Harbour said.
Myrtis Richard of McNair was 11 years old when the storm hit.
Her parents told a story about a young woman and her baby stranded in their home, in the process of being rescued.
As the woman left her doorway with the child, the wind caught the baby. The dead infant was found a block away from her destroyed home.
Stories like these are a grave reminder about the power of nature, Fincher said.
Fincher received the 1999 Oustanding Achievement Award from the National Hurricane Conference for his leadership in the DuPont Severe Weather Alert Team.
"The time to prepare for such occurrences is now, before the storm, not during it," he said. "I have always closed my preparedness talks with the words: `You can't raise Cain if you're not prepared for a hurricane.'"
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senorpepr
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boca wrote:I don't understand why they would keep weather like that classified it makes no sense.
It makes a great deal of sense to me. See, back then we didn't have satellite or anything. Observations were the key to weather forecasting. Actually, even today they are. Many nations at war either quit producing observations or transmit false observations to throw off their enemy. Although we have satellites and models today, these models can be thrown off by faulty observations. We saw that a couple of years ago in the Middle East and still see it today in North Korea.
What it boils down to is the least lost of life. The deaths from a hurricane (in this case 19) would be far less than what the death toll would be from an atta (just watch the news. a car bombing kills just as many people -- imagine an attack from a U-boat)
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Matt-hurricanewatcher
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Hurricanehink
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~Floydbuster wrote:Did you know in 1815, a Category 4 Hurricane hit Cape May, New Jersey?
Wow! I thought we were immune from strong ones!
Did you know that a Cat. 1 hurricane hit San Diego in 1858, the only one in recorded history? (Linda in 1997 could have changed that, but went out to sea)
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Floyd,
While reading about the 1815 Cape May storm I found the following information taken from an article written by: Craig S Chartier, Director of the Plymouth Archeological Rediscovery Project. This is taken from his article written about Wicket Island, MA. and it tells of the effects that the hurricane had on the Island.
The Great September Gale of 1815 is recorded in local lore as having a dramatic effect on Wickets Island. This storm, which is considered on e of the worst New England hurricanes second only to the 1938 storm, struck Long Island and southern New England on September 23, 1815. It believed to have been at least a category three storm. Storms of this intensity often flood barrier islands, strip sediments from beaches and deposit them on marshes, in lakes and lagoons. The Dartmouth Gazette of that year reported the following concerning the storm:
"We hear from every quarter new details of the destruction occasioned by the late storm. From the country as far as Amherst in New Hampshire on the North, Brookfield on the West, Tolland and New London [Conn.] on the South West, and New Bedford on the South, we learn that the tempest raged without any great variation in the degree of violence. Dwelling houses in almost every town have been more or less injured, many barns and out houses, and some dwelling houses have been unroofed, and some few blown down."
In Wareham, and specifically in Onset, it believed that the storm surges caused what amounted to a tidal wave to rush into the harbor, causing large scale erosion of Wickets Island. This erosion is believed to have caused a number of Natives graves on the island to be washed out. Lovell reports that the skeletons that were exposed were collected and reburied (Lovell 1970: 19). While no historical records exist to confirm or challenge Lovell’s report, the possibility is real that there were or are graves on the island. Lovell also reported that other types of Native material have been found along the shores in the Onset area, possibly from the island itself."
Eeeeekkkkk... floating skeletens!
While reading about the 1815 Cape May storm I found the following information taken from an article written by: Craig S Chartier, Director of the Plymouth Archeological Rediscovery Project. This is taken from his article written about Wicket Island, MA. and it tells of the effects that the hurricane had on the Island.
The Great September Gale of 1815 is recorded in local lore as having a dramatic effect on Wickets Island. This storm, which is considered on e of the worst New England hurricanes second only to the 1938 storm, struck Long Island and southern New England on September 23, 1815. It believed to have been at least a category three storm. Storms of this intensity often flood barrier islands, strip sediments from beaches and deposit them on marshes, in lakes and lagoons. The Dartmouth Gazette of that year reported the following concerning the storm:
"We hear from every quarter new details of the destruction occasioned by the late storm. From the country as far as Amherst in New Hampshire on the North, Brookfield on the West, Tolland and New London [Conn.] on the South West, and New Bedford on the South, we learn that the tempest raged without any great variation in the degree of violence. Dwelling houses in almost every town have been more or less injured, many barns and out houses, and some dwelling houses have been unroofed, and some few blown down."
In Wareham, and specifically in Onset, it believed that the storm surges caused what amounted to a tidal wave to rush into the harbor, causing large scale erosion of Wickets Island. This erosion is believed to have caused a number of Natives graves on the island to be washed out. Lovell reports that the skeletons that were exposed were collected and reburied (Lovell 1970: 19). While no historical records exist to confirm or challenge Lovell’s report, the possibility is real that there were or are graves on the island. Lovell also reported that other types of Native material have been found along the shores in the Onset area, possibly from the island itself."
Eeeeekkkkk... floating skeletens!
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Trader Ron
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I think this is the "broken" barometer story TraderRon was telling us about
Journalist and mystery novelist R.A. Scotti detailed the hurricane through stories of how it affected individuals in "Sudden Sea". A book reviewer of Everett S. Allen's "A Wind to Shake the World: The Story of the 1938 Hurricane" told the story of one New Englander who lived through it: "On the day of the hurricane, a Yankee farmer received a package containing a barometer that he had ordered through the mail. No matter how many times he tapped it, the mercury remained stuck at the bottom of the glass. Finally, he re-packaged the 'broken' barometer and returned it to the post office. By the time he got back to his own property, his house had washed out to sea."
Journalist and mystery novelist R.A. Scotti detailed the hurricane through stories of how it affected individuals in "Sudden Sea". A book reviewer of Everett S. Allen's "A Wind to Shake the World: The Story of the 1938 Hurricane" told the story of one New Englander who lived through it: "On the day of the hurricane, a Yankee farmer received a package containing a barometer that he had ordered through the mail. No matter how many times he tapped it, the mercury remained stuck at the bottom of the glass. Finally, he re-packaged the 'broken' barometer and returned it to the post office. By the time he got back to his own property, his house had washed out to sea."
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donsutherland1
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Floydbuster,
I believe you're actually referring to the 1821 hurricane and not the 1815 one which took a different track into New England. It's somewhat debateable whether this storm was a Category 4 storm when it hit Cape May. It was likely Category 4--some research says Cat. 4 or 5--when it blasted NC/VA. Considering its track, Category 3 at the time of NJ landfall might be at least as likely as Cat. 4. My only point is to suggest that the verdict on this storm is not entirely certain. It was either Cat. 3 or 4 at the time of NJ landfall.
I believe you're actually referring to the 1821 hurricane and not the 1815 one which took a different track into New England. It's somewhat debateable whether this storm was a Category 4 storm when it hit Cape May. It was likely Category 4--some research says Cat. 4 or 5--when it blasted NC/VA. Considering its track, Category 3 at the time of NJ landfall might be at least as likely as Cat. 4. My only point is to suggest that the verdict on this storm is not entirely certain. It was either Cat. 3 or 4 at the time of NJ landfall.
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