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GREAT HURRICANE OF 1780
Statistics:
October 9th - October 20th, 1780
Winds: 200mph (estimate)
Pressure: unknown
Fatalities: 27,500+
Damage: Unknown
Areas affected: Lesser Antilles, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Bermuda,
possibly Florida
Summary:
The exact origin of the hurricane is unknown, though modern historians estimated
it developed near the Cape Verde Islands in early October. The system
strengthened and grew in size as it tracked slowly westward and first began
affecting Barbados late on October 9th. Late on October 10th, the worst of the
hurricane passed over the island. Early on October 11th, the hurricane turned
north-northwest about 55 miles east of Saint Lucia, and later that night it
neared the island of Martinique. The cyclone gradually weakened as it passed to
the southwest of Dominica early on October 12th and subsequently struck the
island of Guadeloupe. After hitting Guadeloupe, the hurricane turned WNW,
passing about 90 miles SW of Saint Kitts. The hurricane steadily neared Puerto
Rico as it paralleled the southern coastline, and made its closest point of
approach on October 14th to the southwest portion of the island. It subsequently
turned to the northwest, hitting the island of Mona in the Mona Passage before
making landfall near the current-day Dominican Republic province of Samaná. Late
on October 15th it reached the Atlantic Ocean and after passing about 160 miles
east of Grand Turk Island, it is estimated to have recurved to the northeast.
The hurricane passed 150 miles SE of Bermuda on October 18th and was last
observed two days later about 300 miles SE of Cape Race, Newfoundland. On
October 19th, strong winds and high tides were reported in northeastern Florida.
One modern historian suggested the hurricane passed much closer to the state
than previously thought. Another possibility considered was an extension to a
hurricane in the western Caribbean Sea. Due to lack of data, the exact track of
the Great Hurricane is unknown. This storm is the deadliest storm in Atlantic
History, killing an estimated 27,500 people. Based on reports of strong winds
and surf on October 19th, it is also possible that the storm affected Florida in
some way.
1900 GALVESTON HURRICANE
Galveston, Texas, awakened on September 8, 1900, on its way to becoming the most prosperous city in the nation, brimming with activity, commerce, and confidence. The following morning, it was a city decimated and humbled by nature, its businesses and homes unrecognizable, its hope swept away by what is still the deadliest weather disaster in American history.
At the turn of the century, Isaac Cline was the chief weatherman for Texas -- he was also the one man who could have saved Galveston. The morning the storm hit, he watched as huge ocean swells transfigured the usually calm seascape of the Gulf Coast of Texas, timing the arrival of each swell, noting its size and shape. What he had yet to realize was that he had stumbled upon the greatest storm ever to target America, one in which eight thousand men, women, and children were about to lose their lives -- a figure more than twice that of the combined death toll of the Johnstown Flood and the Great San Francisco Earthquake.
"An absurd delusion," is how Isaac Cline, a dedicated and highly trained first-generation employee of the new U.S. Weather Bureau, characterized the fear that any hurricane posed a serious danger to the burgeoning city of Galveston, Texas. Based partly on Cline's expert opinion, Galveston dismissed a proposal to erect a seawall, claiming it a needless, wasteful expense. In 1900, Cline's words reflected not only his own opinion but also the spirit -- what would one day be seen as the hubris -- of his time.
At the turn of the century, Galveston was booming. It was the nation's biggest cotton port, its third-busiest port overall, and the second-most-heavily-traversed entry for immigrants arriving from Europe, nicknamed the "Western Ellis Island." The city had more millionaires, street for street, than any other in America. The nation, too, was bursting at its borders with optimism and confidence. Victory in the Spanish-American War granted the U.S. a heady new status as a global power. The nation was also being transformed in other ways, from an agrarian culture to an industrial one, from rural to urban, from scientific backwater to technological powerhouse. Nothing seemed impossible. American warships steamed to China. American engineers prepared to take over construction of the Panama Canal.
Even weather itself seemed at last under the control of man. The recently established U.S. Weather Bureau oversaw a weather monitoring network that included 158 regular observatories, 132 river outposts, 48 rainfall monitors, 2,562 volunteer observers, 12 West Indies stations, 9 coastal stations, and 96 railway posts throughout the country. One newspaper editorialist in 1900 called weather prediction "a complete science."
It wasn't. The hard lesson that nature cannot be predicted, especially at the extremes of its behavior, was delivered to Isaac Cline, to the city of Galveston, and to the entire nation on September 8, 1900. On the evening of that day, the worst natural disaster in U.S. history roared out of the Gulf of Mexico and confronted Galveston with its own powerlessness in the face of nature's fury.
The unnamed storm was born as a small plume of warm air off the African coast. As it moved deliberately but inexorably across the ocean it fed on the heat of the summer waters, drinking in energy until it had grown huge with the potential for destruction. On September 7, cables started arriving in the Weather Bureau's Washington headquarters, relaying ships' encounters with the growing storm in an area off Cuba. The storm then crossed Florida and arrived in the Gulf, but instead of meandering in the manner of most Gulf storms, it turned and aimed straight for Galveston. The track allowed its winds to blow unobstructed for hundreds of miles over waters made unusually warm by a particularly tropical summer. The storm added to its vast store of energy and pushed a huge wall of water along its leading edge.
On the evening of September 8, the tempest of wind and water slammed into Galveston. In the language of today's National Weather Service, it would be called an extreme hurricane, or X-storm. Within a few hours of making landfall, the storm had scoured vast sections of the city clean of any man-made structure, deposited towering walls of debris in other areas, and killed upward of 10,000 people. Among the dead was Isaac Cline's wife.
The Galveston storm remains the worst natural disaster ever to strike the U.S., its death toll eclipsing the combined carnage of the Johnstown Flood of 1889 and the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. Isaac's Storm is a fascinating look at the physics and meteorology of hurricanes (especially the X-storms that scientists say are a statistical certainty in our own future), a suspenseful re-creation of the track of the 1900 Galveston storm, and an electrifying account of the day the storm released its unfathomable fury on Galveston. Most of all, it is an appreciation of the human face of the tragedy, as focused in the story of Isaac Cline, whose pride was the pride of his nation and his time, and whose education in the unpredictable power of nature is one that if we forget today we do so at our peril.
Reviews
"A gripping account . . . fascinating to its core, and all the more compelling for being true." --The New York Times Book Review
"Superb. . . . Larson has made [Isaac] Cline, turn-of-the-century Galveston and the Great Hurricane live again." --The Wall Street Journal
"Gripping. . . . The Jaws of hurricane yarns." --The Washington Post
"Erik Larson's accomplishment is to have made this great storm story a very human one--thanks to his use of the large number of survivors' accounts--without ignoring the hurricane itself." --The Boston Globe
"Vividly captures the devastation." --Newsday
"This brilliant exploration of the hurricane's deadly force . . . tracks the gathering storm as if it were a character. . . . Larson has the storyteller's gift of keeping the reader spellbound." --The Times-Picayune
"With a consumate narrative skill and insight into turn-of-the-century American culture . . . Larson's story is about the folly of all who believe that man can master or outwit the forces of nature." --The News and Observer
"[A] powerful story . . . a classic tale of mankind versus nature." --The Christian Science Monitor
"The best storm book I've read, consumed mostly in twenty-four hours; these pages filled me with dread. Days later, I am still glancing out the window nervously. A well-told story." -Daniel Hays, author of My Old Man and the Sea
"Isaac's Storm so fully swept me away into another place, another time that I didn't want it to end. I braced myself from the monstrous winds, recoiled in shock at the sight of flailing children floating by, and shook my head at the hubris of our scientists who were so convinced that they had the weather all figured out. Erik Larson's writing is luminous, the story absolutely gripping. If there is one book to read as we enter a new millennium, it's Isaac's Storm, a tale that reminds us that there are forces at work out there well beyond our control, and maybe even well beyond our understanding." -Alex Kotlowitz, author of The Other Side of the River and There Are No Children Here
"There is electricity in these pages, from the crackling wit and intelligence of the prose to the thrillingly described terrors of natural mayhem and unprecedented destruction. Though brimming with the subtleties of human nature, the nuances of history, and the poetry of landscapes, Isaac's Storm still might best be described as a sheer page turner." -Melissa Faye Greene, author of Praying for Sheetrock and The Temple Bombing
1991 BANGLADESH CYCLONE
Statistics:
April 22nd - April 30th, 1991
Winds: 160mph
Pressure: 898mb
Fatalities: 138,000+
Damage: $2 billion (2008 USD)
Areas affected: Bangladesh
Summary:
An area of persistent cloudiness, in part due to the monsoon trough, developed
into a tropical depression on April 22nd in the Bay of Bengal. The wind speed
and overall size increased, with the depression becoming TS 02B on the 24th. The
enormous wind field at the time encompassed nearly the entire Bay. The tropical
storm continued slowly northwestward, slowly strengthening to a cyclone-strength
storm on the 27th. The cyclone moved between a high pressure system to its
northwest and east, and as mid-level westerlies met up with the storm, the
cyclone moved northeastward. The westerlies enhanced upper level outflow, and in
combination with warm water temperatures the cyclone steadily strengthened to a
major hurricane on the 28th. On the 28th and 29th, as the system increased its
speed to the north-northeast, the cyclone rapidly intensified to a 160 mph
Cyclone, the equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane. Late on the 29th, Cyclone 02B
made landfall a short distance south of Chittagong as a slightly weaker 155 mph
Category 4 Cyclone. The storm rapidly weakened over land, and dissipated on the
30th over southeast Asia.
Track of
1991 Bangladesh cyclone
Visible
Image of 1991 Bangladesh cyclone
HURRICANE ANDREW
Statistics:
August 16th - August 28th, 1992
Winds: 175mph
Pressure: 922mb
Fatalities: 26
Damage: $40.7 billion (2008 USD)
Areas affected: Bahamas; South Florida, Louisiana, and other areas of the
Southern United States
Summary:
A tropical wave moved off the coast of Africa on August 14th and tracked quickly
westward. It is estimated TD #3 developed late on August 16th about 1630 miles
ESE of Barbados. Embedded within the deep easterlies, the depression tracked WNW
at 20mph. Initially, moderate wind shear prevented strengthening, though a
decrease in shear allowed the depression to intensify into TS Andrew at around
1200 UTC on August 17th. By early on August 18th, the storm maintained
concentrated convection near the center with spiral bands to its west as the
winds increased to 50mph. Shortly thereafter the thunderstorms decreased
markedly during the diurnal minimum, and as the storm turned to the northwest
increased southwesterly wind shear from an upper-level low prevented Andrew from
maintaining deep convection. On August 19th, a Hurricane Hunters flight into the
storm failed to locate a well-defined center, and the next day a flight found
that the cyclone had degenerated to the extent that only a diffuse low-level
circulation center remained; observations indicated the pressure rose to an
unusually high 1015mb. The flight indicated Andrew maintained a vigorous
circulation aloft, with winds of 80mph recorded at flight level. The upper-level
low weakened and split into a trough, which decreased the wind shear over the
storm. Simultaneously, a strong high pressure cell developed over the
southeastern United States, which built eastward and caused Andrew to turn to
the west. Convection became more organized as upper-level outflow became better
established. An eye formed, and Andrew attained hurricane status early on August
22nd while located about 650 miles ESE of Nassau, Bahamas.
Six hours after becoming a hurricane, Andrew was predicted to make landfall near Jupiter, Florida with winds of 105mph. The hurricane accelerated as it tracked due westward into an area of very favorable conditions, and late on August 22nd began rapidly intensifying; in a 24 hour period the pressure dropped 47mb to a minimum pressure of 922mb. On August 23rd the cyclone attained Category 5 status on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, and at 1800 UTC Hurricane Andrew reached peak winds of 175mph while located a short distance off Eleuthera island in the Bahamas. A small tropical cyclone, winds of 35mph extended out only about 90 miles from its center. Subsequent to peaking in intensity, the hurricane underwent an eyewall replacement cycle, and at 2100 UTC on August 23rd, Hurricane Andrew struck Eleuthera with winds of 160mph. The cyclone weakened further while crossing the Bahama Banks, and at 0100 UTC on August 24th Andrew hit the southern Berry Islands of the Bahamas with winds of 150mph. As it crossed over the warm waters of the Gulf Stream in the Straits of Florida, the hurricane rapidly re-intensified as the eye decreased in size and its eyewall convection deepened. At 0840 UTC on August 24th, Andrew struck Elliott Key with winds of 165mph and a pressure of 926mb. The hurricane continued to strengthen up to and slightly after landfall, and 25 minutes after its first Florida landfall Andrew hit near Homestead with a slightly lower pressure and the same winds. As the eye moved onshore, the convection in the eyewall strengthened owing to increased convergence, and Hurricane Hunters reported a warmer eyewall temperature than two hours prior. However, Hurricane Andrew weakened as the eye continued further inland, and after crossing southern Florida in four hours, the eye emerged into the Gulf of Mexico with winds of 135 mph. The eye remained well-defined as the hurricane turned to the westnorthwest, a change due to the weakening of the ridge to its north. Andrew steadily re-intensified over the Gulf of Mexico, reaching winds of 145 mph by late on August 25th and turned NW and winds decreased as Andrew approached the Gulf Coast of the United States. At 0830 UTC on August 26th the cyclone made its final landfall in a sparsely populated area of Louisiana about 20 miles WSW of Morgan City with winds of 115mph. Hurricane Andrew weakened rapidly as it turned to the north and northeast, and within ten hours weakened to a tropical storm. After entering Mississippi, the cyclone deteriorated to tropical depression status early on August 27th.
Track of
Hurricane Andrew
Visible
Image of Hurricane Andrew
LABOR
DAY HURRICANE OF 1935
Statistics:
August 29th - September 10th, 1935
Winds: 185mph
Pressure: 892mb
Fatalities: 408-600
Damage: $94 million (2008 USD)
Areas affected: Bahamas, Florida Keys, Big Bend, Florida Panhandle, Georgia,
South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia
Summary:
The storm was born as a small tropical disturbance due east of Florida near the
Bahamas in late August. The disturbance drifted west through the islands toward
the Gulf Stream, and U.S. weather forecasters became aware of a possible
tropical storm approaching. Early on September 1st, the tropical storm
strengthened to a Category 1 hurricane as it neared the southern tip of Andros
Island in the Bahamas and later crossed the southern end of the island while
continuing to intensify. As the hurricane entered the Gulf Stream late on
September 1st, intensification became considerably more rapid. It intensified
without pause for a day and a half, while its track made a gentle turn to the
northwest, toward Islamorada in the upper Keys. The hurricane reached its peak
intensity late on September 2nd, and made landfall shortly thereafter between
8:30 and 9:30 pm EST at Craig Key. After striking the Keys, the hurricane began
to weaken as it paralleled the west coast of Florida.
It moved northwest on
September 3rd, passed west of Tampa, and gradually turned to the north. It made
a second landfall in northwest Florida near Cedar Key as a Category 2 hurricane
on September 4th. It quickly weakened to a tropical storm as it moved inland,
and it passed over Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina prior to emerging
into the Atlantic Ocean near Norfolk. On September 6, the storm quickly re-intensified
to hurricane intensity, and it reached a second peak intensity of 90 mph. It
quickly began to weaken, and the system rapidly became extratropical. The
remnants continued northeast until it became extratropical south of Greenland on
September 10th. This storm still holds the record as having the lowest pressure
ever recorded at landfall in the United States. The railroad that was being
constructed along the keys was destroyed, affecting tourism in the area for
years to come. Ernest Hemingway publicly blamed the government for not
protecting the veterans during the storm.
Track
of Labor Day Hurricane of 1935
HURRICANE HUGO
Statistics:
September 9th - September 25th, 1989
Winds: 160mph
Pressure: 918mb
Fatalities: 76
Damage: $17.4 billion (2008 USD)
Areas affected: Guadeloupe, Montserrat, Dominica, British Virgin Islands, U.S.
Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, North Carolina, most of eastern
North America
Summary:
Hugo's origins were from a cluster of thunderstorms that moved off the coast of
Africa on September 9th. On a westward track, Hugo steadily intensified,
becoming a tropical storm on the 11th, and a Hurricane on the 13th. Hugo reached
its peak intensity while several hundred miles to the east of Puerto Rico. Hugo
began to execute a more NNW track, still intensifing as it did so. On the 17th,
Hugo's eye was over Guadeloupe.
Shortly thereafter, Hugo accelarated to the NNW,
and by the 19th, Hugo was located to the north of Puerto Rico. On the 21st, Hugo
was located a couple hundred miles east of Florida, when it began a more
northward track, in response to a steering flow that was associated with a low
pressure system that was moving across the United States. Hugo moved toward the
NW, and made landfall on the Isle of Palms, South Carolina, as a category 4 on
the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale on September 22nd. The storm continued inland,
and weakend to a tropical storm later that day. The storm continued weakening as
it moved inland, and on September 23rd, the storm was making its transition into
a remnant low.
Track of
Hurricane Hugo
Visible
Image of Hurricane Hugo
AUSTRALIA FLOOD 2011
Australian floods kill nine as waters threaten Brisbane.More than 70 people missing as Queensland premier says death toll is expected to double.
Nine people are dead and more than 70 are missing after flooding in the Australian state of Queensland devastated several towns and sent torrents raging through many communities. Floodwaters are now heading for Brisbane where the river, which runs through the centre of the city, has broken its banks and police have urged local residents to begin evacuations.
Police described the wall of water that swept through the city of Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, as an "inland instant tsunami". Cars were tossed like toys down the street, trees uprooted and businesses inundated as the floodwaters tore through the centre of town. Four people including two children were killed.
"Houses were ripped from their stumps. This is unbelievable damage," said the Toowoomba mayor, Peter Taylor.
From Toowoomba, the water flowed down the Lockyer valley where emergency services plucked more than 40 people from houses isolated by the torrent, which hit with little warning. Thunderstorms and driving rain were keeping helicopters from reaching people still in danger this morning.
Dozens of suburbs in Brisbane,Australia's third largest city, are at risk of flooding. The waters are expected to peak on Wednesday and up to 9,000 homes could be affected. A number of businesses in the centre of the city have closed and sent their staff home. Traffic jams across the city have clogged roads as people try to get home or to higher ground.
The prime minister, Julia Gillard, warned that the country should brace itself for the death toll to rise.
"Seventy-two Australians are unaccounted for and that means in Queensland and around the nation, there are people who are frightened, people who are desperately waiting for news of loved ones," she said.
Reports from the town of Grantham said a wall of water up to seven metres high swept through the area. Television pictures showed houses and buildings destroyed. Authorities said they had grave fears for at least 30 people who had gathered in a primary school. Phone lines were down in the town.
"Our immediate focus is on the search and rescue effort in the Lockyer valley and Toowoomba," said the defence minister, Stephen Smith.
Two hundred Australian Defence Force personnel are being sent to the area to assist. The Queensland premier, Anna Bligh, warned the death toll was expected to double.
Queensland has been in the grip of floods for several weeks. An area the size of France and Germany combined has been affected. Much of the flooding has happened in the north of the state. Residents in the south-east corner of Queensland near Brisbane had been preparing for waters to reach them but were surprised by the scale of Monday's events.
"Mother nature has unleashed something shocking out of the Toowoomba region. What we have here in Queensland is a very grim and desperate situation," Bligh said.
Queensland officials have said the price of rebuilding homes, businesses and infrastructure, coupled with economic losses, could be as high as A$5bn (£3.2bn).
BRAZIL FLOOD 20111
Brazil flood deaths rise to 500.Rescue workers struggled to reach areas cut off by devastating floods and landslides that have killed at least 500 people in one of Brazil's worst natural disasters in decades.January 14 th 2011
Torrents of mud and water set off by heavy rains left a trail of destruction through the mountainous Serrana region near the city of Rio de Janeiro, toppling houses, buckling roads and burying entire families as they slept.
“It's like an earthquake struck some areas,” said Jorge Mario, the mayor of the Teresopolis municipal area, where at least 158 people died.
“There are three or four neighborhoods that were totally destroyed in rural areas. There are hardly any houses standing there and all the roads and bridges are destroyed.”
Heavy rains earlier in the week killed 13 people in Sao Paulo state, bringing the total number of deaths in southern Brazil to at least 388.
The disaster poses an early challenge for new President Dilma Rousseff, who was due to fly over the region on Thursday. Beside the immediate crisis of loss of life and property damage, it could further boost rising food prices that have been a major concern for the government.
Hillsides and riverbanks about 60 miles north of Rio, which will co-host the 2014 World Cup and host the 2016 Olympics, collapsed after the equivalent of a month's rain fell in 24 hours from Tuesday. Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper said it was the worst natural disaster to hit Brazil in four decades.
More heavy rain is forecast for the coming days, complicating rescue efforts and raising the risk of further mudslides.
Raging flood waters and rivers of mud totally submerged some houses and left cars crumpled like tin cans. More then 13,500 people were made homeless in the region, the Civil Defense agency said.
The worst-hit area was Nova Friburgo, a rural town first settled by Swiss immigrants, where the death toll was 168, according to local officials.
Mario said rescue teams
had yet to reach several of the worst-hit parts of Teresopolis, including one
neighborhood where media reports said that around 150 houses were destroyed. (BAH)
With Love and regards
Reha Uzundere
Chairman
Leader of the world tourism
Citation: Wunder blog,Randomhouse.com,
BBC NEWS,Guardian.co.uk,Merco Press
Webmaster: Reha Uzundere
