The 2004 Hurricane season has been impressive if not brutal and maybe even a little weird. The last five weeks have seen four hurricanes and three tropical storms. Charlie, Frances and Ivan did major damage in Florida. Jeanne killed 1200 and another 1200 still missing as it crossed Haiti and is now poised to come ashore in North Carolina. Ivan is making an encore appearance in the Gulf of Mexico after hitting Florida on September 16, killing 50. Ivan then broke apart and traveled north then began a swing southward and entered the Gulf of Mexico making land fall in Texas. As each of these storms approached the US coast, forecast were as ominous as their dark gathering clouds. The possibility of a catastrophic hit was almost too hard to think about. There is always a temptation to view the storm warning as a false alarm, that they will not be as bad as the public officials and media have built them up to be. Hurricane Camile in 1969 should have taught the Gulf a lesson. The day before Camile made land fall its winds were 115mph, when it came ashore its winds were 190mph. Camile was a true category 5 Hurricane. Ivan,Charlie and Frances were barely category 3 Hurricane's with winds of less than 130mph.
The respect I have for Hurricanes was instilled in my mind more than 40 years ago. September 11, 1961 Hurricane Carla was one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the Texas coast. It made land fall between Port O'Connor and Port Lavaca Texas. It came ashore at 170mph. Port Lavaca had a high tide of 18.5 feet above normal, no Texas Hurricane since the storm of September 14, 1919 has ever had a higher tide. Carla was a rare category 5 Hurricane.
On September 11, 1961 I was living some 385 miles from Carla's land fall. My small town got thousands of people who were trying to escape Carla's raft. Local officials put out a plea for citizens to take as many people as they could and give them shelter in their homes. Dad brought a nice couple home and they stayed with us for several days. The winds from Carla were 70mph when the storm came blowing into my small town. The storm completely destroyed the large outdoor screen at our drive in movie theater along with lots of trees and some medium damage in the business district. Along with the wind we received 8 to 10 inches of rain.
With each year meteoroligist, public officials, media, and ordinary citizens learn more about Hurricanes. One thing is for sure, someday a truly colossal Hurricane will hit the USA.
Great article, I was to young in 1961 to remember what happened, but I enjoyed reading the article. Great writing!!!!
ReplyDeleteLR
I too remember a hurricane from my youth in southwest Louisiana. The year was 1957 and I was 9 years old. We lived approximately 75-100 miles from the gulf and this was the first and only time that our small town was evacuated to the school and court house. I met my friends there and our parents sent us out to get autographs from others taking shelter. Of course, now I realize that the main idea was to keep us occuppied so that we didn't hear about the deaths that were occuring in and around Cameron Louisiana. It was when we returned to our home that I noticed the damage done to our lives. We lost about 7 trees and were without electiricty for over a week which of course was nothing compared to the over 300 deaths further south. We were out of school for years as the people from that area evacuated sooner than they had then. Audrey was the 6th deadliest hurricane and made a strong impression on me. I am enjoying your writing. Mike likes it too!
ReplyDelete