Isaac's Storm (16 page)

The
winter
of
1898-99
proved
a
savage
one.
On
November
26,
just
ten
years
after
the
awful
Blizzard
of
'88,
a
powerful
gale,
known
ever
since
as
the
Portland
Gale,
blew
off
the
Atlantic
and
brought
another
surprise
blizzard
to
New
York.
It
destroyed
150
vessels
off
New
England
and
caused
the
deaths
of
450
men,
women,
and
children,
including
all
200
passengers
of
the
291-foot
paddle
steamer
Portland,
whose
captain
had
believed
he
could
outrun
the
storm.
Two
months
later,
a
blizzard
swept
much
of
the
South.
Icebergs
ten
feet
high
flowed
down
the
Mississippi
past
New
Orleans.
The
sudden
cold
killed
participants
in
the
Mardi
Gras
parade.
The
blizzard
even
struck
Galveston
and
piled
snow
on
its
beaches.
Snowmen
populated
the
Garten
Verein.

At
the
Levy
Building,
the
temperature
sank
to
8
degrees,
by
Isaac's
measure.

Seven-point-five,
by
Joseph's.

The
wind
blew
from
the
north
at
up
to
eighty
miles
an
hour,
with
so
much
power
it
literally
drove
water
out
of
Galveston
Bay
into
the
Gulf,
to
die
point
where
portions
of
the
bay
bottom
lay
exposed.
Joseph,
out
hunting
geese,
claimed
he
was
able
to
wade
a
channel
ordinarily
traversed
by
ocean-going
ships.

No
one,
however,
seemed
to
grasp
the
implications
of
this:
that
so
vast
a
body
of
water
could
be
blown
from
its
basin.
There
were
many
distractions,
however.
There
was
snow
on
the
beach.
Icicles
jutted
from
the
underside
of
the
Pagoda.
Galveston
residents
filled
rowboats
with
benumbed
fish.
Thousands
of
other
fish
accumulated
along
the
bay
shore
in
a
blue-silver
fringe
four
feet
wide
and
half
a
foot
thick.

The
fish
died.
As
the
air
warmed,
the
scent
of
death
became
overpowering.

ON
THURSDAY,
AUGUST
30,
1900,
the
storm
was
just
off
the
eastern
coast
of
Antigua,
where
Francis
Watts,
an
agricultural
chemist
with
the
government
laboratory
in
St.
Johns,
observed
a
falling
barometer
and
curiously
shifty
winds.
At
9:00
A.M.,
the
lab's
barometer
recorded
pressure
of
29.96
inches,
still
in
the
normal
range.
By
midafternoon,
the
pressure
had
fallen
to
29.84.
 

"About
10
P.M.,"
Watts
reported,
"a
thunderstorm
sprung
up
to
the
S.W
and
came
up
over
the
land,
appearing
to
be
most
severe
over
the
region
S.W.
of
St.
Johns
Harbor
and
generally
within
a
radius
of
3
miles
of
St.
Johns.
It
died
away
after
midnight.
While
it
lasted
it
was
very
severe;
the
lightning
was
brilliant
and
almost
continuous,
while
the
(lashes
were
very
quickly
followed
by
loud
peals
of
thunder."

Shortly
before
the
storm's
arrival,
strange
weather
had
settled
on
the
island.
The
day
was
intensely
hot,
the
sky
rimmed
with
a
reddish-yellow
light.
There
was,
according
to
the
Antigua
Standard,
an
"ominous"
stillness.
 

IN
JANUARY
1900,
a
self-styled
weather
prophet,
Prof.
Andrew
Jackson
DeVoe
of
Chattanooga,
Tennessee,
issued
a
long-range
forecast
for
the
year
in
his
Ladies'
Birthday
Almanac.
He
predicted
that
September
would
be
hot
and
dry
throughout
the
northern
states.
"On
the
9th,"
he
wrote,
"a
great
cyclone
will
form
over
the
Gulf
of
Mexico
and
move
up
the
Atlantic
coast,
causing
very
heavy
rains
from
Florida
to
Maine
from
10th
to
12th."

It
was
the
kind
of
prophecy
Isaac
Cline
loathed.
He
was
a
scientist.
He
believed
he
understood
weather
in
ways
others
did
not.
He
did
not
know
there
was
such
a
thing
as
the
jet
stream,
or
that
easterly
waves
marched
from
the
coast
of
West
Africa
every
summer,
or
that
a
massive
flow
within
the
Atlantic
Ocean
ferried
heat
around
the
globe.
Nor
had
he
heard
of
a
phenomenon
called
El
Nino.
But
for
his
time,
he
knew
everything.
Or
thought
he
did.

On
July
15,
1891,
the
Galveston
News
published
an
article
Isaac
wrote
on
hurricanes.
It
is
a
troublesome
document,
for
it
abrades
the
body
of
convenient
truth
that
has
accumulated
over
the
last
century
regarding
Isaac's
role
in
preparing
Galveston
for
the
hurricane
of
1900.
It
tells
worlds
about
what
Isaac
must
have
been
thinking
that
Saturday
morning
and
about
how
accurately
he
appraised
the
signs
of
approaching
danger.

Isaac
was
only
twenty-nine,
but
the
article
read
as
if
it
were
written
by
a
much
older
man.
Clearly
Isaac
already
considered
himself
a
weather
sage.
He
wrote
the
article
in
response
to
a
tropical
storm
that
ten
days
earlier
had
come
ashore
near
Matagorda
about
120
miles
southwest
of
Galveston
along
the
downward
arc
of
the
Texas
Gulf
Coast.
Hubris
infused
the
text
just
as
it
infused
the
age.
He
wrote
with
absolute
certainty
about
a
phenomenon
no
one
really
understood.
He
called
the
storm
"an
excellent
type"
of
cyclone.

He
explained
first
how
the
earth's
rotation,
the
equatorial
trades,
and
the
midlatitude
westerlies
combined
to
give
the
storm
a
parabolic
track
that
began
near
the
equator,
arced
toward
the
northwest,
then
curved
back
toward
the
northeast.
This
last
turn
"nearly
always"
occurred
between
the
75th
and
85
th
meridians
of
longitude,
he
wrote.
(The
85th
meridian
passes
through
Havana,
the
75th
through
the
Bahamas.)
Thus,
he
argued,
hurricanes
could
not
as
a
rule
strike
Texas.
To
buttress
this
observation
he
noted
that
during
the
two
preceding
decades,
some
twenty
West
Indies
hurricanes
had
crossed
the
southern
coast
of
the
United
States,
but
only
two
had
actually
reached
Texas.
"The
coast
of
Texas
is
according
to
the
general
laws
of
the
motion
of
the
atmosphere
exempt
from
West
India
hurricanes
and
the
two
which
have
reached
it
followed
an
abnormal
path
which
can
only
be
attributed
to
causes
known
in
meteorology
as
accidental."

The
article
exudes
an
unmistakable
scent
of
boosterism
reminiscent
of
the
immigrant
come-ons
published
by
the
railroads.
Clearly
he
understood
how
much
was
at
stake
in
the
race
between
Galveston
and
Houston,
and
that
Galveston's
promoters
would
not
be
pleased
to
read
that
the
city
lay
in
harm's
way.
He
argued
that
if
anything
the
coast
was
"much
less
susceptible"
to
hostile
weather.
"No
greater
damage
may
be
expected
here
from
meteorological
disturbances
than
in
any
other
portions
of
the
country."
In
fact,
he
wrote,
the
"liability
of
loss"
was
much
lower.

When
storms
did
break
the
rules,
he
argued,
they
tended
to
be
weak
creatures.
"The
damage
from
the
storm
of
July
5,1891,
aggregated
less
than
$2,000,
and
yet
was
of
much
greater
intensity
than
the
average
of
these
storms;
and
in
fact
no
damage
worthy
of
notice
has
been
experi-enced
along
the
Texas
coast
from
any
of
these
storms
except
those
of
1875
and
1886
and
in
each
of
these
two
cases
the
loss
of
property
aggre-gated
less
than
that
which
often
results
from
a
single
tornado
in
the
central
states."

These
two
exceptions
were
hurricanes
that
struck
the
town
of
Indianola,
a
prosperous
port
150
miles
southwest
of
Galveston
on
Matagorda
Bay.
By
Isaac's
analysis,
the
two
hurricanes
were
accidents.
Atmospheric
freaks.
But
Isaac
failed
to
grasp,
or
deliberately
ignored,
the
true
significance
of
the
hurricanes,
and
what
they
did
to
Indianola.
He
focused
on
property
damage.
"The
single
tornado
which
struck
Louisville,
Ky.,
March
27,
1890,
destroyed
property
of
greater
value
than
the
aggregate
of
all
the
property
which
has
been
destroyed
by
wind
and
water
along
the
Texas
coast
during
the
past
twenty
years."

Isaac
had
to
have
recognized
the
misleading
impression
this
argument
would
conjure
in
readers'
minds,
unless
of
course
he
simply
did
not
know
what
really
happened
in
Indianola
during
those
two
storms.
For
nowhere
does
he
mention
lost
lives.

THE
FIRST
STORM
struck
Indianola
on
September
16,1875.
Gale-force
winds
had
come
ashore
the
previous
day
and
gained
velocity
throughout
the
night.
By
5:00
P.M.
on
the
sixteenth
the
wind
was
blowing
at
eighty-two
miles
an
hour.
The
wind
continued
to
strengthen
until
by
midnight,
according
to
Sgt.
C.
A.
Smith,
the
Signal
Corps
observer
on
duty,
"it
must
have
been
fully
100
miles
an
hour."

The
storm
raised
an
immense
dome
of
water
and
shoved
it
through
Indianola,
pushing
the
waters
of
the
Gulf
and
Matagorda
Bay
inland
"until
for
20
miles
the
back
country
of
prairie
was
an
open
sea."
Residents
fled
their
homes
in
boats
and
gathered
in
the
town's
strongest
buildings.
Shortly
after
midnight,
Smith
reported,
the
tide
changed.
The
survivors
believed
the
worst
was
over.
"This
evidence
of
abatement
was
hailed
with
shouts
of
joy,
and
was
confirmed
in
a
few
minutes
by
the
action
of
the
wind,
which
gradually
backed
to
the
north
and
northwest."