Isaac's Storm (17 page)

Their
joy
was
premature.
The
wind
again
began
shoveling
water,
this
time
back
toward
Matagorda
Bay,
and
created
an
"ebb
surge,"
a
mesoscale
version
of
what
happens
on
any
beach
when
water
brought
ashore
by
a
wave
rushes
back
out
to
sea,
undermining
anything
in
its
way.
"The
tide
now
swept
out
toward
the
bay
with
terrific
force,
the
wind
having
but
slightly
abated,
and
it
was
at
this
time
that
the
greatest
destruction
to
life
and
property
occurred.
The
buildings
remaining
had
been
so
loosened
and
racked
by
northeast
wind
and
tide
that
the
moment
the
tremendous
force
was
changed
in
a
cross-direction
dozens
of
them
toppled
in
ruins
and
were
swept
into
the
bay."

The
initial
storm
surge
had
poured
into
Matagorda
Bay
over
the
course
of
eighteen
hours.
It
exited
in
six.

The
devastation
was
stunning.
"Fully
three-fourths
of
all
the
buildings
had
entirely
disappeared
from
the
scene,
and
of
those
remaining,
a
large
part
were
in
utter
ruins,"
Smith
wrote.
"Many
of
those
remaining
had
been
swept
from
their
original
foundation
—
some
but
a
few
yards,
others
several
blocks."

The
storm
killed
176
people.
Compared
with
the
death
tolls
of
the
great
Bay
of
Bengal
typhoons,
this
raw
total
did
not
seem
like
much.
But
Gen.
Adolphus
Greely,
who
visited
Indianola
six
months
after
the
storm,
estimated
the
death
toll
amounted
to
one-fifth
the
city's
population.
The
storm
left
a
schooner
high
and
dry
five
miles
inland
and
killed
fifteen
thousand
sheep
and
catde.
All
this,
Greely
observed,
despite
the
fact
that
Indianola
occupied
a
sheltered
niche
on
the
Texas
coast
fourteen
miles
from
the
Gulf
and
behind
a
broken
plume
of
barrier
lands
that
might
have
been
expected
to
blunt
the
force
of
any
oncoming
storm.
Even
six
months
afterward,
the
damage
was
obvious
and
vivid.
The
hurricane
had
destroyed
not
only
the
superficial
structures
made
by
men,
Greely
found,
but
also
God's
own
topography.
"The
striking
physical
changes
were
the
formation
of
a
large
lake
in
the
rear
of
the
town
and
the
plowing
of
numerous
bayous
inland,
five
connecting
across
the
solid
land
of
an
elevation
ranging
between
10
and
20
feet
above
the
level
of
Matagorda
Bay,
on
which
the
town
was
built.
One
of
these
bayous
was
nearly
20
feet
deep
at
the
time
of
my
visit."

Indianola
was
proud
of
its
port
and
believed
it
could
be
restored
to
its
former
prosperity.
Its
residents
chose
to
rebuild.

THE
SECOND
HURRICANE
arrived
on
August
20,1886.
"The
water
in
the
bay
commenced
to
rise
rapidly,"
according
to
the
Signal
Corps
account
of
the
storm.
The
wind
destroyed
the
service's
weather
station,
where
falling
timbers
killed
the
resident
observer,
I.
A.
Reed,
as
he
tried
to
escape.
"A
lamp
in
the
office
set
fire
to
the
building
and,
although
rain
was
falling
heavily,
it
was
burned,
and
also
more
than
a
block
of
buildings
on
both
sides
of
the
street."

The
wind
raised
storm
and
ebb
surges
even
more
destructive
than
those
of
1875.
"The
appearance
of
the
town
after
the
storm
was
one
of
universal
wreck.
Not
a
house
remained
uninjured,
and
most
of
those
that
were
left
standing
were
in
unsafe
condition.
Many
were
washed
away
completely
and
scattered
over
the
plains
back
of
the
town;
others
were
lifted
from
their
foundations
and
moved
bodily
over
considerable
distances."

The
storm
caused
such
thorough
destruction,
and
killed
so
many
residents,
the
survivors
abandoned
the
town
forever.

AT
FIRST,
GALVESTON'S
leading
men
seemed
to
grasp
the
significance
of
the
Indianola
storms.
Anyone
who
looked
at
a
map
could
see
that
Galveston
was
even
more
vulnerable
to
destruction
than
Indianola.
It
had
no
picket
of
barrier
islands
to
shelter
it,
no
buffer
of
mainland
prairie.
The
city
faced
the
Gulf
head-on.

Six
weeks
after
the
second
Indianola
storm,
a
group
of
thirty
prominent
Galveston
residents
calling
themselves
the
Progressive
Association
met
and
resolved
to
build
a
seawall.
This
was
the
same
group
that
led
the
fight
for
federal
money
to
turn
Galveston
into
a
deep-water
port.
The
city's
engineer,
E.
M.
Hartrick,
went
so
far
as
to
draft
plans
for
the
wall.
He
proposed
"a
dike
ten
feet
high
extending
completely
around
the
island,
except
for
the
north
side.
There,
the
wharves
were
to
be
raised
to
form
the
dike."
The
city's
Evening
Tribune
endorsed
the
plan.
"When
men
such
as
these
say
that
work
on
seawall
protection
should
be
commenced
at
once
and
pushed
to
completion,
the
public
can
depend
upon
it
that
something
tangible
will
be
done
—
and
that
without
unnecessary
delay."

The
state
eventually
did
authorize
a
bond
to
pay
for
the
work.
"But,"
engineer
Hartrick
wrote,
"this
was
some
months
after
the
flood,
and
by
then
the
attitude
was,
Oh,
we'll
never
get
another
one
—
and
they
didn't
build."

If
Galveston
had
any
lingering
anxiety
about
its
failure
to
erect
a
seawall,
Isaac's
1891
article
would
have
eased
them.
It
was
here
that
he
belittled
hurricane
fears
as
the
artifacts
of
"an
absurd
delusion."
He
was
especially
confident
about
storm
surges.
Galveston
would
escape
harm,
he
argued,
because
the
incoming
water
would
spread
first
over
the
vast
lowlands
behind
Galveston,
on
the
Texas
mainland
north
of
the
bay
where
the
land
was
even
closer
to
sea
level.

"It
would
be
impossible,"
he
wrote,
"for
any
cyclone
to
create
a
storm
wave
which
could
materially
injure
the
city."

THE
STORM
ENTERED
the
Caribbean
Sea
early
on
Friday
morning,
August
31,
in
a
confetti
of
sparks
and
thunder,
with
increased
winds
that
raised
from
the
sea
patches
of
dense
foam
and
streaks
of
spindrift.
In
the
cloudlight
of
morning
the
sea
was
a
dead
gray
scabbed
with
green.
Rain
began
falling
on
St.
Kitts,
an
island
west
by
northwest
of
Antigua.
What
made
this
rain
unusual
was
the
fact
it
did
not
deplete
the
clouds
overhead.
The
storm
only
got
bigger.

As
vapor
rose
through
the
clouds
and
began
to
condense,
it
deposited
its
moisture
on
tiny
bits
of
airborne
debris,
ranging
from
submicroscopic
"Aitken"
nuclei
to
pollen,
spiderwebs,
volcanic
ash,
steamship
exhaust,
Saharan
dust,
even
the
pulverized
ferrous
salts
of
meteors
disintegrated
in
the
atmosphere.
Somewhere
over
St.
Kitts,
a
giant
plume
of
water,
ice,
and
aerosol
debris
rocketed
through
the
troposphere
getting
colder
and
colder
until
it
penetrated
the
stratosphere,
where
it
entered
a
realm
of
new
warmth
caused
by
direct
radiation
from
the
sun.
Suddenly
the
plume
was
colder
than
the
air
around
it.
It
lost
buoyancy.
It
arced
against
the
hard
blue
of
the
stratosphere
and
fell
back
toward
the
earth.

This
descending
air
met
air
still
rising
from
below.
Falling
droplets
met
ascending
droplets.
The
collisions
formed
bigger
drops
and
the
bigger
they
grew,
the
faster
they
fell.
Now
they
overtook
other
falling
droplets
and
grew
bigger
still.
A
raindrop
four-hundredths
of
an
inch
in
diameter
falls
at
nine
miles
an
hour;
a
droplet
six
times
as
large
falls
at
twenty.
Billions
of
droplets
now
got
bigger
and
bigger
until
they
achieved
terminal
velocities
capable
of
propelling
them
all
the
way
to
the
ground.

Under
ordinary
circumstances,
the
process
of
rain
production
depletes
clouds.
The
"sink
rate,"
or
the
rate
at
which
water
leaves
a
cloud,
exceeds
the
supply
of
moisture
arriving
from
the
air
and
sea
below,
causing
clouds
to
dissipate
like
ghosts
returning
to
the
afterworld.
But
hurricanes
defeat
this
cycle.
They
use
wind
to
harvest
moisture
and
deliver
it
to
their
centers.
As
the
wind
races
along
the
surface
of
the
sea,
it
increases
the
rate
of
evaporation
and
captures
spindrift
and
foam.
The
faster
the
wind
blows,
the
more
vapor
it
picks
up
and
the
more
energy
it
transfers
to
the
storm.
The
resulting
surge
of
condensation
and
heat
in
the
storm's
core
causes
even
greater
volumes
of
air
to
rush
into
the
sky.
Pressure
falls
again.
Wind
velocities
increase.
The
cycle
repeats
itself.

The
result
can
be
rainfall
more
akin
to
the
flow
from
a
faucet
than
from
a
cloud.

In
1979
a
tropical
storm
named
Claudette
blew
off
the
Gulf
of
Mexico
near
Galveston
and
deluged
the
town
of
Alvin,
Texas,
with
forty-two
inches
of
rain
in
twenty-four
hours,
still
the
U.S.
record
for
sheer
intensity.
A
Philippine
typhoon
holds
the
world's
record,
dropping
73.62
inches
in
twenty-four
hours.
Total
accumulations
have
been
higher,
however.
Ninety-six
and
a
half
inches
of
rain
once
fell
on
Silver
Hill,
Jamaica,
over
four
days.
That's
eight
feet.
In
1899
a
hurricane
dropped
an
estimated
2.6
billion
tons
of
water
on
Puerto
Rico.
Hurricane
Camille,
which
came
ashore
on
the
Gulf
Coast
in
August
1969,
was
still
flush
with
water
two
days
later
when
it
reached
Virginia.
With
no
advance
warning
from
the
Weather
Bureau,
it
jettisoned
thirty
inches
of
rain
in
six
hours.
Hillsides
turned
to
mud,
then
to
an
earthen
slurry
that
flowed
at
highway
speeds.
In
Virginia
alone,
109
people
lost
their
lives.