Isaac's Storm (21 page)

Moore
too
suspected
the
Cubans,
and
believed
a
conduit
for
purloined
weather
intelligence
ran
between
New
Orleans
and
Belen.
On
August
24,
1900,
W.
T.
Blythe,
director
of
the
bureau's
New
Orleans
section,
wrote
Moore
a
letter
that
stoked
his
suspicions.
He
notified
Moore
that
the
College
of
Immaculate
Conception
in
New
Orleans
received
a
copy
of
the
national
weather
map
every
single
day
—
the
college
simply
dispatched
a
messenger
to
his
office
to
pick
one
up.
He
did
not
feel
he
had
the
authority
to
refuse.
He
suspected,
however,
that
the
college
then
transmitted
the
contents
by
submarine
cable
to
Belen.
The
real
purpose,
Blythe
wrote,
was
"to
enable
the
Belen
College
in
Havana
to
compete
with
this
Service."

It
was
all
too
much
for
Moore.
Too
clear.
Moore
instituted
the
ban
on
Cuban
weather
telegrams
and
halted
all
direct
transmission
of
West
Indies
storm
reports
from
the
bureau's
Havana
office
to
its
New
Orleans
station.
The
bureau
even
sought
the
help
of
Western
Union.
On
August
28,
Willis
Moore,
then
serving
as
acting
secretary
of
agriculture,
wrote
to
Gen.
Thomas
T.
Eckert,
president
of
Western
Union.
"The
United
States
Weather
Bureau
in
Cuba
has
been
greatly
annoyed
by
independent
observatories
securing
a
few
scattered
reports
and
then
attempting
to
make
weather
predictions
and
issue
hurricane
warnings
to
the
detriment
of
commerce
and
the
embarrassment
of
the
Government
service."
He
revealed
his
suspicions
of
the
New
Orleans
connection.
"I
have
reason
to
believe
that
they
are
copying,
or
contemplate
doing
so,
data
from
our
daily
weather
maps
in
New
Orleans
and
cabling
the
same
to
Havana."

Moore
closed
the
letter,
stating,
"I
presume
you
have
not
the
right
to
refuse
to
transmit
such
telegrams,
but
I
would
respectfully
ask
that
they
be
not
allowed
any
of
the
privileges
accorded
messages
of
this
Bureau,
and
that
they
be
not
given
precedence
over
other
commercial
messages."

To
the
Cubans,
the
cable
ban
was
an
outrage.
"This
conduct,"
wrote
the
Tribuna
in
Cienfuegos,
"is
inconceivable."
Especially
at
the
peak
of
hurricane
season,
"when
everybody
is
waiting
for
the
opinions
and
observations"
of
Cuba's
hurricane
experts.
The
newspaper
cited
in
particular
the
reports
of
a
meteorologist
named
Julio
Jover.
The
cable
ban,
it
cried,
represented
"an
extraordinary
contempt
for
the
public."
'

The
uproar
took
the
bureau
by
surprise.
Apparently
Moore,
Dun-woody,
and
Stockman
expected
the
backward
peoples
of
Cuba
to
accept
the
ban
just
as
they
accepted
the
daily
rise
of
the
sun.
On
Wednesday,
September
5,
as
the
storm
of
1900
moved
toward
Havana,
Dunwoody
wrote
to
Stockman:
"A
very
bitter
opposition
is
being
made
both
officially
and
through
the
newspapers,
to
the
order
prohibiting
the
transmission
of
weather
bureau
dispatches,
by
cranks
on
the
island.

"I
am
not
certain
whether
my
position
will
be
sustained
by
higher
officials,
but
I
have
made
the
issue
on
the
basis
of
good
service.
Of
course,
it
will
be
necessary
for
you
to
furnish
the
press
with
good
reliable
warnings,
in
order
to
defend
the
stand
I
have
taken."

Dunwoody
stood
firm,
and
for
the
moment
prevailed.
The
War
Department
allowed
the
ban
to
continue.

STOCKMAN
AND
THE
observers
in
his
network
took
special
pains
to
avoid
using
the
word
hurricane,
except
when
absolutely
necessary
or
when
stipulating
that
a
particular
storm
was
not
a
hurricane.
They
took
what
might
be
called
a
behavioralist
approach
to
storms.
They
collected
readings
of
temperature,
pressure,
and
wind,
and
based
solely
on
these,
determined
whether
a
storm
existed
or
not.
They
sent
clipped
telegrams
in
a
code
that
did
not
allow
for
conjecture
or
expressions
of
instinct,
yet
in
their
seeming
precision
produced
the
same
sense
of
mastery
over
the
weather
that
daily
weather
journals
gave
to
men
like
Thomas
Jefferson
and
George
Washington.
To
Stockman,
the
tropical
storm
then
making
its
way
over
Cuba
was
the
sum
exactly
of
its
parts,
no
more
and
no
less.
And
the
parts
did
not
add
up
to
much.
On
Saturday,
September
1,
he
released
the
bureau's
evaluation
of
the
storm
to
the
Diario
ie
la
Marina,
in
Havana.
"A
storm
of
moderate
intensity
(not
a
hurricane)
was
central
this
morning
east
by
south
of
Santo
Domingo...
Fast
steamers
which
sail
today
from
Havana
for
New
York
will
reach
their
destination
ahead
of
the
storm."

The
Cubans
took
a
more
romantic
view,
a
psychoanalytic
approach,
that
was
the
product
of
the
island's
long
and
tragic
experience.
Nearly
every
Cuban
alive
had
experienced
at
least
one
major
hurricane.
Cuban
meteorologists
had
the
same
instruments
as
their
American
counterparts,
and
took
the
same
measurements,
but
read
into
them
vastly
greater
potential
for
evil.
The
Cubans
wrote
of
hunches
and
beliefs,
sunsets
and
forboding.
Where
the
Americans
saw
numbers,
the
Cubans
saw
poetry.
Dark
poetry,
perhaps
—
the
works
of
Poe
and
Baudelaire
—
but
poetry
all
the
same.

They
were
wary
from
the
start.
On
August
31,
Julio
Jover
reported
his
assessment
of
the
atmosphere
to
La
Lucha
in
Havana.
Barometric
pressure
had
begun
to
rise,
he
noted
—
but
he
saw
no
comfort
in
the
fact:
"This,
far
from
proving
to
us
that
the
indications
of
a
cyclone
are
vanished,
reaffirms
our
opinion
of
the
unstable
equilibrium
of
the
atmosphere,
and
therefore
of
the
increase
in
energy
of
the
center
of
low
[pressure]
which
is
over
the
Caribbean
Sea."

The
next
day,
Belen's
Father
Gangoite
released
to
La
Lucha
his
view
that
the
storm,
while
at
the
moment
a
small
one,
appeared
to
be
"a
cyclonic
disturbance
in
its
incipiency...
This
kind
of
storm
sometimes
produces
heavy
rain
over
this
island,
and
acquires
greater
energy
as
it
moves
out
over
the
Atlantic."

Father
Gangoite
was
right
about
the
rain-Between
noon
and
8:00
P.M.,
Monday,
September
3,
Santiago
received
over
10
inches.
The
rain
kept
coming.
By
Friday,
the
total
reached
24.34
inches,
enough
vertical
flow
to
fill
a
claw-foot
bathtub,
—
but
Gangoite
was
right,
too,
about
the
energy.

AT
9:20
A.M.
Wednesday,
Captain
T.
P.
Halsey
of
the
steamship
Louisiana,
then
moored
in
New
Orleans,
ordered
his
crew
to
cast
off
the
main
hawsers
and
make
for
the
Gulf.
He
saw
a
red-and-black
storm
flag
rippling
in
the
wind
at
Port
Eads,
Louisiana,
but
believed
he
had
nothing
to
fear.
Nothing
in
the
reports
from
the
Weather
Bureau
indi-cated
conditions
capable
of
threatening
a
modern
steamship
—
there
was
ro
reference
at
all
to
gales
or
cyclones,
no
indication
whatsoever
that
the
storm
could
be
a
hurricane,
or
even
had
the
potential
to
become
one.

And
if
a
cyclone
did
materialize,
so
what?
He
had
survived
eight
so
far.

The
Weather
Bureau's
reluctance
to
use
words
like
hurricane
and
cyclone
inadvertently
reinforced
the
bravado
of
sea
captains
like
Halsey.
Many
mariners
still
believed
that
whether
a
ship
encountered
a
storm
or
not
was
largely
a
matter
of
chance,
so
why
worry?
It
was
an
ethos
of
resignation
born
of
the
frequency
with
which
hurricanes
took
the
ships
and
lives
of
even
the
best
captains.
Wrote
Piddington,
in
a
late
edition
of
his
Sailor's
Horn-Book,
"we
must
expect
to
find
many
'of
the
old
school'
who
do
not
like
'new-fangled
notions;'
many
who
'do
not
like
to
be
put
out
of
their
way;'
many
who
'think
the
old
plan
is
good
enough;'
and
that
'hit
or
miss,
for
luck's
all,'
is
quite
enough
with
a
stout
ship
and
a
good
crew."
Modern
technology
helped
perpetuate
this
ethos.
Steel
and
steam
produced
ever-stouter
ships.
Engines
reduced
the
worst
storm
hazards
—
the
loss
of
control
after
sails
were
furled,
the
imbalance
imparted
by
suspending
tons
of
timber,
canvas,
brass,
and
rope
high
above
a
ship's
deck.
Technology
was
an
elixir
for
last-minute
qualms.

The
Louisiana
entered
the
main
body
of
the
Gulf
at
5:22
P.M.
Halsey's
barometer
read
29.87
inches.
Winds
were
from
the
east-northeast,
the
top-left
quadrant
of
a
cyclone.
The
storm
itself
was
moving
toward
the
northwest.
If
Halsey
had
held
one
of
Henry
Piddington's
transparent
storm
cards
on
a
chart
over
his
position,
he
would
have
seen
that
his
ship
now
lay
directly
in
the
cyclone's
path.

To
be
concerned,
however,
he
first
had
to
know
that
a
cyclone
even
existed.
All
Halsey
knew
was
that
a
nondescript
tropical
storm
was
at
that
moment
arcing
north
into
the
U.S.
mainland
and
soon
would
cross
into
the
Atlantic.

To
Halsey,
it
was
fine,
brisk
day
to
be
at
sea.

ON
WEDNESDAY
MORNING
the
storm
rumbled
into
the
Straits
of
Florida
just
north
of
Cuba
and
promptly
confounded
the
Weather
Bureau's
forecasters.
Willis
Moore
and
his
professors
believed
the
storm
would
now
move
north.
To
them,
the
storm
appeared
to
have
begun
a
long
turn
or
"recurve"
that
would
take
it
first
into
Florida,
then
drive
it
northeast
toward
an
eventual
exit
into
the
Atlantic.
No
real
evidence
supported
this
projection.
It
was
merely
what
the
latest
iterations
of
the
Law
of
Storms
predicted
and
what
the
bureau's
scientists
expected
based
on
the
little
that
was
known
about
tropical
cyclones.
In
the
age
of
certainty,
at
the
gateway
to
the
twentieth
century,
the
expected
was
as
good
as
fact.
To
turn
was
every
storm's
destiny.