Isaac's Storm (22 page)

Shortly
after
noon
on
Wednesday
the
Central
Office
telegraphed
a
report
to
New
Orleans
that
the
storm
"probably
will
be
felt
as
far
north
as
Norfolk
by
Thursday
night
and
is
likely
to
extend
over
the
middle
Atlantic
and
South
New
England
states
by
Friday."
So
far,
the
report
said,
"the
storm
has
been
attended
only
by
heavy
rains
and
winds
of
moderate
force."

The
report
contained
some
excellent
news
—
the
storm
would
"terminate
the
period
of
high
temperature
which
has
prevailed
east
of
the
Mississippi."

IN
HAVANA,
WEDNESDAY,
Julio
Jover
sent
an
8:00
A.M.
dispatch
—
by
mail
—
to
La
Lucha:
"We
are
today
near
the
center
of
the
low
pressure
area
of
the
hurricane."

Again,
that
dreadful
word.

When
William
Stockman
read
Jover's
report,
he
surely
laughed.
He
cut
the
report
from
the
newspaper
and
affixed
it
to
a
special
form
designed
by
the
Weather
Bureau
to
help
station
chiefs
collect
praise-fill
articles
from
the
nation's
newspapers
and
forward
them
to
Moore.
Stockman
saw
Jover's
report
as
further
justification
for
the
telegraph
ban
—
it
was
another
example
of
alarmist
forecasting
by
the
Cubans,
who
seemed
to
care
more
about
drama
and
passion
than
science.
Stockman
did
not
consider
the
storm
worthy
of
much
further
attention.

THE
STORM
AND
its
expanding
cyclonic
system
now
influenced
a
territory
covering
a
million
square
miles
of
ocean
and
began
to
shape
the
weather
in
the
southern
United
States.
In
Tampa,
telegraph
wires
whistled.
Winds
reached
twenty-eight
miles
per
hour.
In
Key
West,
the
barometer
fell
to
29.42
inches,
the
lowest
level
yet
reported.
The
wind
came
from
the
northeast
and
accelerated
to
forty
miles
an
hour,
a
true
Beaufort
gale.

Wednesday
evening,
however,
the
wind
in
Key
West
abruptly
weakened.
Its
velocity
dropped
to
six
miles
an
hour,
barely
a
breeze.
Later
that
night,
it
began
accelerating
again,
this
time
from
the
south.

The
bureau's
forecasters
believed
the
sudden
easing
of
the
wind
and
the
attendant
change
in
direction
meant
the
center
of
the
storm
had
passed
over
or
near
Key
West,
and
saw
this
as
confirmation
of
their
belief
that
the
storm
would
soon
be
traveling
up
the
Adantic
coasdine.
Once
again,
they
tailored
fact
to
suit
their
expectations.
They
knew
just
enough
to
believe
they
had
nothing
to
fear.

But
the
storm
did
not
go
north.

The
bureau
had
missed
the
true
meaning
of
the
wind
shift
at
Key
West.
Here
was
an
area
of
calm
immediately
adjacent
to
a
zone
of
gale-force
wind,
in
a
storm
that
had
just
crossed
the
great
mass
of
Cuba
without
losing
any
of
its
size
or
energy
or
its
ability
to
produce
biblical
volumes
of
rain.
No
one
knew
it
at
the
time,
but
the
conditions
at
Key
West
provided
the
clearest
evidence
yet
that
the
storm's
architecture
was
changing.

At
the
storm's
center,
centrifugal
force
had
come
to
play
—
the
same
force
that
flings
children
off
the
rims
of
playground
carousels.
The
winds
spiraling
toward
the
storm's
center
now
traveled
at
such
a
high
rate
of
speed,
they
began
to
generate
centrifugal
force
that
sought
to
push
them
back
out
again.
Where
the
inrushing
and
outpushing
forces
balanced,
the
winds
began
to
form
a
circle,
a
gigantic
carousel
over
the
ocean.

This
storm
was
about
to
open
its
eye.

THE
NEXT
MORNING,
Thursday,
at
6:00
A.M.,
William
Stockman
sent
a
dispatch
that
placed
the
storm
150
miles
north,
by
east,
of
Key
West.

It
was
a
grave
mistake,
for
it
colored
the
expectations
and
perceptions
of
the
bureau's
Central
Office
at
a
critical
point
in
the
storm's
journey.
Stockman's
guess
—
and
that's
all
it
was,
a
guess,
armored
in
the
certainty
of
the
age
—
provided
a
framework
into
which
Moore's
forecasters
eagerly
fitted
other
incoming
observations.

Two
hours
later,
the
Central
Office
issued
its
8:00
A.M.
national
weather
map
for
Thursday,
along
with
a
prediction
that
"the
storm
will
probably
continue
slowly
northward
and
its
effects
will
be
felt
as
far
as
the
lower
portion
of
the
middle
Atlantic
coast
by
Friday
night."

The
Weather
Bureau
transmitted
the
map
and
its
notes
via
the
impossibly
intricate
web
of
telegraph
wires
that
ran
along
every
railroad
right-of-way
in
the
nation.
The
report
caught
the
attention
of
fishermen
in
Long
Branch,
New
Jersey,
who
cabled
Washington:
"Advise
quick
about
storm
unable
decide
about
taking
out
nets."

Moore
liked
messages
like
this.
They
showed
that
his
efforts
to
increase
the
bureau's
credibility
were
beginning
to
pay
off.
The
bureau's
own
scientists
had
always
believed
that
one
day
they
would
be
able
to
make
accurate
long-range
forecasts;
the
most
enthusiastic
hoped
they
might
even
learn
to
make
rain
and
quash
hail.
It
was
the
public
that
had
always
questioned
the
bureau's
competence.
At
last
that
skepticism
was
beginning
to
weaken.
Many
shippers,
railroad
agents,
and
cotton
traders
had
grown
as
dependent
on
the
bureau
as
the
Galveston
police
had
on
electricity.

At
2:15
Thursday
afternoon,
Moore
sent
a
reply
to
the
Long
Branch
fishermen:
"Not
safe
to
leave
nets
in
after
tonight.
Wind
likely
to
increase
from
northeast
beginning
tomorrow
morning."

Moore's
telegram
showed
that
the
bureau
was
still
convinced
the
storm
was
barreling
north,
bound
ultimately
for
the
Atlantic.
The
bureau
had
few
hard
facts
about
the
storm,
yet
what
is
remarkable
about
its
cables
that
day
is
the
complete
absence
of
doubt
or
qualification.

A
week
later,
with
Galveston
in
ruins,
Cuba's
Julio
Jover
paid
a
visit
to
Colonel
Dunwoody.
Emboldened
by
disaster,
Jover
sought
to
confront
Dunwoody
on
the
telegraph
ban,
but
the
conversation
expanded
to
include
the
efficacy
of
hurricane
prediction.

As
the
interview
gained
heat,
Dunwoody
grew
frustrated.
He
told
Jover,
"You
had
better
go
to
the
Belen
College
Observatory
and
there
study
a
work
which
I
wrote
about
meteorology
—
see
if
what
I
said
about
the
prediction
of
cyclones
is
not
a
question
of
divination,
as
a
cyclone
has
just
occurred
in
Galveston
which
no
meteorologist
predicted."

Jover,
incredulous,
paused
a
moment.
He
said,
slowly,
as
one
might
address
the
inmate
of
an
asylum:
"That
cyclone
is
the
same
one
which
passed
over
Cuba."

"No
sir,"
Dunwoody
snapped.
"It
cannot
be;
no
cyclone
ever
can
move
from
Florida
to
Galveston."

AT
7:00
A.M.
Galveston
time,
Thursday,
September
6,
Joseph
Cline
made
the
station's
morning
observations,
coded
them,
and
had
a
messenger
carry
the
report
to
the
Western
Union
office
on
the
Strand,
where
it
entered
the
great
surge
of
weather
details
that
crowded
the
nation's
telegraph
lines
that
morning,
and
every
morning.
Joseph
reported
normal
atmospheric
pressure
of
29.974
inches
and
a
temperature
of
80
degrees,
markedly
lower
than
the
night
before.
The
sky
was
clear
and
blue.
Such
fair
weather
must
have
been
reassuring
to
Joseph
and
Isaac
—
the
best
evidence
yet
that
the
tropical
storm
was
at
that
moment
racing
toward
the
Atlantic.
Only
much
later,
as
meteorologists
came
to
under-stand
the
strange
physics
of
hurricanes,
would
such
intervals
of
fair
weather
in
the
path
of
a
tropical
cyclone
take
on
a
more
menacing
cast.

In
Washington,
a
legion
of
clerks
at
the
Central
Office
processed
the
incoming
blizzard
of
weather
data
and
quickly
constructed
the
morning's
national
map,
which
the
office
then
telegraphed
back
to
every
station
in
the
country.
Each
station
then
added
a
local
and
regional
forecast
prepared
by
headquarters,
set
the
map
in
type,
and
printed
copies
for
distribution
to
newspapers,
post
offices,
boards
of
trade,
seamen's
taverns,
and
other
public
institutions.

The
map
that
reached
Erie,
Pennsylvania,
Thursday
morning
showed
a
vast
low-pressure
zone
over
the
Pacific
Coast.
The
base
of
the
low
stretched
from
Los
Angeles
to
El
Paso.
From
there,
the
low
spread
north
to
Spokane,
Washington,
and
the
Canadian
border.
But
two
high-pressure
zones
still
held
the
rest
of
the
nation's
weather
in
check.
Temperatures
again
soared
into
the
nineties
in
Cincinnati,
Davenport,
Green
Bay,
Louisville,
Washington,
and
Chattanooga.
Even
in
cool
green
La
Crosse,
Wisconsin,
the
temperature
hit
94
degrees.
A
brief
notation
on
the
map
read:
"The
tropical
storm
has
moved
from
Key
West
to
Tampa,
Florida."

In
fact,
the
storm
never
did
pass
directly
over
southern
Florida.
Blocked
by
one
of
the
high-pressure
zones,
it
executed
an
abnormal
left
turn
that
put
it
on
a
course
directly
toward
Galveston,
eight
hundred
miles
away
across
the
superheated
Gulf.
The
high
pressure
had
caused
a
change
in
the
seasonal
pattern
of
winds
sweeping
off
the
Atlantic.
Instead
of
blowing
toward
the
northwest,
these
winds
now
blew
mainly
west,
and
carried
the
storm
toward
the
Texas
coast.

Only
the
storm's
outer
bands
reached
Florida.
The
winds
in
Key
West,
Tampa,
and
Jupiter
did
reach
gale
force,
but
caused
little
damage
other
than
knocking
out
the
fragile
telegraph
link
between
Key
West
and
points
north.