Isaac's Storm (23 page)

Where
the
Thursday-morning
weather
map
should
have
displayed
temperatures
for
Key
West,
the
Central
Office
inserted
only
the
letter
M,
for
missing.

WHAT
THE
LOUISIANA'S
thirty
passengers
must
have
thought
Wednesday
as
the
steamship
passed
the
striking
red-and-black
storm
flag
at
Port
Eads,
Louisiana,
is
anyone's
guess.
For
some
passengers,
no
doubt,
the
prospect
of
a
storm
was
an
exciting
one,
just
the
thing
to
yield
a
good
story
to
tell
the
friends
and
relatives
who
would
meet
the
ship
in
New
York
the
following
week.
Others
took
comfort
in
Captain
Halsey's
obvious
confidence.
If
there
was
any
serious
threat
to
the
ship's
welfare,
surely
the
captain
would
proceed
no
farmer.
A
few
passengers
did
not
see
the
storm
flag.
They
were
seasick
and
already
considered
death
an
attractive
option.

Once
past
the
bar
off
Port
Eads,
the
Louisiana
accelerated.
The
muted
booming
of
the
ship's
steamplant
became
an
even
thrum.
Smoke
from
her
stack
blew
forward
over
the
starboard
rail
in
a
long
black
smudge
that
flurried
cinder
upon
the
sea.

Captain
Halsey
ordered
the
decks
cleared
and
hatches
sealed,
but
the
thought
of
turning
back
did
not
occur
to
him.
He
held
the
Louisiana
to
its
southeastward
course
throughout
the
night,
despite
the
rising
wind
and
seas.

At
6:00
A.M.
Thursday
he
checked
the
ship's
barometer
and
saw
the
mercury
at
29.60
inches,
nearly
three-tenths
below
normal.
The
wind
still
came
from
the
north-northeast,
but
at
intervals
circled
until
it
came
directly
from
the
north.

The
storm
was
a
cyclone
and
by
now
Captain
Halsey,
veteran
of
so
many
such
tropical
storms,
had
to
know
it.

By
ten
that
morning,
the
storm
was
much
worse.
The
barometer
dropped
another
third
of
an
inch,
to
29.25.
The
depth
of
the
decline
was
troubling
in
itself,
but
the
speed
of
the
descent
was
what
most
captured
Halsey's
attention.
The
first
decline,
to
29.60
inches,
had
taken
all
night.
This
latest
had
taken
four
hours.

Horizontal
rain
clattered
against
the
bridge
with
the
sound
of
bullets
against
armor.
Wherever
the
wind
gained
entry,
it
spoke.
It
moaned
among
the
cabins
and
corridors
like
Marley's
ghost.
The
hull
flexed.
Beams
twisted.
To
the
passengers,
the
ship
seemed
on
the
verge
of
disintegration.

At
noon,
Halsey
ordered
a
sharp
reduction
in
speed.
He
wanted
only
enough
forward
drive
to
let
him
maneuver
and
keep
the
ship's
bow
pointed
into
the
oncoming
wind
and
waves.

The
barometer
continued
sinking.
At
one
o'clock,
Halsey
checked
the
glass
and
saw
the
mercury
"had
fallen
to
the
remarkable
figure
of
28.75."
He
had
never
seen
a
lower
reading.
He
believed
the
Louisiana
had
arrived
at
the
heart
of
the
storm,
for
the
wind
now
shifted
wildly
from
one
direction
to
another.
"I
do
not
like
to
speak
of
anything
outside
of
the
log
record,"
Halsey
said,
"but
I
think
the
wind
was
blowing
at
the
rate
of
more
than
100
miles
an
hour."

Wave
after
wave
washed
the
ship's
deck
and
thundered
against
the
cabin
ports.
By
now
all
thirty
passengers
were
sick
beyond
fear.
At
one
point
a
giant
wave
struck
the
ship
from
behind
just
as
it
slid
into
a
valley
between
two
other
mountains
of
water.
In
an
instant,
the
ship
was
buried
bow
to
stern
under
tons
of
green
sea
and
foam.

The
Louisiana
rose
clear,
her
deck
like
the
rim
of
Niagara
Falls.
Another
wave
caught
the
ship
broadside
and
flushed
seawater
down
her
ventilation
shafts
into
the
engine
room.

It
was
at
this
point
that
Halsey
estimated
the
velocity
of
the
wind
at
150
miles
an
hour.

.
.
.

THE
TRANSFORMATION
WAS
stunning:
One
moment
a
nondescript
tropical
storm,
the
next,
a
hurricane
of
an
intensity
no
American
alive
had
ever
experienced.
The
storm
did
not
grow
through
some
gradual
accretion
of
power;
it
exploded
forth
like
something
escaping
from
a
cage.
The
Weather
Bureau
of
1900
had
a
code
word
for
winds
of
150
miles
an
hour
—
extreme
—
but
no
one
in
the
bureau
seriously
expected
to
use
it.

The
storm
had
undergone
an
intensification
known
to
late-twentieth-century
hurricanologists
as
explosive
deepening,
but
the
Weather
Bureau
of
Isaac's
time
had
no
idea
such
a
dramatic
change
could
occur.
As
the
twentieth
century
closed,
hurricane
experts
still
did
not
understand
what
caused
it.
There
were
theories,
however.
For
a
storm
to
grow
so
quickly,
some
researchers
proposed,
it
had
to
encounter
an
additional
atmospheric
force
—
an
upper-level
vortex,
perhaps,
or
a
fast
air-stream
that
somehow
set
the
storm
spinning
more
and
more
rapidly.
Hugh
Willoughby,
head
of
the
National
Oceanic
and
Atmospheric
Administration's
(NOAA's)
Hurricane
Research
Division,
proposed
that
explosive
deepening
could
be
caused
when
a
storm
passed
over
the
Loop
Current,
a
branch
of
the
Gulf
Stream
that
propels
warm
water
through
the
Straits
of
Florida.

The
Loop
may
have
been
in
place
in
the
summer
of
1900.
The
Gulf
was
hot
to
begin
with
because
of
ambient
high
temperatures
and
because
so
far
in
that
season
there
had
been
no
other
hurricanes
to
roil
and
cool
the
waters.
The
Loop
brought
a
deep
channel
of
warmth
that
the
wind
and
rough
seas
could
not
have
cooled.
If
present,
it
would
have
been
directly
in
the
path
of
the
storm
of
1900
when
it
exited
Cuba.
"If
a
storm
runs
over
the
Loop,"
Willoughby
said,
"it's
got
essentially
an
infinite
source
of
heat."

No
one
knows
whether
crossing
the
Loop
triggered
the
storm's
electric
growth.
What
is
certain,
however,
is
that
for
the
storm
to
have
generated
winds
of
the
velocity
reported
by
the
Louisiana's
Captain
Halsey,
it
had
to
have
formed
an
open,
circular
core
of
extremely
low
pressure.
Isaac
and
his
peers
in
the
Weather
Bureau
preferred
to
call
this
the
focus,
or
center.
They
shunned
the
term
eye,
coined
by
the
Spanish
and
used
so
freely
by
Spanish
captains.
It
was
too
romantic,
too
anthropomorphic.
In
the
age
of
scientific
certainty,
one
could
not
allow
one's
judgment
to
be
clouded
by
mere
poetry.

AT
THE
VERY
center
of
the
eye,
the
air
is
often
utterly
calm.
Sailors
throughout
history
have
reported
seeing
stars
at
night,
blue
sky
during
the
day.
Often,
however,
the
eye
is
neither
clear
nor
cloudy,
but
filled
with
a
liquid
light
that
amplifies
the
stillness,
as
if
the
world
were
suddenly
fused
in
wax.
The
sea,
however,
is
anything
but
calm.
Freed
abrupdy
from
the
wind,
waves
from
all
quadrants
of
the
eyewall
converge
at
the
center,
where
they
collide
and
compound
to
form
sudden
mountains
of
undirected
energy.

Sunlight
playing
in
the
eyes
of
cyclones
produced
colors
that
drove
brave
seamen
to
their
knees.
Captains
reported
olive-green
clouds
and
a
spectral
blue
light
that
stained
sails
and
the
faces
of
men
until
all
seemed
turned
to
ice.
In
1912,
the
Reverend
J.
J.
Williams
of
Black
River,
Jamaica,
saw
the
sky
begin
to
bleed.
"Around
the
entire
horizon
was
a
ring
of
blood-red
fire,
shading
away
to
a
brilliant
amber
at
the
zenith.
The
sky,
in
fact
(it
was
near
the
hour
of
sunset),
formed
one
great
fiery
dome
of
reddish
light
that
shone
through
the
descending
rain."

The
eyewall
is
an
impossibly
hostile
realm
where
air
flowing
toward
the
center
reaches
its
highest
velocity.
Observers
trapped
in
a
cyclone's
eye
consistently
reported
hearing
a
great
roar
as
the
calm
passed
and
the
opposite
eyewall
approached.
The
frightened
Malay
crew
of
a
ship
off
Sumatra
called
this
chorus
the
Devil's
Voice.
To
Gilbert
McQueen,
commanding
a
ship
bound
for
London,
the
eyewall
sang
its
advance
in
"numberless
voices,
elevated
to
the
highest
tone
of
screaming."

One
of
the
strangest
encounters
with
the
eye
was
that
of
Capt.
William
Seymour,
of
Cork,
Ireland,
and
his
brigantine
Judith
and
Esther,
as
the
ship
made
for
Jamaica
in
the
summer
of
1837.
Seymour
sailed
into
one
of
four
hurricanes
that
scoured
the
Caribbean
that
summer
within
days
of
each
other.

The
storm
knocked
the
ship
onto
her
side
three
times,
the
third
time
just
as
the
ship
was
leaving
the
eye.
Once
again
the
ship
righted,
but
now
something
profoundly
peculiar
occurred
that
piqued
great
excitement
among
seekers
of
the
Law
of
Storms.
Lt.
Col.
William
Reid
wrote
at
once
for
more
details.

Captain
Seymour
replied:
"For
nearly
an
hour
we
could
not
observe
each
other,
or
anything
but
merely
the
light;
and
most
astonishing,
every
one
of
our
finger-nails
turned
quite
black,
and
remained
so
nearly
five
weeks
afterwards."
He
could
not
explain
it.
"Whether
it
was
from
the
firm
grasp
we
had
on
the
rigging
or
rails
I
cannot
tell,
but
my
opinion
is,
that
the
whole
was
caused
by
an
electric
body
in
the
element.
Every
one
of
the
crew
were
affected
in
the
same
way."

Such
phenomena,
however,
were
only
sideshows
to
the
most
important
feature
of
the
eye,
its
plummeting
pressure.
Normal
pressure
at
sea
level
is
29.92126
inches,
or
14.6969
pounds
per
square
inch.
In
the
wall
of
the
eye,
spiraling
and
ascending
winds
lift
air
at
over
a
million
tons
per
second.
As
the
air
soars,
pressure
at
the
surface
falls.
Air
within
the
eyewall
rises
with
so
much
force
it
literally
lifts
the
surface
of
the
sea,
one
foot
for
each
one
inch
of
barometric
decline.
The
lowest
barometric
reading
ever
recorded
was
26.22
inches,
during
Hurricane
Gilbert
in
1988.
Gilbert
raised
the
level
of
the
sea
by
over
three
feet.