Hemmingway's Hurricane
With Hurricane season now in full swing, I took some time to do some reading on Florida history since, well, I've lived here for 5 years now. What I came across is wonderful book called Hemmingway's Hurricane by Phil Scott. While, truthfully, Ernest Hemingway did indeed make statements about the horrible mistakes made by the administrators of the work camps in the Keys that lead to the death of over 250 WWI veterans, the book really focuses on the testimonies of those veterans that survived the great 1935 storm. If you like history, or natural disasters, this is a book for you.
For those of you who've never lived through a hurricane, all I can say is that they are unpredictable. If any of you watched the 2004 Hurricane Charley, you will remember that Charley's unpredicted turn along the coast of Florida shifted its course from hitting Tampa to coming on shore at Port Charlotte. This ran Charley right through my area (Orlando metro) and left myself and my wife less than 2 hours to pack up the pets and head to safer ground before the winds made it too bad to drive.
The veterans in 1935 were lead by people who assumed that a forecast of a hurricane heading west meant that it couldn't possible turn north - which it did suddenly on September 2, 1935 and was on top of the work camps in less 8 hours, with the flooding beginning within 6 hours of the sudden turn. Today, modern equipment would have seen that turn. In 1935, the weather officials in Jacksonville relied upon reports from ships and islands to triangulate storm positions. Being that it was Labor Day weekend, most of the weather stations in the area were closed. No one saw the turn until it was way too late.
Why do I tell this story? Because I sit here watching Tropical Storm Ernesto's 5 day track forecast knowing full well that it's always the ones that they don't initialy predict to hit you that do. Maybe that's a metaphor for life, or just a piece of advice for everyone living in a state the borders the Gulf of Mexico.
For those of you who've never lived through a hurricane, all I can say is that they are unpredictable. If any of you watched the 2004 Hurricane Charley, you will remember that Charley's unpredicted turn along the coast of Florida shifted its course from hitting Tampa to coming on shore at Port Charlotte. This ran Charley right through my area (Orlando metro) and left myself and my wife less than 2 hours to pack up the pets and head to safer ground before the winds made it too bad to drive.
The veterans in 1935 were lead by people who assumed that a forecast of a hurricane heading west meant that it couldn't possible turn north - which it did suddenly on September 2, 1935 and was on top of the work camps in less 8 hours, with the flooding beginning within 6 hours of the sudden turn. Today, modern equipment would have seen that turn. In 1935, the weather officials in Jacksonville relied upon reports from ships and islands to triangulate storm positions. Being that it was Labor Day weekend, most of the weather stations in the area were closed. No one saw the turn until it was way too late.
Why do I tell this story? Because I sit here watching Tropical Storm Ernesto's 5 day track forecast knowing full well that it's always the ones that they don't initialy predict to hit you that do. Maybe that's a metaphor for life, or just a piece of advice for everyone living in a state the borders the Gulf of Mexico.
posted by Gregory Smith at
9:44 PM
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