Page 277 - NS-2 Textbook

272 NAUTICAL SCIENCES

The eye of Hurricane Gracie, September 1959. The picture was taken from a "hurricane hunter" aircraft that was tracking the storm.

east of the West Indies will follow a curving track north- nawa, and Japan. The typhoon may veer into the Asian
eastward from the Greater Antilles. It then hits the east continent ainlOst anywhere along its east coast. When it
coast of Florida and turns north, spreading desh'uction does, it is usually accompanied by terrible storm surges.
along the eastern seaboard of the United States, some- These sweep deep inland along the low-lying coastal
times as far north as New York. Such an East Coast hur- plains and up the numerous rivers, causing widespread
ricane will usually cause heavy rains from Philadelphia destruction and loss of life. And, just as a hurricane may
northward into New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, move into the Gulf of Mexico, a typhoon may sweep
and Massachusetts. It will also cause tidal flooding from south of the East Indies (Indonesia) into the Bay of Ben-
Georgia to Virginia, even if the main brunt of the storm gal. It then hits the coast of southern Asia.
never actually hits the coast. In probably the greatest natural catastrophe of his-
With somewhat less frequency, but often with tory, a typhoon swept over the Bay of Bengal in 1737. The
greater violence, a hurricane originating in the same area storm pushed a forty-foot surge of water inland, killing
will move south of Cuba and swing into the Gulf of Mex- 300,000 people. A hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas, in
ico, where, like a captured tempest in a bathtub, it will 1900 killed 6,000 people. A terrible hurricane struck New
wreak havoc throughout the Gulf Coast. A Gulf Coast England in 1938, causing 600 deaths and property dam-
hurricane often will dissipate in the Mississippi Valley, age exceeding $250 million. The entire boardwalk at At-
with heavy rainfalls extending as far north as Tennessee, lantic City, New Jersey, has been swept away on several
Kentucky, and Illinois. occasions. The whole city of Belize, British Honduras,
The southwestern part of the North Pacific has more was destroyed in the late 1960s; the survivors rebuilt on
tropical cyclones than any other place on Earth. These a new site farther inland on higher ground. The strongest
generally are born between the Marshall Islands and the hurricane to ever hit land in the Western Hemisphere was
Philippines and move toward the east coast of China, Hurricane Gilbert, which came west across the Atlantic
then northeastward over the Philippines, Taiwan, Oki- and lower Gulf of Mexico in September 1988. It hit the