Key West '35, Camille, Andrew and Mitch

Hurricane Watch 2008

SPECIAL TROPICAL DISTURBANCE STATEMENT NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL 1130 AM EDT MON OCT 13 2008 A BROAD AREA OF LOW PRESSURE HAS FORMED IN THE SOUTHWESTERN CARIBBEAN SEA ABOUT 100 MILES EAST-SOUTHEAST OF PUERTO CABEZAS NICARAGUA...AND IS ACCOMPANIED BY A LARGE AREA OF DISTURBED WEATHER. CONDITIONS APPEAR FAVORABLE FOR ADDITIONAL DEVELOPMENT... FORECASTER BROWN/AVILA

That forecast was right on the money: On Tuesday October 14 the Tropical Disturbance moved up to Tropical Storm status and was named Omar. This morning Wednesday October 15, 2008 it was announced that Omar is now a hurricane and is located 285 miles south southwest of San Juan Puerto Rico and moving northeast at 7 mph, a Category 1 hurricane. Hurricane warnings were issued for the US and British Virgin Islands and vicinity. Stay tuned.

Category 5 hurricanes in the 20th Century that had the greatest impact on lives and property in the America's were: 1935 Florida Keys 'Labor Day' Hurricane, September 2nd carrying winds of 150 to 200 mph and causing 424 deaths and untold property damage. 1969 Hurricane Camille hit Mississippi with winds of 190 mph and carried a storm surge of 22 to 25 feet above Mean Tide. The estimated lives lost were 255 with property damage of 4.2 billion in 1969 dollars. On August 24, 1992 Hurricane Andrew hit southern Dade County, Florida racking up 25 billion in property damage, but fortunately only 15 deaths. 1998 came the unpredictable Hurricane Mitch. Mitch was spawned near the west coast of Africa as a tropical wave that moved in a westerly direction skirting south of the vacation resorts of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. I'm using my story line review to tell about Hurricane Mitch.

Jim Carrier tells the story of The Ship and the Storm by using crew accounts, passenger interviews, surviving crew relatives and official weather related records. Anchored in the quiet waters of the Bay at Omoa, Honduras passengers excitedly board the Windjammer Cruise Ship Fantome. Feted with the finest cuisine and free flowing rum swizzle the fun and excitement is just beginning as the tall ship prepares to sail from one tropical paradise to another. Two mornings later as the Fantomes' guests finished their Bloody Mary and sticky bun breakfast a weather station on the West Coast of Africa was recording a drop in the barometric pressure. The Miami Hurricane Center labeled the system #46 and indicated in the margin that it was impressive. One week later on the evening of October 17, 1998 while Fantome passengers partied tropical wave 46 was moving west past Barbados in the Windward Islands. A day later the National Hurricane Center predicts that tropical wave 46 will become a hurricane.

October 21st the day Fantome arrived at the island of Guanaja and Fantome passengers were still enjoying their cruise vacation. But change came the next morning and Captain Guyan March advises crew and passengers about the storm.

BULLETIN: 5AM EDT SAT OCT 24, 1998. MITCH STRENGTHENS RAPIDLY INTO A HURRICANE

Storm tracks in the direction of Cuba and the Cayman Islands and forecasters are calling Mitch a potentially dangerous hurricane. Fantome was at Omoa, Honduras where locals advised Captain March to drop both anchors and stay in port. March consults his boss in Miami by phone and following a prolonged discussion with Windjammer Headquarters in Miami it was decided to cancel the Fantomes' cruise. Passenger safety was uppermost in their minds and they discharged the passengers at Belize City. They didn't consider Belize a safe harbor to ride out the storm so Fantome with 31 crewmembers aboard left Belize to try and outmaneuver the storm.

Hurricane Mitch was coming up on Swan Island and conventional wisdom as well as the National Hurricane Centers computer models predicts that the storm will turn to the northwest. Fantome headed southeast from Belize toward the Bay Islands north of Honduras and had the storm tracked to the northwest as was expected there would have been plenty of separation between the ship and the storm. But the monster storm called Mitch with a mind of its own defied convention and turned south where it continued to spin its Category 4 and sometimes 5 winds over the waters and islands destroying everything in it's path.

High winds and waves produced by the storm extended out some 200 miles from its center. Fantomes' engines and Captain March's skilled seamanship was no match for the tall waves and winds produced by Hurricane Mitch. Eventually the powerful waves broadside Fantome and breach the ships watertight bulkheads. The story of The Ship and the Storm is tragically compelling. Tom Barnes

Back to 1945

Looking down from a test flight at the devastation done by Hurricane IX. Excerpt from The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle. Our Privateer aircraft had undergone an engine change and needed a routine test flight in order to return to service. Oddly enough, our test flight was conducted right into the teeth of the Bermuda Triangle. I did my routine walkabout inspection, returned to the flight deck and reported to the skipper that everything was operating normal. He gave me a thumbs up and then did several maneuvers to test all the control surfaces. Then we made a 180-degree turn that put us on a heading for a return to the Florida coast.

At times like this I wish I had brought a camera along. I spotted three large sail boats with full sail and tacking to the wind, a tramp steamer and a large cargo ship. As the shoreline came into view I could see that our approach was going to be in an area between Ft. Lauderdale and Hollywood, Florida. As we came near the land the damage done by the recent hurricane was clearly visible. There were a number of beached vessels, a dozen or more houses with no roof and scores of downed trees. I spotted the old Riverside Academy building at Hollywood that we used as barracks during gunnery school. Then out of nowhere I began humming The Sheik of Arabia and since I was standing almost at Shepherds ear, he turned and said. "What's that tune, Tom?" I laughed. "It's the Sheik of Arabia." I pointed and said, "That red building down there is where we were billeted during gunnery school and instead of using a bugle for reveille they used the Spike Jones version of that crazy tune to jump start our day." Shepherd smiled then got on the radio and called Opa Locka Tower for landing instructions.

About the time I spotted our old target practice range we were flying over the Everglades and making a hard left turn onto our base leg. And only moments later I looked over the skipper's shoulder and out to the port side of the plane. He pointed and said, "That's what's left of the Blimp Base." The scene reminded me of a Science Fiction movie or a war zone. All three hangars had been demolished and there was nothing left but a few metal frames, foundations and a pile of ashes. Looking down on the scene we could see the path Hurricane IX took and the destruction of the Richmond Naval Facilities as well as the battered communities of Hialeah and Miami Springs. When viewing the overall damage it was hard to believe there were only 4 fatalities in the Miami area. Unfortunately though, it was reported that 22 lives were lost in the Bahamas. Then the skipper made another left turn, gear and flaps down, maneuvered the Privateer onto a perfect glide path and set the plane down on Runway Nine just over an hour after we took off from Masters Field. We taxied over and parked in our regular slot, did a thorough post flight inspection and determined that our plane was operational and fully qualified to return to active duty.'

Writers Notebook:

An old maxim of show business is to always leave the audience wanting more. In writing it comes out almost the same. Editor Maxwell Perkins (Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolf and others) said in his letters: "Of course it's always better to give a little less than the reader wants, than more." Ernest Hemingway in the book Papa Hemingway elaborated on the subject as regards to leaving something out. Ernest pointed out that if what is left out is left out because the short-story writer doesn't know it, then it is a worthless story. It's only the important things you know about and omit that strengthens the story, he said.' His short story The Killers is a great example of leaving something out -- but in this case it was for a completely different reason. You see Hemingway based The Killers on an actual event of a boxer taking a dive. Here's the way Hemingway explained it.

The heavyweight champion Gene Tunney asked him if the Swede in the story wasn't actually Carl Anderson? Ernest said. "I told him yes, and the town wasn't Summit, New Jersey, but Summit, Illinois. But that's all I told him because the Chicago mob that sent the killers was and, as far as I know, is still very much in business. I guess I left as much out of The Killers as any story I ever wrote. Left out the whole city of Chicago."

Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter. Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday's Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

www.tombarnes39.com
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