WEBVTT - SYMHC Classics: 5 Historical Storms 0:00:02.279 --> 0:00:05.640 Hey, Happy Saturday, everybody. We are nearing the end of 0:00:05.640 --> 0:00:08.799 the hurricane season, so this seemed like is good a 0:00:08.880 --> 0:00:12.800 time as any to share this classic episode from featuring 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:16.960 five intense storm events. It's a mix of hurricanes, tornadoes, 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:20.319 and freshwater storm surge all making appearances, and it is 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:23.480 brought to you by previous hosts Sarah and Bablina. I'm 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:26.079 really glad we're sharing this one because it includes two 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:29.560 very frequent listener requests that are the tri State tornado 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:32.360 of and the Galves and the hurricane of nine Dred. 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:38.440 So batting down your hatches and enjoy. Welcome to Stuff 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:48.760 you missed in history class from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello, 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:51.120 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Doubla Chocolate Boarding and 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:53.680 I'm Sara Douty. And since we're in the middle of 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:56.800 Atlantic hurricane season in our part of the world, and 0:00:56.880 --> 0:00:59.920 maybe it's also a little bit because it's been really 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:02.760 stormy here all week, so we've got storms on the brain, 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:05.320 we thought it'd be interesting to take a look at 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:08.520 some historical storms. After all, the truly big ones really 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:10.800 are kind of characters in their own right, and they 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:14.800 often change the story of whatever area they decided to visit, 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:16.720 and the lives of the people who live there. I 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:19.800 think that's really emphasized by the fact that we give 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:22.319 them names now though they really do have sort of 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:25.880 a personality, and those names become almost taboo in the 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:29.959 immediate years after a really big storm hit. And I 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:33.320 think that's especially true with Hurricane Katrina, so a recent 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:36.200 storm in recent history. You know, we're not gonna be 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:39.360 talking about Katrina on the podcast today, but it certainly 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:42.360 comes to mind if you're thinking about really giant storms 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:45.080 in the United States. Right It was a Category five 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:48.560 storm led to severe flooding and spawned tornadoes that killed 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:53.040 around eight people across several states. But as Sarah said, 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:56.520 we're not going to get into Katrina in this podcast 0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:59.160 so much today, but it did get us thinking a 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:01.760 lot about some of the most destructive storms that left 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:04.480 their marks on the world over time. So we're gonna 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:06.480 take a look at just a handful of those. We're 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:08.920 not going to cover them all by any means today, 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:10.920 but we're gonna take a look at a few that 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:13.360 we think are pretty interesting. We are, So we're gonna 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:18.040 start back in nineteen five with a tornado and most 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:20.119 of the storms we're gonna be talking about our hurricanes 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:25.799 or cyclones, um cyclones in the um the non American 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:28.880 sense of Dorothy and the oz. But this one is 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:31.960 a true tornado, the Try State tornado. And your average 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:36.320 tornado is about five hundred to two thousand feet wide, 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:39.200 and it travels at about a speed of thirty miles 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:42.399 per hour, so pretty scary even if you just leave 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:44.600 it at that. We had a tornado in Atlanta a 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:47.320 few years ago, went right through downtown. It was a 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:50.280 scary storm, it was. But this next entry on our list, 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:54.839 the n Try State tornado, was massive enough to leave 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:58.080 that tornado and most typical tornadoes that we encounter in 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:01.160 this country in the dust. It formed at about one 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:06.400 pm on March eighteenth, somewhere around the town of Ellington 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:09.960 and southeastern Missouri, and it was nearly a mile wide, 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:12.799 moving at an average speed of about sixty two miles 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:15.640 per hour and at times even up to seventy three 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:18.240 miles per hour. And it was possibly because of that 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:20.960 great width that a lot of people who saw the 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:23.920 storm coming didn't even realize at first that it was 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:27.000 a tornado. Looked like a cloud wall right and according 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:30.919 to an article by Sean Potter and Weatherwise magazine. W. F. Haywood, 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:33.800 who was the postmaster for Ellington, made one of the 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:37.240 first recorded sightings of the tornado, and he just observed 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:40.760 it as a quote blue black cloud mass that was 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:43.760 coming toward them. He was lucky though, compared to some 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:46.240 who didn't even see it coming at all. Yeah, people 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:50.240 described being in buildings when windows suddenly started to shatter, 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:54.400 walls came crumbling down, Whole houses were just lifted off 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:58.200 the ground. Wizard of As style. Definitely and too late 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:01.040 if you realize you're in a tornado. But it moved 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:03.360 quickly too, so even though it was so giant, it 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:05.360 was moving along at quite a clip, it covered a 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:09.200 lot of ground. It hit parts of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:12.920 traveling a total of two hundred nineteen miles in only 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:15.640 three and a half hours, which was more than thirty 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:19.640 six times as much as an average tornado covers more 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:22.760 than thirty six times as much ground. In an article 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:26.200 on American Heritage, whilst Aken calls it quote the longest 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:30.960 uninterrupted track on a record. In total, six people were 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:33.880 killed and more than two thousand were injured as a 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:37.760 result of the storm, fifteen thousand homes were destroyed. The 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:40.000 town that was hardest hit, which is the one we 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:43.080 want to kind of give a few details about, was Murphy'sboro, Illinois. 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:46.560 Two hundred and thirty four people died in that town alone, 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:49.560 and that's set a record for the most tornado fatalities 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:52.479 in a single place. And Aiken, the writer that we 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:55.360 just mentioned, he was actually a toddler living in Murphy's 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:58.760 Borough when the tornado struck, and his article that we 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:02.760 mentioned relates some stories of residents and others who lived 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:04.920 through the experience. I think he also has a book 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:07.640 on the subject. And one one story that he relates 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:11.200 that I found particularly chilling involves the town's children who 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:13.880 were in school at the time that the tornado struck. 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:18.920 The school building basically collapsed on the kids died. Some 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:22.040 who survived struggled out from under the debris on their 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:24.320 own and headed for their homes. You know, it's a 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:26.600 natural instinct for kids, you know, I'm going to head 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:29.080 for home. I'm going to find my family. But they 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:32.320 found in many cases that their homes were completely gone. 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:38.720 Even entire neighborhoods had vanished. One friend of Aiken's recalled 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:41.840 reaching his home what he what should have been his home, 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:45.799 which was nothing but an open field, with her grandmother 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:49.039 in the middle of it, decapitated and still sitting in 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:53.480 her rocking chair. So completely horrifying site. After surviving and 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:57.400 already horrifying situation. Yeah, and horrific sites like these seemed 0:05:57.440 --> 0:05:59.760 pretty typical for those who managed to live through that 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:02.880 in initial chaos, since there were plenty of dead and 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:06.919 injured people around who needed tending to. Medical teams and 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:09.560 supplies started to pour in from all over the country. 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:11.840 One point that I thought was interesting, and according to 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:16.000 Potter's article, Chicago even offered up some liquor that had 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:19.320 been confiscated by the federal government after some prohibition raids, 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:22.359 and so they quote and made this available in a 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:27.159 medicinal way to the storm suffers. There is a silver 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:30.719 lining um to this disaster in a way it raised 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:35.320 public awareness about tornadoes. I was really interested to find. 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:38.920 In this popular Mechanics article, John Galvin writes about how 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:42.760 even using the word tornado was considered taboo by the 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:46.600 National Weather Service at this time, basically because tornadoes were 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:49.960 so unpredictable, talking about them was thought to cause pointless 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:53.520 panic that don't let people know until their houses are rattling. 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:55.840 Well yeah, I mean, I don't know if they exactly 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:58.080 looked at it that way, but I guess they just 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:00.400 thought there was really no use since that you could 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:05.120 really right, But after the tri State tornado, local Tornado 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:08.800 Spoty network started popping up, so people were more aware 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:11.840 and we're taking steps to protect themselves a little bit. 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:15.320 And of course, researchers know so much more about tornadoes 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:17.320 now than they did back then, so much so that 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:19.760 in recent years some have suggested that the Tri State 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:23.600 tornado might have actually been a family of tornadoes, not 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:28.480 one single tornado that was caused by a super self thunderstorm. 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:32.239 So this theory hasn't been definitively proven, and I guess 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:36.200 may never be, but this remains the single deadliest tornado 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:38.520 in history because they can't prove that it was a 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:41.920 family of tornadoes. Well, so, now that we've discussed that 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:45.000 type of storm pretty etherly, we're gonna move on to hurricanes, 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:47.040 and we're gonna be talking about a few hurricanes in 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:50.280 this episode, and the first one is the Great Hurricane 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:54.040 of seventeen eighty And today we're lucky that meteorologists have 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:56.920 the knowledge and the technology to estimate the strength of 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:00.440 storms and even predict their potential paths to some degree. 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:02.080 So you know, you're just talking about you couldn't tell 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:04.920 where tornadoes were going. Imagine if you couldn't tell really 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:06.720 where a hurricane was going to go. I know, it's 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:08.640 still a little up in the air, but they can 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:11.280 give you some warning. But when you're talking about a 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:14.000 storm like the next one on our list, though, which 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:17.160 happened more than two hundred years ago, of course, there 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:20.840 was not that luxury. So modern researchers have had to 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:25.200 piece together some details regarding characteristics of the Great Hurricane 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:29.440 of seventeen eighty based on anecdotal evidence of the kind 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:31.960 of destruction that it caused, sort of having to look 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:33.800 back at it and figure out what the storm was 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:36.480 really like. Yeah, and that destruction that you just mentioned 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:39.160 was really significant, to say the least. The fact that 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:41.560 just considering the fact that it stood out so much 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:44.160 in what was already an act of hurricane season that year, 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:47.240 should hint at that. But the death toll also speaks 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:50.480 for itself. More than twenty thousand people in the Eastern 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:54.479 Caribbean lost their lives. According to the Caribbean Disaster Emergency 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:59.040 Response Agency, researchers estimate that the hurricane formed in the 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:03.280 Atlantic and move westward very slowly at about six nautical 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:07.000 miles per hour. The storm got to Barbados on October tenth, where, 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:10.640 according to Encyclopedia Britannica, it destroyed nearly all the homes 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:14.079 on the island and about four thousand, five hundred people 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:16.839 lost their lives. The hurricane went on to hit pretty 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:21.160 much every island from Tobago to the Leeward Islands to Hispaniola, 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:25.200 but the biggest death tolls came out of Barbados and Martinique, 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:29.480 where nine thousand people died, and also sent Eustatious, where 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:33.480 four thousand, five hundred people also died. Researchers also believed 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:36.800 that the Great Hurricane was a Category five with winds 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:39.959 greater than two hundred miles per hour, and again they've 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:42.600 guessed that pieced it together just from reports of the 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:47.040 storm damage and examples of anecdotes that were offered up 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.360 by the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency. One of those 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:53.439 examples came from a letter sent in December of that 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:56.520 year from Sir George Rodney, and he wrote about the 0:09:56.559 --> 0:10:00.240 events in Barbados and said, quote, the strongest building in 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:02.800 the whole of the houses, most of which were stone 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:06.800 and remarkable for their solidity, gave way to the fury 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:09.719 of the wind and were torn up to their foundations. 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:12.880 All the forts destroyed, and many of the heavy cannon 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:16.199 carried upwards of a hundred feet from the forts. Had 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:18.640 I not been an eyewitness, and nothing could have induced 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:21.840 me to have believed it, more than six thousand persons 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:27.400 perished and all the inhabitants were entirely ruined. So pretty serious, 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:30.199 I mean, the sight of cannons blowing up into the air. 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:33.439 I think that's the strongest point he makes there. That's true. 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:36.320 But I think this other point made by Dr Gilbert 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:39.600 Blaine in a letter that he wrote, is also very interesting. 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:42.360 He says, quote what will give a strong and idea 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:45.440 of the force of the wind as anything. Many of them, 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:48.040 and the trees is what he was referring to, were 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:50.640 stripped of their bark. So today we know that this 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:53.600 hasn't been observed in hurricanes where winds are about two 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:56.840 hundred miles per hour, And that's why researchers guests that 0:10:56.880 --> 0:10:59.240 the winds had to be greater than that, and I 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:02.760 think that's so any that they can compare the history 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:05.680 of of other trees and other wind speeds and figure 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:09.839 out this one from sea, and the casualties here weren't 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:12.800 all on land either. Also of historical note here is 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:15.280 that the American Revolution was going on at a time 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:18.720 that this hurricane struck, which meant that plenty of European 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:22.600 naval forces, both British and French, were concentrated in the Caribbean, 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:27.120 so thousands of soldiers died as their vessels were damaged, destroyed, 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:32.439 swept away. Encyclopedia Britannica says something like more than forty 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:35.320 French ships sank in your Martinique alone, And this is 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:38.080 something I have never heard mentioned when you learn about 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:40.920 the American Revolution, um, it seems like it had to 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:53.000 have shaken people up a little bit at least. Okay, 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:55.240 So the next storm we're going to talk about is 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:57.600 certainly we're jumping ahead in quite a bit. It's a 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:00.360 more modern storm, and it's one that I'm think a 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:02.360 lot of you, especially if you're in the United States, 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:06.000 have probably heard about before. It has the distinction of 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:10.640 being known as the greatest natural disaster in US history. Yeah, 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:13.600 it took place in Galveston, Texas and nineteen hundred and 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:17.360 is sometimes known simply as the Galveston Storm. Galveston at 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:19.880 the time was one of the wealthiest cities in America, 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:22.000 and it was the largest city in Texas and a 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:26.040 big trade center. Boomtown really located on a barrier island 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:29.320 in the Gulf of Mexico. Galveston had gotten the message 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:33.000 before that it should do some storm preparation, including maybe 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:36.760 constructing a sea wall, and they'd seen nearby towns destroyed 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:40.320 by hurricanes in previous years, but they still didn't make 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:43.160 any moves to fortify the city prior to nineteen hundred. 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:45.920 The city got its first inkling that a storm was 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:48.880 headed its way in early September of that year, and 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:52.679 what started out as an area of quote unsettled weather 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:55.760 near the Windward Islands became a tropical storm that moved 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:59.560 over Cuba and hit Louisiana and Mississippi on the way 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:02.480 to Exus. So by the time it reached Galveston, though 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:07.120 in September, it was about a Category four hurricane by 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:11.240 modern estimates. Again, meteorologists are having to do some backtracking here. 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:14.920 When it first reached Galveston in the morning, it caused 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:17.679 some flooding, but it was still sunny out, and according 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:20.800 to an article by check Lions and History Magazine, most 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:24.040 locals weren't too concerned about the storm. They'd seen big 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:26.640 storms before living on the Gulf. They thought they could 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:29.280 quote ride it out, as sometimes people do in big 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:32.120 storms like this. But as the day went on, the 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:35.720 wind started to pick up, and it ultimately reached estimated 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:38.160 speeds of about a hundred and twenty two hundred thirty 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:41.520 five miles per hour. The highest speed recorded was actually 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:44.680 one hundred miles per hour, but there's a note there 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:48.600 the wind instrument was destroyed shortly after taking that measurement, 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:50.960 so we can assume it went quite a bit higher 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:54.200 than that. The flooding also gotten much worse. The rain 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:57.160 just kept coming and the tidal surges reached from eight 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:00.880 to fifteen feet. People started heading up words, trying to 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:03.920 get to the highest points that they could in their homes, 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:07.160 but it didn't really help. The surges swept up homes 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:10.560 from the foundation, and the wind was just throwing trees 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:13.400 and other objects around, so it was just utter chaos. 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:16.360 And we should note too that as the Barrier Island Galveston, 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:20.200 of course, was very low, low to the sea, there 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:23.320 was no high ground to really get to. According to 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:27.960 another article by Potter and Weatherwise magazine, the entire southeast 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:30.560 and west areas of the city were just wiped out 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:33.720 pretty much. All the houses were just swept away. Most 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:37.760 other buildings were destroyed too. There were debris everywhere. There 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:41.880 were bodies alive and dead, trapped under the buildings. Potter 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:44.960 quotes Isaac Klein, who was in charge of the Galveston 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:47.520 Weather Bureau office at the time, is saying the site 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:50.000 the next day was quote one of the most horrible 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:54.320 sites that ever civilized people looked upon. Anywhere between six 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:57.240 thousand and twelve thousand people died as a result of 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:01.920 this hurricane. Estimates usually sort of waiver around I guess 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:04.960 six thousand, but as many of these storms, as they 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:06.960 do for many of these storms, we have a huge 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:11.160 spans of numbers here. Yeah, and the exact number of 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:14.800 people who died may never be known. People were drowned, 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:18.520 of course, crushed by debris, and nearly ninety kids in 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:21.160 a local orphanage were killed just an example of some 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:24.400 of the people who died in this storm, about thirty 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:28.080 thousand were left homeless too. Relief came in from other 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:30.280 areas of the country, but there were so many dead 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:33.800 bodies had to be burned for weeks after the storm 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:36.880 because there was just no way to bury them all efficiently. 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:41.200 Galveston never quite recaptured the prominence that it once had, 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:44.120 according to lions article, but it did survive and managed 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:47.840 to rebuild. One of the results of what happened then 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:51.080 nineteen o two, the city started building a seventeen foot 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:54.080 sea wall to protect itself, and houses and buildings were 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:56.800 kind of raised up to that level too, so there's 0:15:56.920 --> 0:16:01.000 more awareness again to keep this from happy. Yeah, Galveston 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:04.240 really ended up having to almost raise the entire city 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:07.080 so they'd be a little safer. So we're gonna be 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:09.920 moving on now to another hurricane. But before we do that, 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:13.160 we need to discuss the relative merits of coastal living 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:16.040 in inland living. And I'd say one of the obvious 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:17.960 perks of living by the coast is that you're near 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:21.040 the beach, But one of the upsides of living far 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:24.720 inland is that you're usually spared the full brunt of 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:30.720 a hurricane plus really terrifying side effects like tsunami's if 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:34.400 you're if you're in the cyclone territory or storm surges, 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:38.760 you're not completely off the hook. Though. Unfortunately, in nineteen 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:43.600 and extremely rare natural disaster occurred. It was a freshwater 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:47.880 storm surge at Lake Okeechobee in south central Florida, which 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:50.120 is just north of the what we think of the 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:54.440 Everglades today and forty miles northwest of Palm Beach, and 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:58.200 that surge plus the effects of the hurricane itself, killed 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:01.560 up to three thousand people, meaning that it came pretty 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:05.080 close to Galveston depending on which numbers you're using for 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:08.960 Galveston as the deadliest storm in US history. In the 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:13.080 early twentieth century, South Florida underwent a huge development boom. 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:15.640 Just to give you some background on this area, Areas 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:19.800 like Palm Beach, which is an Atlantic Barrier island, attracted 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:23.360 the wealthy, while many of the inland Everglade areas, including 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:27.959 the area around Lake Okeechobee, were drained for agriculture, and 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:31.080 according to Noah, only about fifty thousand people were living 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:34.480 in South Florida at the time, so migrant laborers from 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:37.440 mostly the Bahamas arrived to do the farm work and 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:39.880 set up small towns around the lake. So those are 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:44.119 two focused areas, really different worlds economically, but both clearly 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:48.119 very vulnerable to weather. One a barrier island, always vulnerable. 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:53.080 The other small towns with shoddy structures, sitting plumb next 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:55.919 to one of the largest freshwater lakes in the country 0:17:55.960 --> 0:17:58.840 that only happened to be about twelve to fifteen feet 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:02.480 above sea levels. Again according to Noah, the storm we're 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:08.840 discussing first hit land about September twelfth. Ninety three people 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:11.359 were killed when it swept over Puerto Rico. From there, 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:14.359 it moved through the Bahamas and hit the mainland on 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:18.719 September sixte right in Palm Beach County, and the coast 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:21.840 was really badly damaged by the wind the storm, but 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:25.200 warnings had allowed many people to evacuate or to take 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:29.719 cover inland. Though water from the storm caused Lake Okotobe 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:32.400 to start to pool. You know, we mentioned that it's 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.000 a very large lake, it's also a very shallow lake. 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:39.520 And finally it broke through this short, inadequate muck levy 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:42.880 that was meant to protect the settlements to itself and 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:46.560 the freshwater storm surge then at that point rose about 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:50.480 twelve feet around the lake, drowning people in the low 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:54.359 lying area and flooding towns like Belglade, South Bay, and 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:57.679 Canal Point, as well as other towns. And we mentioned 0:18:57.680 --> 0:18:59.760 a minute ago that the death toll could have been 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:02.720 as high as three thousand, But there have been so 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:06.320 many recalculations regarding this storm over the years, and I 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:10.200 mentioned earlier that there's a lot of discrepancy in many 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:12.680 of these numbers, and we'll discuss some of the reasons 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:16.240 for that more later, But for this storm, it seems 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:19.560 like there were some racial politics involved. Different sources from 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:22.840 immediately after the flood ranged from one thousand dead from 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:25.960 the Miami Herald to two thousand, three hundred dead in 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:29.320 the Miami Daily News. So let's talk about that for 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:32.840 a second. Why was there so much confusion and miscalculation? 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:37.480 According to the American Meteorological Society and Russell post And 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:42.000 estimated three quarters of the dead were field workers, mostly 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:46.160 non white migratory workers. Many of them were only known 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:49.720 to even friends by their nicknames. Many of the bodies 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:53.199 were lost. Post article includes a quote describing how the 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:57.359 surge carried people into the quote sawgrass waste, and the 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:01.920 search for bodies ended November f because of lack of funds, 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:05.480 So the mixture of of not being able to actually 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:08.960 locate the bodies and just not knowing who was there 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:12.440 alive in the first place. Many of the black dead 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:14.760 and some of the white dead also were buried in 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:20.600 segregated mass graves. Simultaneous segregated memorial services were held Sunday, 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:25.680 September thirty nine in West Palm Beach. Mary McLeod Bethune 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:28.680 attended one of the black services. She was a big 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:32.720 civil rights activist and educator at the time. Economically, though, 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:36.840 the storm was also really damaging. It caused an estimated 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:41.119 twenty five million dollars in damages, which is now equal 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:46.160 to about sixteen billion dollars if you adjust for wealth, population, 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:50.280 and inflation. According to Post. It also ended the boom 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:53.600 of the nineteen twenties South Florida development because only two 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:57.080 years earlier there had been a similarly large storm that 0:20:57.119 --> 0:21:00.160 had destroyed a lot of Miami, so people buying their 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:03.160 luxury houses were starting to realize this was a risky 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:05.960 area to live in, and that's why this one reminds 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:08.320 me so much of the Galveston storm because it really 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:12.760 affected the whole trajectory of the of the city and 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:17.920 the area right. Another note here of the literary variety, Okachobe, 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:19.720 if it rang a bell for you, it might be 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:22.840 from readings or Neil Hurston's Their eyes were watching God. 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:25.800 Not to give anything away, but it's a major plot 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:29.560 device between the heroine and the character Teacake. Florrety and 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:32.159 Hurston hadn't been in the state during the storm, but 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:36.400 according to Valerie Boyd, she combined her interviews with survivors 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:38.959 plus her own experience in a storm in the Bahamas 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:43.080 to create a realistic scene. And I have to say, 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:45.679 it's probably been about ten or so years since I 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:48.800 read that book, but I can remember the storm scene. 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:52.680 So our final storm for this list is the Bull 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:56.440 Cyclone of nineteen seventy and many of the storms we've 0:21:56.480 --> 0:22:01.480 discussed so far have been truly extraordinary storms, truly large storms. 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:04.600 The Bull of cyclone, though, could have been just an 0:22:04.600 --> 0:22:08.840 average or maybe even under the right circumstances, a mild 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:11.960 storm had it not hit where it did and had 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:14.400 it not hit when it did. As it worked out, 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:17.560 though the storm, which is also called the Ganges Brahmaputra 0:22:17.680 --> 0:22:21.399 Delta cyclone, became one of the deadliest, if not the 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:25.359 deadliest tropical cyclone on record. It's also one of the 0:22:25.400 --> 0:22:29.200 world's worst natural disasters. The storm formed over the Bay 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:33.199 of Bengal November eighth nine, and this was after the 0:22:33.280 --> 0:22:37.320 traditional season's end, so most people weren't even expecting more 0:22:37.359 --> 0:22:40.919 storms and we're already kind of at max flood capacity 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:44.000