Speaker 1: You're listening to American Shadows, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaronmankey. The winter had
Speaker 1: been harsh that year. Ice storms and weeks of bitter
Speaker 1: cold swept the northwestern states from Michigan and the Dakotas
Speaker 1: down to Nebraska. So when the sun broke through the
Speaker 1: clouds and the unusually warm temperature melted ice and snow
Speaker 1: on the twelfth of January, people made the most of it.
Speaker 1: In the Dakotas, women hung out laundry. In Nebraska, children
Speaker 1: began their trek home from school. In Montana, Idaho, and Kansas,
Speaker 1: farmers enjoyed the break from tending livestock in the frigid cold.
Speaker 1: Settlers in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Wyoming ventured into town for
Speaker 1: supply and errands. By mid afternoon, the clouds rolled in,
Speaker 1: dark and heavy. A farmer in South Dakota heard a
Speaker 1: tremendous roar, and, thinking the sound had come from a train,
Speaker 1: kept working. Minutes later, he realized the loud roar had
Speaker 1: been thunder, unusual for winter. The sky grew as dark
Speaker 1: as a seller, and icy winds tugged at his hat
Speaker 1: and bit into his skin. He hadn't dressed warmly enough
Speaker 1: for the changing temperatures, and headed toward the house before
Speaker 1: he left the fields. Though the snow fell from the
Speaker 1: sky like it had been dumped from a sack, seeing
Speaker 1: just a foot in front of him proved difficult. In Nebraska,
Speaker 1: the winds ripped the roof off of a schoolhouse. The
Speaker 1: nineteen year old school teacher Mini Friedman tied her thirteen
Speaker 1: students together with twine and led them to safety at
Speaker 1: a farmhouse a mile and a half away. For her heroics,
Speaker 1: he received the gold medal and over eighty marriage proposals.
Speaker 1: Another school teacher wasn't as fortunate. Lois Royce and three
Speaker 1: students were trapped in their tiny schoolhouse when the heat
Speaker 1: ran out. She attempted to guide the children to her
Speaker 1: boarding house, just eighty two yards away. The white out
Speaker 1: conditions confused them and they lost their sense of direction.
Speaker 1: No one knows how long they tried to find their
Speaker 1: way back. Sadly, the children froze to death, and though
Speaker 1: Lois survived, frostbite took both of her feet. As much
Speaker 1: as fifty five inches of snow fell across the plains
Speaker 1: that day, sustained winds of forty five miles per hour
Speaker 1: and gusts up to eighty miles per hour created snow drifts,
Speaker 1: some reaching upwards of fifty feet, covering entire houses. Trains
Speaker 1: were stopped in their tracks or derailed when they hit
Speaker 1: snow banks. Telegraph lines snapped, cutting off all communication. Within
Speaker 1: twenty four hours, the temperature had plummeted nearly a hundred
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit. Fargo reported temperatures of forty seven degrees below zero.
Speaker 1: Known as the Children's Blizzard due to the time of
Speaker 1: the day the blizzard hit and the number of children
Speaker 1: who died as they tried to get home, it killed
Speaker 1: nearly two fifty people. Many died within feet of their homes.
Speaker 1: Unable to use fences, buildings, or other landmarks to help
Speaker 1: guide them during whiteout conditions, they quickly became lost. Bodies
Speaker 1: were found days, weeks, and even months later. Some had
Speaker 1: frozen to death, while others had suffocated under massive drifts.
Speaker 1: Those tasked with the recovery reported that the bodies had
Speaker 1: been so solidly frozen that they made a metallic sound
Speaker 1: when touched. Children who had frozen were discovered with their
Speaker 1: arms wrapped tightly around each other. As you might imagine.
Speaker 1: Some of the missing were never found. The National Weather Service,
Speaker 1: called the Signal Corps back then, had made a grave miscalculation.
Speaker 1: While they knew a storm was coming, they believed that
Speaker 1: using the words blizzard and white out conditions, much less
Speaker 1: telling residents a dangerous storm might be approaching, was alarmist.
Speaker 1: By the time they realized their error, it was too late.
Speaker 1: In President Benjamin Harrison moved the Meteorological Department away from
Speaker 1: the War Department. The newly formed Weather Bureau reported directly
Speaker 1: to the Agriculture Department instead. Surprisingly, though nothing else about
Speaker 1: how the weather was managed actually changed, and the results
Speaker 1: were devastating. I'm Lauren bobil Baum, Welcome to American Shadows.
Speaker 1: Americans hadn't been the only ones tracking weather over the waters, though.
Speaker 1: Back in teen fifty eight in Havana, Cuba, father Benito
Speaker 1: Vignier's founded the Balin Observatory, perhaps the most advanced weather
Speaker 1: station in the world. In Cuba, the stucco homes with
Speaker 1: their wrought iron balconies and zinc roofs, had been subjected
Speaker 1: to frequent storms. Hurricanes were so common that at least
Speaker 1: once a year, storms even tore the roof off of
Speaker 1: the observatory. Father Vigny has filled notebook after notebook with
Speaker 1: drawings and descriptions of clouds. He cross reference to them
Speaker 1: with weather instrument readings, and made notes from incoming ship
Speaker 1: captains returning from sea. He also collected sordid and cross
Speaker 1: referenced newspaper clippings. He paid special attention to siras stratus clouds,
Speaker 1: the tall, gauzy clouds found on the outer fringes of hurricanes.
Speaker 1: His understanding of storms and cloud formations enabled him to
Speaker 1: predict hurricanes with uncanny precision. When he was done with
Speaker 1: his notebook, he published newspaper articles in terms that ordinary
Speaker 1: people would understand for him. The more informed people were,
Speaker 1: the better of all his notes and teachings. Father Vigneyer's
Speaker 1: stressed that sarah stratus clouds could be one of the
Speaker 1: best early indicators of large storms still many miles out
Speaker 1: to see, giving people time to prepare. Of course, the
Speaker 1: presence of such clouds alone wasn't proof enough. They also
Speaker 1: had a particular shape stretched across the sky in plumes,
Speaker 1: the bottom of the clouds pointing toward the eye of
Speaker 1: the encroaching storm. With this knowledge, the storm's current direction
Speaker 1: could be determined. This information, along with wind patterns, speed,
Speaker 1: and cloud density, allowed Father Vigneer's to build a storm model,
Speaker 1: effectively tracking its future path and intensity. Before long, a
Speaker 1: telegraphic network of observers across the Caribbean assisted him in
Speaker 1: gathering weather reports and cloud formations. The British, French, Danish, Dutch, Dominican,
Speaker 1: Venezuelan and even the American government passed along information directly
Speaker 1: to Father Vignyer's. With the additional input, his already stellar
Speaker 1: record for hurricane predictions improved exponentially. In the United States,
Speaker 1: Willis Moore took over as director of the U S
Speaker 1: Weather Bureau in He wasn't fond of Father Vigneer's work,
Speaker 1: nor any other weather forecaster, and decided that in the
Speaker 1: US at least there would be changes for starters. He
Speaker 1: wanted store warnings to go directly through him before being
Speaker 1: sent to local weathermen, effective immediately. Certain words were to
Speaker 1: be removed and devoided tornado, cyclone, and hurricane, among others.
Speaker 1: As far as he was concerned, weather men were over
Speaker 1: predicting the weather and terrifying the public. Moore's next change
Speaker 1: came in the assignment of Colonel Henry Dunwoodie to the
Speaker 1: Bureau's Caribbean weather station. Dunwoodie believed that those who claimed
Speaker 1: the ability to predict a hurricane's path using cloud formations
Speaker 1: and wind direction might as well use divination instead. At
Speaker 1: first glance, Moore's choice might seem a bit unusual. That
Speaker 1: is until you noticed that the new appointee shared in
Speaker 1: his dislike of father Vigner's and those who had followed
Speaker 1: in his footsteps. After the changes state side were in effect,
Speaker 1: both Dunwoodie and Moore turned their sites on the Cuban
Speaker 1: weather forecasters. The two men believed that despite the accuracy,
Speaker 1: the forecasts were created by backward and hysterical people. The
Speaker 1: two men appointed a Bureau veteran, William Stockman, to be
Speaker 1: in charge of the United States weather stations in Cuba.
Speaker 1: Once there, he not only agreed with his superior's viewpoint
Speaker 1: on the local people, he took it a step further.
Speaker 1: He reported back to More and Dunwoodie that the weather
Speaker 1: forecast ster's methods of prediction were based on superstition and
Speaker 1: lacked American know how and technology. He also told them
Speaker 1: that any data and know how the Cubans collected had
Speaker 1: been stolen from the U. S. Observatories, that they had
Speaker 1: been hijacking US data for years now. If you're thinking
Speaker 1: this didn't add up, you'd be right. Essentially, he was
Speaker 1: saying that the Cuban meteorologists, who had claimed were uneducated
Speaker 1: and superstitious, had never been right about the weather, but
Speaker 1: when they were, it had been because they had stolen
Speaker 1: U S. Data. He also claimed that their lack of
Speaker 1: understanding and knowledge had succeeded only in whipping the Cuban
Speaker 1: people into a hysterical frenzy with warnings about monster storms.
Speaker 1: The report fed into Moore's beliefs, and in August of
Speaker 1: nineteen hundred, right in the middle of hurricane season, he
Speaker 1: determined that all communication between the Cuban weatherman and the
Speaker 1: US must be shut down. Seeing that the war depart
Speaker 1: and controlled the telegraph lines, that part was easy. Banning
Speaker 1: communication between the U. S. Weather Bureau in Havana and
Speaker 1: the office in New Orleans was another matter, though. To
Speaker 1: remedy this, he ordered all reports go directly through him
Speaker 1: in Washington. He would determine what information New Orleans and
Speaker 1: other coastal cities needed, if any. His power grab had
Speaker 1: one small remaining problem, though the telegraph lines owned by
Speaker 1: Western Union More didn't have the authority to censor weather
Speaker 1: data over their lines. However, he did manage to strongly
Speaker 1: convince them to set all weather related news coming from
Speaker 1: Cuba to the lowest priority. This would effectively slow the
Speaker 1: rate of transmission, or, as he hoped, force reports to
Speaker 1: be dropped entirely. On September three of that year, Father
Speaker 1: Lorenzo Gangoti, who had succeeded Father Vignier's, watched a new
Speaker 1: disturbing weather system off the Havana coast. The massive storm
Speaker 1: twirled on its axis, changing speed and direction. Rough seas
Speaker 1: and wind gusts of sixty miles per hour battered the coast.
Speaker 1: Though the storm still sat miles off shore. While the
Speaker 1: center of the storm hadn't yet formed the all telling
Speaker 1: eye of a hurricane, he kept a close watch. The
Speaker 1: next day, the storm intensified before making landfall, washing away
Speaker 1: train tracks and destroying buildings in its way. By the
Speaker 1: night of September five, cirro stratus clouds formed over the moon,
Speaker 1: and by dawn the sky turned red. Heading for warmer waters,
Speaker 1: the storm changed direction, moving north by northwest. As he
Speaker 1: had learned from his predecessor, Father Gengoiti, sat down and
Speaker 1: mapped out the hurricane, predicting the path the Texas Gulf coast.
Speaker 1: More had cut off every method of warning the people
Speaker 1: in the US. In warm open water, the already well
Speaker 1: formed and deadly storm would gain strength. All Father Gang
Speaker 1: could do for the people along the Gulf coast was
Speaker 1: watch and pray. In the early nine hundreds, U S
Speaker 1: citizens were proud of American technology. They thought their advancement
Speaker 1: and inventions were unparalleled the world over. In such a
Speaker 1: short time, they had conquered the land, and now there
Speaker 1: had been talk of controlling the weather using cannon blasts, chemicals,
Speaker 1: and controlled forest fires. They lived in a time when
Speaker 1: anything seemed possible. In Galveston, Texas, technology sat front and center.
Speaker 1: They had electric street cars and street lights to telegraph
Speaker 1: companies and local and long distance telephone lines kept communications
Speaker 1: with other prestigious towns. Open a city of culture, people
Speaker 1: enjoyed performances in three concert hall halls for travelers. There
Speaker 1: were no less than twenty hotels, including the ultraposh Tremont
Speaker 1: with over two hundred ocean facing rooms, private baths, and
Speaker 1: their own power plant. More millionaires resided in Galveston per
Speaker 1: square mile than Newport, Rhode Island, resulting in enormous and
Speaker 1: elaborate mansions along Broadway Avenue. At the turn of the century,
Speaker 1: cities competed amongst each other for wealth and prominence. In Texas,
Speaker 1: Galveston strived to reach the status of Baltimore in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: The New York Herald had already written a piece on
Speaker 1: Galveston the New York of the Gulf. Others called it
Speaker 1: the Queen City of the Gulf. In comparison to other
Speaker 1: Texas cities, Galveston was small, just a narrow island along
Speaker 1: the Bay, barely nine feet above sea level at its
Speaker 1: peak and only two hundred and nine square miles. Despite
Speaker 1: the size, it was the biggest cotton port in the
Speaker 1: country and the third busiest port overall. Forty five steamship
Speaker 1: lines provided service from Europe to Texas. One of the
Speaker 1: fastest growing cities in the country, almost thirty eight thousand
Speaker 1: people called the small city home by the summer of
Speaker 1: On September five, the weather report in the Galveston Daily
Speaker 1: News was short. A tropical disturbance is moving over western
Speaker 1: Cuba and headed the south Florida coast. The report had
Speaker 1: come directly from Willis Moore at the DC Weather Bureau.
Speaker 1: The day before, no one worried. An article in the
Speaker 1: local paper back in had stated that a hurricane of
Speaker 1: any significant strength would never make landfall on the island.
Speaker 1: On Thursday, September six, people awoke to a beautiful day
Speaker 1: with clear blue skies that mirrored the Gulf waters. At
Speaker 1: six a m. The Weather Bureau's chief observer, Isaac Klein,
Speaker 1: and his brother and assistant Joseph, took their morning readings
Speaker 1: from the roof of the five story Levi building. They
Speaker 1: noted a no a, more barometric pressure and light winds.
Speaker 1: The temperature, however, was already a steamy eighty degrees. That
Speaker 1: summer had been warmer than normal. The air was hot
Speaker 1: and humid. You waded through it more than walked. Residents
Speaker 1: and tourists who ventured out for a swim at night
Speaker 1: said the Gulf felt like bathwater, giving very little relief
Speaker 1: from the oppressive heat wave. Two hours after his first
Speaker 1: weather report, Isaac telegraphed d C asking for an update
Speaker 1: on the prior day's tropical disturbance spotted over Cuba. Moore's
Speaker 1: reply was brief, not a hurricane. The director assured him
Speaker 1: that the storm would certainly recurve when it reached the Gulf.
Speaker 1: According to More, Caribbean, storms on a northern trajectory couldn't
Speaker 1: continue that path and would curve back towards South Florida.
Speaker 1: Though he didn't state how he had come to such
Speaker 1: a conclusion, he insisted that the heavy rains and moderate
Speaker 1: wind force would only affect the ships moored off the
Speaker 1: Florida Key Ease. He also predicted that areas up the
Speaker 1: coast from Norfolk to New England would get rainfall before
Speaker 1: the storm remnants moved off into the Atlantic. Sometime Friday,
Speaker 1: Moore did tell the weather stations in New Orleans that
Speaker 1: they should put up the red and black storm warning
Speaker 1: flags to alert ship captains of potentially rougher seas, but
Speaker 1: issued none for cities further west. At one PM, More
Speaker 1: telegraphed East coast cities like Savannah and Charleston that Cuba
Speaker 1: had experienced heavy rain and that the tropical disturbance had
Speaker 1: moved towards Florida as he had predicted. Later in the evening,
Speaker 1: Isaac and Joseph took the last reading of the day
Speaker 1: ninety degrees, which was hotter than usual for the season
Speaker 1: and especially for the time of day. The wind was
Speaker 1: coming out of the north, and the barometric pressure had dropped.
Speaker 1: Thick clouds began to dot the coastline. After sending off
Speaker 1: the report back to Washington, Isaac returned to his house
Speaker 1: on Q Street, where he lived with his pregnant wife,
Speaker 1: four children, and his brother. On Friday morning, September seven,
Speaker 1: Isaac knew something was wrong. Though the reports from d
Speaker 1: C insisted the storm wasn't heading their way, the rough
Speaker 1: surf and the strong winds at least convinced More that
Speaker 1: Galveston should raise storm warning flags for the steamerships. Isaac
Speaker 1: went about his day of readings without any idea that
Speaker 1: More was withholding information. The East coast weatherman had given
Speaker 1: Washington some fairly surprising reports. The storm that had been
Speaker 1: told would hit them never arrived. Key West had experienced
Speaker 1: strong winds but not much more, and Central Florida never
Speaker 1: got the storm More had predicted either. Isaac wasn't privy
Speaker 1: to the reports coming from East coast cities. He couldn't
Speaker 1: have known that Savannah and Charleston reported clear skies and
Speaker 1: mild weather. He assumed the torrential rains More said would
Speaker 1: hit the coast had already happened when the telegram arrived
Speaker 1: that morning. It never mentioned what the Washington Bureau had
Speaker 1: already concluded. The storm that was supposed to be skirting
Speaker 1: up the East Coast was actually in the Gulf. Friday afternoon,
Speaker 1: the phones in Isaac's third floor office rang almost constantly.
Speaker 1: Ship captains, the harbor master, and business men stopped by
Speaker 1: with concerns about the high swells of water crashing on shore.
Speaker 1: The waves had turned an angry green, and the sky
Speaker 1: a brooding shade of gray. Strong winds whipped the storm
Speaker 1: warning flags. Concerned, Isaac telegraphed More, who insisted that while
Speaker 1: he might have been wrong about the storm's path, it
Speaker 1: was not a hurricane. Throughout the day, Isaac and Joseph
Speaker 1: fended off worried citizens and phone calls. Every few hours,
Speaker 1: they took more readings from the rooftop d C had
Speaker 1: said they could expect some wind and heavy rains that evening.
Speaker 1: Nothing unusual, Isaac determined. Summer storms flooded the streets on occasion.
Speaker 1: By nightfall, the temperature dropped, giving much needed relief from
Speaker 1: the oppressive heat. The last weather report Isaac received showed
Speaker 1: the storm southwest of New Orleans and moving due west. Again,
Speaker 1: not a hurricane, the Washington Bureau assured him. At midnight,
Speaker 1: Isaac created a map charting the storm's course. He concluded
Speaker 1: that the storm would make a direct hit on Galveston,
Speaker 1: had survived direct hits from severe storms before, he thought.
Speaker 1: Despite his misgivings, he decided that Washington knew the storm
Speaker 1: better than he did. He left for home in a
Speaker 1: few hours sleep, but it was the brief calm before
Speaker 1: the storm. At four in the morning, Isaac woke His wife,
Speaker 1: heavily pregnant with their fifth child, slept beside him. The
Speaker 1: sound of the house, a sturdy home sitting on stilts,
Speaker 1: groaned and creep with the ever increasing wind outside. Feeling uneasy,
Speaker 1: he got up, dressed and headed downstairs. Joseph was also awake.
Speaker 1: They stood on the balcony looking over the slate shingle rooftops,
Speaker 1: each taking in the wind, which had become almost chilly.
Speaker 1: I have the sense of impending doom, Joseph said, although
Speaker 1: he couldn't quite figure out why. Isaac did too. He
Speaker 1: went to the weather station early first heading down by
Speaker 1: the bay and then along the beach, warning residents that
Speaker 1: they might see heavy flooding and to seek shelter. Isaac
Speaker 1: also suggested that merchants should remove items from the floors
Speaker 1: of their shops just in case. Meanwhile, Joseph took the
Speaker 1: map his brother had drawn to the closest Western Union office.
Speaker 1: The clerk shook his head lines are down. He slogged
Speaker 1: through the flooded streets to the next telegraph office, only
Speaker 1: to find that their lines were also down. He were
Speaker 1: remembered the phone at the office. While he couldn't send
Speaker 1: the drawing, he could at least make a call. Still
Speaker 1: soggy from the floods, Joseph rang the operator and asked
Speaker 1: for a connection to Houston. She refused, stated that there
Speaker 1: were too many other calls ahead of him. Eventually, after
Speaker 1: speaking with the manager and convincing him of the emergency,
Speaker 1: the operator put the call through. Throughout the morning, the
Speaker 1: brothers repeated More's weather report of heavy rains and strong
Speaker 1: winds to worried citizens, telling them not to worry that
Speaker 1: Washington was assuring them that the following day would be
Speaker 1: clear and sunny. By three, the flooding had become the
Speaker 1: worst anyone had ever seen. Isaac made another call to
Speaker 1: the Houston Western Union, requesting that they forward the report
Speaker 1: directly to more in d C. He stated that the
Speaker 1: local telegraph lines were still down, the gulf was rising,
Speaker 1: and that most of the streets were under water. The
Speaker 1: barometric pressure had dropped below twenty nine inches. He would
Speaker 1: be able to send another report anytime soon. The people
Speaker 1: of Galfston were on their own. By six thirty that evening,
Speaker 1: Isaac waded through waste deep water to get to his house.
Speaker 1: He walked in to see forty people had gathered for
Speaker 1: shelter from the rising waters. At seven pm, Isaac stood
Speaker 1: at the front door, watching debris begin to fly through
Speaker 1: the air. The water, now ten ft above the ground,
Speaker 1: suddenly swelled to fifteen feet. Within mere seconds, debris began
Speaker 1: to pile up in the water. At eight pm, houses
Speaker 1: that had washed away from their foundations slammed into the
Speaker 1: stilts securing his home. Inside, people huddled together terrified. Slate
Speaker 1: roofs designed to handle rougher winds sailed through the air outside.
Speaker 1: Joseph suggested they leave and try to evacuate while they
Speaker 1: still could. Isaac said they should stay it was too
Speaker 1: late to evacuate, and the debris would surely kill them.
Speaker 1: A half hour later, the client residents could no longer
Speaker 1: with stand the battering ram of houses against the stilts.
Speaker 1: The stilts broke, plummeting the house into the raging water,
Speaker 1: tearing the home apart. Nearly twenty people, including Isaac's pregnant wife,
Speaker 1: were swept under water and carried away in what seemed
Speaker 1: a fraction of a second. The water pulled Isaac under
Speaker 1: as well, though he clung tightly to his eldest child.
Speaker 1: Joseph managed to grab Isaac's other three children, and they
Speaker 1: struggled to pull themselves from the water onto the floating
Speaker 1: debris that had once been part of their home. Two
Speaker 1: more children bobbed to the surface, and the men snatched
Speaker 1: them from the turbulent water. Roofing and other debris flew
Speaker 1: through the air, killing people adrift on the flopsam Seeing
Speaker 1: the gore and carnage, the brothers fished out planks of
Speaker 1: wood from the water to use as shields. For hours
Speaker 1: they drifted. The water was so high that at first
Speaker 1: Isaac worried that had been carried out to sea. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: around midnight, they collided with more secure structures. The group
Speaker 1: scrambled over the wreckage. Tree branches slammed into people as
Speaker 1: they've tried to reach safety. Finally, Isaac, Joseph, and the
Speaker 1: children found shelter in a residence of By daybreak on Sunday,
Speaker 1: September nine, the brothers crawled from the wreckage. Taking in
Speaker 1: the destruction, They saw nothing but death and devastation. Galveston
Speaker 1: was gone. Nearly half the homes were missing, the rest damaged.
Speaker 1: On what used to be eight the ninth streets, not
Speaker 1: a single home stood. Isaac had no idea what had
Speaker 1: happened to the twenty people known to live there. Trees
Speaker 1: had snapped in half or had been sheared off by
Speaker 1: the airborne slate roofs. In the days that followed, Isaac
Speaker 1: made multiple trips to the hospital in search of his wife.
Speaker 1: They suggested he checked the morgue, not the one in
Speaker 1: the hospital nor the local funeral home. The death toll
Speaker 1: had been so great that a temporary morgue had been
Speaker 1: set up at a nearby warehouse. They're the loss was unimaginable. Corpses,
Speaker 1: some puffy and bloated from the water, lay in rows.
Speaker 1: Survivors walked up and down the aisles searching for loved ones.
Speaker 1: Many of the dead had been covered in sheets and blankets.
Speaker 1: People carefully lifted the edges, looking to see if anyone
Speaker 1: underneath might be family, if they were still recognizable. Like
Speaker 1: many others who wandered through the aisles desperately searching for
Speaker 1: their loved ones, Isaac never found Cora. She and their
Speaker 1: unborn child were one of the many casualties. Authorities estimated
Speaker 1: that eight thousand people died in the storm, but the
Speaker 1: death toll might have been as high as twelve thousand
Speaker 1: due to the influx of tourists. The hurricane, what we
Speaker 1: now know to be a Category four storm, hit the
Speaker 1: unsuspecting city. Was sustained winds of a hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: miles per hour and storm surges over fifteen feet. Though
Speaker 1: the city rebuilt, raising buildings and constructing a sea wall,
Speaker 1: it never regained the dominant shipping status it once held,
Speaker 1: giving that honor to Houston. The Galveston hurricane remains the
Speaker 1: deadliest natural disaster in the United States and still holds
Speaker 1: the grim record the largest death toll of American lives
Speaker 1: in a single day, and because of it, the Weather
Speaker 1: Bureau learned a lesson that cost thousands their lives. Hurricanes
Speaker 1: don't care about politics. Willis Moore stood by his predictions,
Speaker 1: despite the tremendous death toll, the huge number of resulting
Speaker 1: houseless and damage that exceeded seven hundred million dollars in
Speaker 1: today's money, He refused to admit his mistake. The weather
Speaker 1: report he had given Isaac for the day of the
Speaker 1: hurricane had been for heavy rain and wind, technically accurate,
Speaker 1: but without the crucial details like the use of the
Speaker 1: word hurricane. For the following day, he said the forecast
Speaker 1: would be fair, fresh and possible brisk northerly winds. Most
Speaker 1: lives could have been saved. The Washington Bureau had reports
Speaker 1: ahead of time showing the storm hadn't curved backward as predicted.
Speaker 1: The East coast had updated more with that much. New
Speaker 1: Orleans had noted the path of the storm as well.
Speaker 1: On September six, d Captain Halsey of the ship Louisiana
Speaker 1: reported winds exceeding a hundred miles per hour and said
Speaker 1: the storm was gaining strength as it continued westward. Though
Speaker 1: the Washington Weather Bureau knew this, they emphatically insisted it
Speaker 1: wasn't a hurricane and wouldn't hit Texas. When More predicted
Speaker 1: the storm would loop back and cross central Florida, Cuban
Speaker 1: forecasters disagreed and warned the Weather Bureau that the storm
Speaker 1: would make a direct hit on the Texas coastline. The
Speaker 1: Cuban forecasters had been right about predicting not only the
Speaker 1: hurricane itself, but the path. Moore's failure to listen to
Speaker 1: the Cuban weather forecasters or acknowledge their expertise prevented him
Speaker 1: from properly warning Galveston. It had, indeed all come down
Speaker 1: to politics. Willis Moore was never reprimanded and continued to
Speaker 1: serve as the director until nineteen. The Bureau did reopen
Speaker 1: some of the communication channels after the hurricane, though More
Speaker 1: contended that the long range projections that the Cuban meteorologists
Speaker 1: used were still quackery. Sadly, science when it comes to
Speaker 1: hurricanes didn't progress until nineteen, and it wasn't until ninety
Speaker 1: eight before forecasts could include words like tornado, continuing to
Speaker 1: leave people without warning. When Hurricane Katrina leveled New Orleans
Speaker 1: in two thousand five, the damage wasn't from lack of
Speaker 1: warning or word usage or accuracy in the prediction. In fact,
Speaker 1: thanks to lessons learned through tragedies like Galveston, the worst
Speaker 1: case scenario was avoided. But major storms today present a
Speaker 1: new danger. Our cities are so much more populated than
Speaker 1: they were over a century ago, and getting people out
Speaker 1: of them ahead of natural disasters is a major challenge.
Speaker 1: And even with an emergency plan and early warning, some
Speaker 1: people refuse to leave, or they wait until the storm arrives.
Speaker 1: We'll keep learning and getting better at what we do,
Speaker 1: but none of that will eradicate the biggest danger that
Speaker 1: we face, because the enemy will follow us wherever we go.
Speaker 1: Our most deadly flaw human error. There's more to this story.
Speaker 1: Stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear all
Speaker 1: about it. The Cold War was fought in the skies.
Speaker 1: During the nineteen sixties, U. S. Intelligence deployed a vast
Speaker 1: network of satellites designed to spy on potential Russian, Chinese,
Speaker 1: and Cuban missile sites. After snapping photos, the parachute outfitted
Speaker 1: film canisters were ejected and later collected by cargo planes.
Speaker 1: It was a costly endeavor, and the last thing officials
Speaker 1: wanted was for canisters to end up in storms. Highly
Speaker 1: sophisticated weather satellites were used to make sure that didn't happen.
Speaker 1: Of course, being classified, few people even within the military,
Speaker 1: knew of their existence. On July twenty one of nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine, Air Force meteorologist Hank Brandley noted a major
Speaker 1: tropical storm forming over part of the Pacific Ocean. The
Speaker 1: trajectory concerned him not because the storm may or may
Speaker 1: not have become a hurricane, but because Apollo eleven was
Speaker 1: just three days from a planned splashed down right in
Speaker 1: the story arms path. The crew who planned on parachuting
Speaker 1: into the ocean could be killed. The parachutes were no
Speaker 1: match for the severe winds and down drafts. Brandley had
Speaker 1: a problem. Now he was one of the few who
Speaker 1: not only knew about the satellite's existence, but it was
Speaker 1: his job to monitor the data. He stared at the photos,
Speaker 1: realizing he had to do something, but he wasn't allowed
Speaker 1: to talk about it to anyone who didn't have the
Speaker 1: proper clearance. Finally, he located Williard Houston, the man tasked
Speaker 1: with weather forecasts for the fleet of ships being sent
Speaker 1: to recover Apollo eleven. Both men had clearance and were
Speaker 1: stationed at Pearl Harbor. After reviewing the photos, Houston took
Speaker 1: the issue up with Rear Admiral Donald Davis. There was
Speaker 1: a catch, though, the Admiral, even though he was in
Speaker 1: charge of the ship heading to the Apollo eleven recovery area,
Speaker 1: didn't have clearance to see the spy satellite photos. In short,
Speaker 1: Houston had to be creative and convincing with out telling
Speaker 1: Davis where he had gotten the information or mentioning those
Speaker 1: satellite photos. The satellites weren't even supposed to exist, after all.
Speaker 1: All he could tell the Admiral was that Neil Armstrong,
Speaker 1: Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin would die upon impact if
Speaker 1: they splashed down in the original drop zone. Davis took
Speaker 1: Houston at his word, though, if the meteorologist was wrong,
Speaker 1: his career was over. After advising NASA of the new
Speaker 1: recovery location, he changed the aircraft carrier USS Hornets course
Speaker 1: and headed some two hundred and fifteen nautical miles northeast
Speaker 1: of their current location. The new location altered the Apollo's
Speaker 1: flight plan, changing a bunch of computer sequences NASA hadn't
Speaker 1: planned on changing. Meanwhile, the Admiral sent reconnaissance aircraft to
Speaker 1: verify a storm was brewing in the original drop area.
Speaker 1: They reported back, Yes, there was indeed a major storm
Speaker 1: in the Pacific Ocean south of Hawaii. The rest, as
Speaker 1: they say, is history. President Nixon and the other members
Speaker 1: of the presidential Party were flown to the U. S. S.
Speaker 1: Arlington on the day of the recovery. Marine one took
Speaker 1: them to the Hornet. The craft and crew safely splashed
Speaker 1: down at the new location. Once the crew boarded the Hornet,
Speaker 1: President Nixon told them, this is the greatest week in
Speaker 1: the history of the world since creation. Had it not
Speaker 1: been for the quick actions of Brandley and Davis, though,
Speaker 1: the legendary story of the Apollo eleven mission would have
Speaker 1: ended in disaster, all thanks to the most unlikely of heroes, meteorologists.
Speaker 1: American Shadows is hosted by Lauren Vogelbaum. This episode was
Speaker 1: written by Michelle Muto, researched by Ali Steed, and produced
Speaker 1: by Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young, with executive producers Aaron Makeey,
Speaker 1: Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. To learn more about out
Speaker 1: the show, visit griman mild dot com. From more podcasts
Speaker 1: from I heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.