Isaac's Storm - Erik Larson [48]
The map that reached Erie, Pennsylvania, Thursday morning showed a vast low-pressure zone over the Pacific Coast. The base of the low stretched from Los Angeles to El Paso. From there, the low spread north to Spokane, Washington, and the Canadian border. But two high-pressure zones still held the rest of the nation’s weather in check. Temperatures again soared into the nineties in Cincinnati, Davenport, Green Bay, Louisville, Washington, and Chattanooga. Even in cool green La Crosse, Wisconsin, the temperature hit 94 degrees. A brief notation on the map read: “The tropical storm has moved from Key West to Tampa, Florida.”
In fact, the storm never did pass directly over southern Florida. Blocked by one of the high-pressure zones, it executed an abnormal left turn that put it on a course directly toward Galveston, eight hundred miles away across the superheated Gulf. The high pressure had caused a change in the seasonal pattern of winds sweeping off the Atlantic. Instead of blowing toward the northwest, these winds now blew mainly west, and carried the storm toward the Texas coast.
Only the storm’s outer bands reached Florida. The winds in Key West, Tampa, and Jupiter did reach gale force, but caused little damage other than knocking out the fragile telegraph link between Key West and points north.
Where the Thursday-morning weather map should have displayed temperatures for Key West, the Central Office inserted only the letter M, for missing.
GULF OF MEXICO
The Devil’s Voice
WHAT THE LOUISIANA’S thirty passengers must have thought Wednesday as the steamship passed the striking red-and-black storm flag at Port Eads, Louisiana, is anyone’s guess. For some passengers, no doubt, the prospect of a storm was an exciting one, just the thing to yield a good story to tell the friends and relatives who would meet the ship in New York the following week. Others took comfort in Captain Halsey’s obvious confidence. If there was any serious threat to the ship’s welfare, surely the captain would proceed no farther. A few passengers did not see the storm flag. They were seasick and already considered death an attractive option.
Once past the bar off Port Eads, the Louisiana accelerated. The muted booming of the ship’s steamplant became an even thrum. Smoke from her stack blew forward over the starboard rail in a long black smudge that flurried cinder upon the sea.
Captain Halsey ordered the decks cleared and hatches sealed, but the thought of turning back did not occur to him. He held the Louisiana to its southeastward course throughout the night, despite the rising wind and seas.
At 6:00 A.M. Thursday he checked the ship’s barometer and saw the mercury at 29.60 inches, nearly three-tenths below normal. The wind still came from the north-northeast, but at intervals circled until it came directly from the north.
The storm was a cyclone and by now Captain Halsey, veteran of so many such tropical storms, had to know it.
By ten that morning, the storm was much worse. The barometer dropped another third of an inch, to 29.25. The depth of the decline was troubling in itself, but the speed of the descent was what most captured Halsey’s attention. The first decline, to 29.60 inches, had taken all night. This latest had taken four hours.
Horizontal rain clattered against the bridge with the sound of bullets against armor. Wherever the wind gained entry, it spoke. It moaned among the cabins and corridors like Marley’s ghost. The hull flexed. Beams twisted. To the passengers, the ship seemed on the verge of disintegration.
At noon, Halsey ordered a sharp reduction in speed. He wanted only enough forward drive to let him maneuver and keep the ship’s bow pointed into the oncoming wind and waves.
The barometer continued sinking. At one o’clock, Halsey checked the glass and saw the mercury “had fallen to the remarkable figure of 28.75.