Hurricane Legacies: The Impacts of Three Historic ...

Weatherwise

ISSN: 0043-1672 (Print) 1940-1310 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vwws20

Hurricane Legacies: The Impacts of Three Historic Storms Went Far Beyond the Headlines Moce Bentley & Steve Horstmeyer To cite this article: Moce Bentley & Steve Horstmeyer (1999) Hurricane Legacies: The Impacts of Three Historic Storms Went Far Beyond the Headlines, Weatherwise, 52:5, 28-32, DOI: 10.1080/00431679909604328 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00431679909604328

Published online: 02 Apr 2010.

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The Impacts of Three Historic Storms Went Far Beyond the Headlines

fDur and twenty hours the storm in a restless tumult bad blown so exceedingly as we could not apprehend in our imaginations any possibility of greater violence. . . our clamours drowned in the winds and the winds in thunder. . . the sea swelled above the clouds and gave battle to the heaven . . . . What shall I say? Winds and seas were as mad .sfif;lrrand rage could make them.” Unable to keep the rest of the flotilla in sight throughout the ordeal, the Sea Adventure found herself sailing alone. By the morning of June 28th, she had been tossed violently and buried by mountainous waves crashing over her deck for four days without pause. Non-stop bailing had exhausted the 140 men on board and most had given up hope. “. . . All our men,” wrote Sylvester Jourdain, “. . . being utterly spent, tyred, and disabled for longer labour, were even resolved, without any hope of their lives, to shut up the hatches and to have committed themselves to the mercy of the sea . . . .” It was in this battered state that the men aboard the Sea Adventure heard Sir George Somers call out land on the horizon. The storm had cast the Sea Adventure within a half-a-mile of the Isles of Devils. First charted in 151 1, mariners avoided the islands because fringing reefs made a quick trip to the bottom nearly certain. According to legend, the islands were inhabited by demons that spontaneously whipped up storms and turned serene weather into terror. The island group was often marked on navigational maps by horned, impish heads exhaling breaths of stormy winds. Every man, woman, and child aboard the Sea Adventure survived and discovered the Isles of Devils to be undeserving of its name. According to Strachey, they found “ . . . the air so temper-

ate and the country so abundantly fruitful . . . it is in truth the richest, healthfullest and pleasing land . . . as man has ever set foot upon.” Determined to carry out their original mission, the industrious castaways salvaged the Sea Adventure and built two smaller ships. After spending the winter of 1609-10 on the islands, they sailed healthy and strong for Virginia, almost nine months after landing. What they found at Jamestown was far worse than the legendary horrors waiting on the Isles of Devils.

The ”Starving Time” O n May 23, 1610, they were welcomed to Jamestown by the hollow cheeks and sunken eyes of the survivors of the “starving time.” During the fateful hurricane of the previous summer, seven ships from the relief flotilla had managed to stay their course. All had arrived in Jamestown broken and battered by late August. Although drained and frail, about 400 passengers had survived. But the supplies that had not been thrown overboard during the storm were waterlogged and ruined. As summer had come to a close, and winter loomed like the cloak of death, 400 more hungry mouths had landed a t the struggling colony. Of over 500 people living in Jamestown when the winter of 1609-10 began, only 60 survived to greet the Sea Adventure when she finally arrived. The hurricane that had almost taken the lives of all on board the Sea Adventure saved them

MACE BENTLEY is an assistant state climatologist in Kentzicky and an assistant professor ofgeography at Western Kentucky Universrty. STEVE HORSTMEYER is an on-air meteorologist with WKRC in Cincinnati, and a Weatherwise contributing editoi: SEPTEMBERIOCTOBER 1999

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