The Hurricane of 1780... and total devastation.

All week, I have been reading Nature on the Rampage by Ann and Myron Sutton to better understand the forces of nature. Written in 1962, their research utilizes all scientific data available at the time…and predictions still remain obscure to this day.

 
·       Hurricanes were named after Huracan, an evil storm god of the Caribbean.
 
·       One of the most devastating hurricanes on record occurred in 1780. It began off Barbados and came ashore where it flattened trees and dwellings killing countless numbers of people.
 
·       It destroyed an English fleet anchored off St. Lucia, then ravaged the island completely leaving 6,000 dead in its wake.
 
·       It swirled on to Martinique, enveloped a French convoy and sank more than 40 ships carrying 4,000 soldiers before leveling towns and villages killing another 9,000 people.
 
·       It finally wound down after destroying Puerto Rico and an untold number of ships and fishing vessels caught unaware in open sea.

 A Mariner is quoted with his description of this hurricane…

·       He said, “You cannot breathe with a hurricane blowing full in your face. You cannot see either; the impact on your eyeball of spray and rain traveling over a hundred miles an hour makes seeing quite impossible.

·       The blowing sand cuts your flesh and you hear nothing but the scream and booming of the wind, which drowns even the thunder and the breaking seas.