Dan Rather IN THE early-morning hours of September 8, 1900, the Gulf waters surrounding Galveston, Texas, began to rise. Some of Galveston's 35,000-plus residents had heard the warnings that had come in from sea captains and by telegraph that a dangerous storm lurked in the Caribbean, but despite crashing waves and rising winds, less than half the population evacuated an island that stood barely above sea level. By the time the hurricane receded, more than 8,000 people had died.
The utter disaster that took hold of Galveston that day helped ensure that Americans would no longer dismiss the danger posed by nature's most powerful storms. But it would still be many years before early warnings of just where and when a hurricane might strike would become available. Even those Galveston residents who might have been concerned by reports of a possible approaching storm had no way of knowing that it would score a direct hit on their city. And 38 years later, when forecasters predicted that a hurricane off the Atlantic coast would veer seaward, residents of Long Island and New England had no idea that they were about to be inundated by storm tidal surges that would claim more than 600 lives and level entire towns.
It was not until 1960 that the launch by the United States of the first weather satellite ushered in an age when meteorologists could follow the track of a hurricane and target evacuations of coastal and low-lying areas. After the spate of storms that hit the southeastern United States in the six-week period beginning with Hurricane Charley's landfall on Aug. 13, it might be worth considering what is owed to science. And given that Charley, Frances, Gaston, Ivan and Jeanne have killed at least 133 people in the continental United States, and that Jeanne alone has killed more than 1,500 Haitians, the limits of science might also be worth considering.
MOTHER NATURE'S
Hurricanes represent one of Mother Nature's ultimate expressions of fury. Modern science, with its satellites and buoys laden with sensors, can warn us, but it cannot hold back high winds and angry seas. What science is telling us now is that the Atlantic basin might be about 10 years into a period of more frequent and more powerful hurricanes, one that could last anywhere from 25 to 40 years.
News reports out of Florida reveal a state full of people battered almost to the breaking point by this year's hurricane fusillade. Loss of life and tens of billions of dollars in damage are not the only devastation wrought by these storms, as families try to cope with lives that have been upended repeatedly. One poll shows that a sizeable percentage of Floridians have considered leaving the Sunshine State in the wake of this battering. Overburdened relief workers count off the days until the November 30 end of the hurricane season. But what if the real countdown won't be over for decades yet to come?
Experts seem to agree that this season's rapid-fire hurricanes are rare, and are not likely to be repeated soon. Nevertheless, recent years have seen a big rise in coastal development, in Florida and other vulnerable areas. Given the tolls of past hurricanes, there can be little doubt that huge evacuations have saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives. But as we go forward into what might be a long stretch of hurricanes that hit harder and more often, maybe this year's experience will prod us, as Galveston's disaster did a century ago, to consider what further steps we can take to protect life and property from the storms to come.
Dan Rather is a television broadcaster.
