17. THE GEARS AND GUTS OF THE GIANT
“he that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill” —Burke
All through this book we have talked about hurricane hunters. By now it is clear that the crew on the plane that goes into the storm at the risk of destruction of the craft and death to the men is not really “hunting” a hurricane. It is the exception rather than the rule when they discover a tropical storm. The first hint comes from some distant island or a ship in the gusty wind circle where the sea and the sky reveal ominous signs of trouble. Somewhere in a busy weather office a large outline map is being covered with figures and symbols. Long, curving lines across a panorama of weather take shape as the radios vibrate and the teletypewriters rattle with the international language of weathermen—the most co-operative people in the world’s family of nations.
Hurricane hunting is done on these maps. Day after day, without any fanfare, the weathermen search the reports spread across this almost boundless region where hundreds of tropical storms could be in progress if nature chose to operate in such an eerie fashion. Even the experienced observers on islands and the alert officers on shipboard might not see the real implications in the weather messages they prepare. In the enormous reaches of the belt of trade winds, where the tremendous energy of the sun’s heat and the irresistible force of earth rotation dictate that the winds shall blow as steady breezes from the northeast, somebody might put in his report, for example, that there was a light wind coming from the southwest. That fact alone would be enough. In season, the weathermen would know, almost with certainty, that there was a tropical storm in the area.
There are many things to watch for, in the array of elements at the surface, in the upper air, the clouds, sea swells, change of the barometer, faint earth tremors. A hint from this scattering of messages in the vast hurricane region starts the action. And the planes go out to investigate.
This is an extraordinary procedure. Looking at it as an outgrowth of the insistent demands of citizens along the coasts in the hurricane region for warnings of these storms, as the population increased and property losses mounted, it seems that the flight of planes into these monstrous winds is justified only until a safer method can be found. All other aircraft are flown out of the threatened areas, obviously because the winds are destructive to planes on the ground. The lives of men and the safety of the plane in the air should not run a risk of being sacrificed if it can be avoided. Of course, it is argued by some men that there is a possibility that a method may be discovered to control hurricanes by the use of chemicals or some other plan requiring planes to fly into the centers. And it is true, also, that for the time being at least there is certain information that can be obtained in no other way.
At the end of World War II, there was a grave requirement for more information about hurricanes. Little was known except in theory about their causes, maintenance, or the forces which determine their rate and direction of travel. Since that time, literally thousands of flights have been made into hurricanes and typhoons. Scientists have studied the detailed records of these many penetrations.
We have learned a great deal in these years but by no means enough. Herbert Riehl, a professor of meteorology at Chicago University, has examined as large quantities of the data as any man. Recently he said, “Our knowledge regarding the wind distribution within tropical storms and the dynamical laws that guide the air from the outskirts to the center of the cyclone is so deficient as to be deplorable.”
From the scientific point of view, remarks of this kind are fully justified, but progress in the issuance of warnings is quite another matter. Hurricane prediction for the present and the near future is an art and not a science. Very great progress has been made in recent years in sending out timely warnings. There are figures to show the facts. At the beginning of this century, a hurricane causing ten million dollars in property damage was likely to take several hundred lives. Twenty-five years later, the average was about 160 lives. Ten years later (1936 to 1940 average) the figure had been reduced to about twenty-five and was steadily going down. After men began flying into hurricanes, the figure was reduced to four (1946 to 1950). This is astonishing, not only in showing how the warnings were improving after hunting by air got started, but also the big gains shortly before that time, especially after the hurricane teletypewriter circuit was installed around the coast in 1935. Experience in prediction, on-the-spot operation, and fast communications are vital.
In fact, the record was so good at the beginning of World War II that most forecasters despaired of their ability to keep it up. It had consistently been below ten lives for ten million dollars’ damage and one serious mistake could have raised this rate considerably for several years. For this reason, as well as many others, the forecasters were extremely grateful for the information from aircraft.