Vicky
Wallis
This list worked perfectly in 1953; the public was pleased; the communicators were happy about it; the newspapers thought it was colorful; and use of the same names began to spread in Canada and some of the countries to the southward. The same list was adopted with enthusiasm for the 1954 season.
In 1954, Alice and Barbara were minor hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, although Alice broke up in tremendous rains in the upper watershed of the Rio Grande, after moving inland over Mexico. There were floods which broke records for all time as the water moved down the river. The third storm, Carol, started a controversy in the press and many letters were written to the editors and to the Weather Bureau, some favoring the scheme or trying to get a little fun out of it, but most of them finding objections of one kind or another. It was almost impossible to change in the middle of the season, even if the hurricane hunters had wanted to, so it was continued during 1954 and each new hurricane aroused further comment. Later Hazel came along about the middle of October, a very severe hurricane from the Caribbean Sea. It turned northward between Cuba and Haiti and caused terrible damage and much loss of life. Later it struck the coast of the Carolinas and crossed the eastern states northward to New York. Loss of life in the eastern states was variously estimated from fifty to eighty, and the damage to property, especially from falling trees, was enormous. There was another flood of complaints, this time about the name Hazel.
Before the argument was ended it threatened to be almost as stormy as some of the smaller hurricanes so named. Early in 1955 the Weather Bureau had a meeting with the Air Force, Navy and others interested in deciding the question. By that time the opinions received by mail were overwhelmingly in favor of continuing girls’ names. In the meantime, there had been a surprise. A storm having some of the characteristics of a hurricane was sighted in the Caribbean Sea in January and, in the absence of a decision on names to be used in 1955, it was called Alice from the 1954 list. Later, the names for others in 1955 were decided as follows:
Brenda
Connie
Diane
Edith
Flora