I was once in the Eye of a Hurricane --
much excitement.
By the spring of 1964, I had spent two years
at the University of Minnesota, majoring in mathematics, vacillating between
becoming an architect or a mining engineer, trying to figure out what to do
with the rest of my life.
That summer, I read a magazine article about
computers and how there would soon be a huge demand for experts in this new
field. It sounded exotic and potentially lucrative.
Being an impetuous young adventurer, I
decided to become a computer programmer.
On August 10, my 20th birthday, I stuffed my
belongings into the trunk of my 1953 Chevy and headed for Florida early the
following morning, where I intended to enroll in Miami-Dade Junior College in
Miami, one of the three top-rated computer schools in the country at the time.
Four days later, I arrived in Miami and
checked into a cheap motel near campus. It was hot, humid and raining. As far
as I could tell, I was the only person in Miami wearing socks.
The same day I arrived, a weather disturbance
classified as a tropical cyclone moved off the eastern African coast.
After catching up on my sleep, I went to the
college campus the next day and registered for fall semester.
The weather disturbance soon reached
hurricane force in the Atlantic and was named Cleo.
There was a pool hall across the street from
campus with a lunch counter that soon became my unofficial headquarters. I had
spent much of my youth in pool halls and felt right at home there.
On August 22, Hurricane Cleo slammed into the
French West Indies, causing 14 deaths and much damage.
I eventually found a cheap place to rent near
campus. It had a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. It also had cockroaches the
size of sewer rats and enough beefy spiders to make a horror movie.
On the morning of August 24, Hurricane Cleo
passed south of the Dominican Republic, killing seven people.
Later that same day, it veered into Haiti
where damage was considerable and 192 people perished.
Two days later, I was hanging out in the pool
hall, wondering why the place was so deserted.
On August 27, the eye of Hurricane Cleo moved
onto Key Biscayne. The owner of the pool hall began chasing out customers and
preparing for some sort of onslaught.
That’s when I first learned about Hurricane
Cleo.
Dominic, the owner of the pool hall, invited
me to join his family and a few guests at his house, a block from the pool
hall, for a hurricane party.
It sounded better than waiting it out with
cockroaches and spiders so I accepted.
Classified as a category-four hurricane, Cleo
had sustained winds of 135 mph, with gusts up to 160 mph. It hit Miami at full
throttle.
At around midnight, I watched a large garbage
can blow down the street and never hit the ground.
About 1:00 am, the exterior wall of the TV
station collapsed during a live broadcast of weather conditions.
A few minutes later, the electricity went out
in all of Miami.
Not too long thereafter, there was a sudden
dead silence. The wind had abruptly stopped and it was no longer raining.
Dominic handed me a flashlight and announced
that he and I were going to check on the pool hall.
When we got outside, the entire area was
flooded with knee-deep water.
I followed Dominic to the pool hall, which
had about a foot of water inside. It smelled like rotting fish but everything
else looked okay.
On the way back to the house, Dominic told me
to hurry -- we were in the eye of the hurricane and it was about to kick in
again.
I was simply a young wanderer from the far
north where the lakes have loons and winter temperatures are prefixed with
minus signs. I knew nothing about hurricanes or the eye that came with it.
Dominic also told me to watch out for snakes
-- another news flash that got my attention.
It's amazing how quickly you can move when
you're knee deep in snake-filled water in the dark, in the eerily silent eye of
a moving hurricane.
We made it back inside the house just as
Hurricane Cleo hit again with full force.
The closer to the eye, the stronger the
winds. And we were on the very edge of the eye just then, with the fierce wind
now blowing in the opposite direction as before.
While everyone else eventually went to sleep,
I spent the rest of the night waiting for the roof to cave in.
Hurricane Cleo (category-four) caused $125 million
in damage in the Miami metropolitan area.
It continued along the eastern coast, mostly
out at sea, until it fizzled out on September 4 east of Newfoundland.
Only three disturbances to reach landfall as
a category-five hurricane, the most intense category, have ever been recorded
in the USA.
- 1935 – Labor Day Hurricane in the Florida Keys
- 1969 – Hurricane Camille in Mississippi
- 1992 – Hurricane Andrew in Dade County, Florida
Other category-five disturbances recorded in
recent history include the Japanese tsunami of 2011 and Charlie Sheen, but
that’s another story.
___________
Quote for the Day – "Perfect weather for
today's game -- not a breath of air." Curt Gowdy
___________
Bret Burquest is the author of 12 books. He lives in the Ozark
Mountains with a couple of dogs and an imaginary girlfriend named Tequila
Mockingbird.
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