The Storm with an Eye For Demagogues

The U.S. weather satellite Tiros spotted it first, and the photograph drew whistles from a forecaster at the San Juan, P.R., weather station. "There it is," he said, "and it's a beaut!"

In the tropical Atlantic off the northeast coast of South America lay a doughnut-shaped cloud mass of warm air, gradually rising and circling in counterclockwise motion as a drop in atmospheric pressure sucked layers of cooler air in beneath it. The weather men named the mass Flora--sixth hurricane of the 1963 season--and commenced the routine precautions that in recent years have taken some of the bite out of the fierce storms: hurricane-hunter planes to check course, speed, wind velocity, intensity of the rain; detailed advisories and instructions to everyone in the storm's path. But in one of those violent quirks of nature, incredibly compounded by man, all the warnings proved futile. By the time Flora finished her ten-day rampage through the Caribbean, she went down in history as one of the most devastating storms ever to strike the Western Hemisphere--a killer comparable to the great Galveston storm and tidal wave that swept the Texas coast in September 1900, claiming more than 6,000 lives.

Foretaste on Tobago. Swiftly, the wind rose to 75-m.p.h. hurricane force, then, to 90, 100 and 110. At noon on Sept. 30, Flora swept down on the island of Tobago, the legendary land of Robinson Crusoe off the Venezuelan coast. Entire plantations of coconut palms were flattened as by a scythe. It took only four hours for Flora to come and go. In her path she left 18 dead, hundreds injured, some 17,000 homeless, and property damage that helpless authorities estimated at many millions.

Tobago was only a foretaste. Boiling northwest through the Caribbean, Flora grew stronger with every hour, sucking up new moisture from the open sea and churning it into energy. As reports from the planes came in, Puerto Rico braced itself. So did the Bahamas and Florida. But like many an adventuress, Flora had an eye for demagogues, finally curved toward the western arm of Hispaniola. Broadcasting to Haiti, the poverty-stricken Negro nation ruled by Dictator Francois Duvalier, U.S. weathermen issued urgent warnings: "This is a dangerous hurricane ... all precautions should be taken."

No Danger. Incredibly, the Haitians scoffed at the warnings. The chief of the Haitian Red Cross went on the radio, angrily denying all danger. The next voice heard was the banshee howl of Flora. By now, the winds had accelerated to 140 m.p.h. Savagely, Flora cut a 75-mile gash across Haiti's Tiburon Peninsula, denuding the mountaintops, reducing scores of villages to rubble, and carving great rivers of red clay that stained offshore waters crimson three miles out. Radio monitors in Miami heard an unidentified operator report "terrible damage." Then he was blown off the air. Within Haiti all telephone and radio communication was cut off from the Port-au-Prince capital, lying on the edge of the hurricane's eye. And for 12 hours there was silence in Haiti.

Rushed to the scene were helicopters from the U.S. aircraft carrier Lake Champlain. Port-au-Prince escaped the worst of the storm. But westward along the Tiburon Peninsula, the landscape was devastated. Knots of dazed survivors held up pleading arms as the planes flew over; dead animals floated in the flooded fields. The towns of Miragoane and Petit-Goave were in ruins. "It looked like a bomb hit," said CARE Mission Chief Kurt Bachman. Anse-a-Veau was 95% gone, Petit-Trou-de-Nippes completely wiped out but for one building. The first casualty report told of 400 dead. It was later amended to an estimated 3,000. But no one will ever know for sure. "Reports of mass burials are ridiculous," announced the Haitian Red Cross, "because you can't find the bodies. They are buried in mud and debris or washed away by the sea."

Whole Year's Rainfall. By now, Flora was over Cuba, dealing out more death and destruction. Most hurricanes tend to dissipate rapidly over a land mass, but not this one. For five shattering days, the storm looped back and forth over Castro's island, her winds rising and falling from 125 m.p.h. to 80 m.p.h. The Guantanamo U.S. Naval Base recorded over 17 inches of rain in six days, equal to a year's normal rainfall. Two marines were drowned when their Jeep slid into foaming floodwaters. Otherwise, the battened-down base sweated out the storm with only minor damage.

Not so the Cubans. Some reports told of 60 inches of rain in parts of Oriente, Las Villas and Camagueey provinces, the island's richest agricultural area. They might be exaggerated, but the damage to Cuba's already crippled economy was undoubtedly severe. U.S. monitors heard frantic radio messages to Havana describing the "incalculable havoc"--copper and manganese mines flooded, fishing fleets smashed, sugar mills destroyed, cattle herds drowned, sugar, corn, rice, cotton, banana and tobacco crops demolished. At one point, the town of Mayari broadcast a pathetic appeal for help to the Guantanamo naval base; another Castro station immediately ordered Mayari off the air. Castro himself set up emergency headquarters in the town of Bayamo, and his first inspection trip almost proved to be his last when his amphibious truck capsized while fording the swollen Rioja River in Oriente. What he saw in the provinces, he said later, "was an incredible, terrible situation. The loss of life can't be calculated." Unofficially, the Cuban death toll stood at 700, but thousands were still missing.

At last, Flora swirled off through the sparsely populated southeastern Bahamas, to breathe her last against the cold winds of the open Atlantic. But her aftereffects would long be felt. As in Haiti, the U.S. offered immediate aid to Cuba through the Red Cross. Castro blindly rejected it as "hypocritical," and sneered at the Red Cross as "an instrument of U.S. imperialism." Instead, he decreed a 50% reduction in the Cuban people's already meager food ration--down to three-eighths of a pound of meat, 1 1/2 lbs. of vegetables per week--and turned to his Iron Curtain friends for the support he needed. How much Castro could get from them was debatable.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.