Hurricane's Way

The long suspense was terrific. As Hurricane Ione whirled across the tepid ocean between Puerto Rico and the Carolinas, she was billed as "a very dangerous hurriane" with a bright blue central eye surrounded by dreadful winds.

On she came--slowly, gathering force.

The U.S. Eastern seaboard, badly hurricane-hit last year, braced itself. The prose of the press and the voices of radio newsmen rose to a high pitch. Weathermen warned everyone to take precautions.

There was every reason for pessimism; about a month ago Hurricane Diane, her winds stilled deceptively, slipped ashore almost unheralded and dumped disastrous floods from Virginia to New England. Denounced for not being on their toes, the weathermen were not inclined to be too cheerful again.

Flying Pennants. Like a cat playing with 40 million mice, Ione* dillydallied.

She bypassed Florida and headed for North Carolina. By this time, the red-and black hurricane pennants were flying from Hatteras to Cape Cod. Big ships scurried out to sea; small boats were hauled ashore.

Beach dwellers were hastily evacuated.

Ione hit North Carolina about as predicted. She chewed up enough shore cottages and boardwalks to provide news photographers with acceptable pictures.

The winds were only moderate gales, but the radio Cassandras continued their warnings, interrupting programs to scare the wits out of audiences. Weather Bureaus far to the north firmly predicted high winds and torrential rains, followed by dangerous floods.

Alert City. New York City, 400 miles to the north, lay smack in Zone's path.

The great city is full of flimsy sign boards and rooftop water tanks that would become deadly projectiles if a real hurricane hit. It has square miles of densely populated and easily flooded lowlands. Many of its roadways and railroads run just above high water, and networks of tunnels and basements stand ready to gulp a hurricane tide.

Official New York went into furious action. Cops filled the tanks of their prowl cars so that they would not have to waste a minute during errands of rescue. Extra patrolmen were stationed in waterfront areas. The fire department sent extra pumpers to vulnerable Staten Island. Civil Defense stayed open all night, its rescue trucks on the ready. The Coast Guard warned shipping, mobilized crews of emergency workers. Airlines canceled flights.

The mayor's Board of Planning and Operations sat in solemn session, waiting for the worst.

But something delayed Ione. Although the radio and newspapers continued their frenzied warnings, all through that threatened day hardly a breeze was stirring north of Maryland. At Hatteras, N.C., the Weather Bureau's radar (which shows rain-filled air) watched lone approaching with measured tread. She had a clear little eye in her center (the signature of a hurricane), and around it were elaborate swirls like a spiral nebula (see cuts'}. But lone lingered; her eye grew dim; her spirals dissolved in a structureless blob of rain.

Then she streaked off over the Atlantic as if she had seen a ghost. The apprehensive Northeast states got only drops of local rain and fitful puffs of wind.

Policy Problem. Far from being grateful, the delivered victims felt let down, and Eastern editorial writers turned in fury on the unhappy weathermen. A Princeton professor, Astronomer-Hurricane Fancier John Q. Stewart. 61. who predicted that lone would "not be bad at all," denounced the U.S. Weather Bureau for its hysterical warnings. He advised it to play down its radars and rely on old-fashioned barometers. About the only people who were happy about Tone's behavior were the promoters of the Marciano-Moore fight.

They postponed it because of Ione--and sold more than $150,000 worth of extra tickets.

The Weather Bureau had no defense except to explain plaintively that the behavior of a hurricane is extremely hard to predict. When a hurricane crosses the shore line, as lone did, it generally loses its vigor. But sometimes it does not. Hurricane Hazel, in 1954, roared all the way to Canada, doing serious damage north of Toronto. A hurricane's path is capricious, too. It generally curves toward the east, pushed by the westerly winds of north temperate latitudes. But some hurricanes, for no apparent reason, move northwest.

Ione's sudden flight across the Atlantic was caused by a southerly veering of the "jet stream," the great, high altitude wind that blows around the earth. The Weather Bureau says it came unexpectedly down to Virginia, arriving just in time to stop lone's northward progress and push her toward Newfoundland.

Next time a hurricane threatens the U.S.

coast, the Weather Bureau will have a serious policy problem. Should it predict the worst--and be denounced if the worst does not happen? Or should it be soothing --and be denounced even more furiously if the hurricane hits? Even if the weathermen predict just right, radio, TV and press hysterics can be counted on to feed the public's apprehension.

* Hurricane No. 9 of 1955, by the Weather Bureau's naming system. The best-known lone in literature was the heroine of Bulwer-Lytton's The Last Days of Pompeii. She was driven out to sea by the eruption of Vesuvius.

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