THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 25, 1995 TAG: 9506240442
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY RHETT B. WHITE
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
NORTH CAROLINA'S HURRICANE HISTORY
JAY BARNES
The University of North Carolina Press. 199 pp. $34.95; $16.95 paperback.
FROM THE 1960s until 1989, when Hurricane Hugo cut a path from Charleston, S.C., to Charlotte, North Carolinians were spared the wrath of a major hurricane. Even Hurricane Emily, which battered Hatteras Island in 1993, caused little damage away from the small island villages of Buxton, Frisco and Avon. Tens of thousands of newcomers as well as a generation of native Carolinians have never experienced the awesome fury or widespread devastation of such a storm.
But they can get a feel for North Carolina's stormy past in North Carolina's Hurricane History, which includes a chronology of more than 50 hurricanes known to have struck the Tar Heel state. Jay Barnes, director of the N.C. Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores, provides the basic information needed to understand how hurricanes form. He notes that more than 100 tropical disturbances form in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean during a typical year, but only 10 reach tropical-storm intensity and only six of these ever become hurricanes.
Barnes also attends to the effects of hurricanes - the winds, the storm surges, rainfall and spinoff tornadoes and the damage each can cause. In an especially interesting chapter about hurricane watchings, Barnes reviews development of the modern hurricane and the forecasting and tracking system. He further explains how hurricanes came to have names, such as Diana, Gloria and Hazel - and more recently, men's names such as Andrew, Bob and Hugo.
North Carolina's Hurricane History covers the period from 1526, when a Spanish expedition wrecked near the Cape Fear River, to Hurricane Emily in August 1993. There are stories of tragedies, of heroic rescues and of fellowship in times of crisis.
The book is well-researched, with details culled from newspaper reports, National Weather Service records and eyewitness descriptions. The fury of the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1899, for example, is made vivid by an eyewitness who said, ``The howling wind, the rushing and roaring tide and the awful sea which swept over the beach thundered like a thousand pieces of artillery. . . ''
More than 200 photographs, some by the late Aycock Brown, who photographed the Outer Banks for three decades, and The Virginian-Pilot's Drew Wilson, document hurricane damage, primarily along the coast. Maps, illustrations and charts add to the value of the book as a reference source. Yet even the casual reader will enjoy and learn much from North Carolina's Hurricane History. MEMO: Rhett B. White is director of the N.C. Aquarium on Roanoke Island.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Hurricane Awareness Week in North Carolina begins Sunday,
July 2.
by CNB