Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 September 1892 — Terrible Hurricane. [ARTICLE]

Terrible Hurricane.

In May a hurricane of almost unexampled violence laid waste the beautiful island of Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar. Although Mauritius is one of the most charming bits of land on the globe, as all readers of “Paul and Virginia” must be aware, yet it lies, unfortunately, within the boundaries of a “hurricane district,” and so occasionally suffers from the fury of the winds. On the occasion to which we refer there was almost no warning of coming disaster. The hurricane swooped down upon the island and upon the little city of Port Louis, levelling houses and trees, and driving the sea-water upon the laud and into the streets of the town. After great destruction had thus been wrought, and many persons had lost their lives, the wind suddenly ceased and blue sky appeared. But while the dismayed inhabitants of Port Louis were yet marvelling at the unexpected blow which had befallen them, the roaring x*f the tempest was heard again, and amid darkness and a deafening confusion of noises the hurricane once more swept over them, with even greater destructive power than before. But this time the wind came from a direction opposite to that in which it had blown at first. The effects were terrible. No structure seemed able to withstand the fury of the blast, and under the crashing walls of houses hundreds of victims were buried. The strange sequence of events just related, based upon reports that have come somewhat tardily from the stricken island, possesses a special interest because it illustrates a very interesting peculiarity of hurricanes at sea. The hurricanes of the Indian Ocean, the West Indies and the China seas are rotating storms, and the velocity of the winds whirling around the center of the storm is sometimes so great that, by a kind of centrifugal action, they are kept off from the center, pirrsuing a circular track around it, as water pouring with a whirling motion through a sink-hole in the bottom of a basin leaves an empty air space in the center. In the central part of such a hurricane there is, accordingly, a region of calm around which the winds are blowing in a broad circle. On one side of this central calm it is plain that thg direction of the wind must he diametrically opposite to its direction on the other side. But while the winls in a hurricane thus circle around the center, the storm as a whole moves slowly forward. Thus it happens that ships have been involved In the calm center of a hurricane, which is known as the “eye of the storm.” As the center passes over them they experience first a furious blow of \tfind, the precise direction of which depends upon their position, followed by a dead calm, which in turn is succeeded, if they have passed centrally through the eye of the storm, by an equally fierce wind blowing in the opposite direction. No more perilous experience can befall a vessel than to pass through the eye of a hurricane. If the reports from Mauritius correctly delineate the peculiarities of the storm which devastated that island, it seems probable that the inhabitants of Port Louis were involved in such a cyclonic .“eye” as has just been described.