A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America’s Hurricanes

A hurricane is defined as a spiraling storm whose maximum sustained winds reach over 74 mph. They tend to form where the ocean’s upper layer reaches at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Heat energy and moist air fuel the hurricane, which can range in size from tens to thousands of miles in diameter. All hurricanes are characterized by an eye, a calm center, whose wall is surrounded by the strongest winds. The calm weather in the eye has previously fooled populations into thinking the storm is over. The symptoms of a hurricane are “gargantuan waves, mammoth storm surges” and “such diluvial quantities of water that they seem to presage the end of time” (xxii). Hurricanes are mighty forces, with merely average ones releasing the same amount of energy as 10,000 nuclear bombs.

Dolin’s book shows that while hurricanes have some common characteristics, their trajectory and impact are completely unique. How devastating a hurricane is to human populations depends on the natural characteristics of the hurricane, the amount of infrastructure and human inhabitants in its path, and the efficacy of authorities’ preventative measures and aftercare responses.