H O W I V O T E D I N
T H E W E A T H E R C H A N N E L ' S
T O P 1 0 S T O R M S
O F T H E C E N T U R Y P O L L .
BY KEVIN GUILFOILE
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10. 1900 Galveston Hurricane
In the movie Night Game, Roy Scheider plays a cop who discovers that
every
time a certain Astros rookie wins a game, some maniac in Galveston kills
a
prostitute with a hook. As it turns out, the fellow this pitcher
replaced on
the roster got liquored up down in the minors and fell asleep on the
railroad tracks where a train ran over his wrist. Unable to reattach his
hand, doctors replaced it, of course, with a hook. Although not for
every
taste, Night Game merges the baseball and serial killer genres better
than
any film since Pride of the Yankees.
9. Tie: 1936 Johnstown PA Flood/1977 Johnstown PA Flood
Trying to determine which of these floods was better is like trying to
compare Johnny Bench to Ernie Lombardi. The old-timers have some
incredible
stories from '36, but many of these involve a gibbon who played poker
and a
"nine-foot Chinaman" named Sandbag Sam. On the other hand,
immortalization
in song ranks high on my list of criteria, and there's an old tune
called
"Night of the Johnstown Flood" which I assume describes the '36 event,
but
it might be about the Johnstown flood of 1889. Or 1863. Or 1862. In the
end,
I called it a draw, which will probably please no one.
8. 1969 Cuyahoga River Fire
Technically not a storm, but an incident in which sparks from a railroad
car
carrying molten steel over a bridge ignited the oil-soaked river, I
entered
this one as a write-in on the strength of the great Randy Newman song
"Burn
On." Also, having spent part of my youth in Pittsburgh where we had
three
rivers, hardly any of which ever burst into flames, I like bringing it
up
because it upsets Browns fans.
7. 1991 Halloween "Perfect" Storm
"October 1991. It was "the perfect storm" -- a tempest that may happen
only
once in a century... created by so rare a combination of factors that it
could not possibly have been worse. Creating waves ten stories high and
winds of 120 miles an hour, the storm whipped the sea to inconceivable
levels few people on Earth have ever witnessed. Few, except the six-man
crew
of the Andrea Gail, a commercial fishing boat headed towards its hellish
center." I copied that from the back of the Sebastian Junger paperback
"The
Perfect Storm," which the Kansas City Star calls "The perfect book for
the
beach."
6.- 5. 1962 Ash Wednesday Nor'easter/1965 Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak
Some will say I chose these only because of their concurrence with
religious
holidays, and one could argue that any number of secular squalls -- such
as
the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, and the 1979 Presidents' Day Storm -- are
more
deserving. Still, violent storms on holy days carry the extra glamour of
Biblical wrath. Wouldn't it have been fun to watch an F5 tornado rip
through
South Carolina on Martin Luther King's birthday? Then, standing behind a
makeshift podium crafted from an uprooted gas pump, Kweise Mfume could
have
pointed towards heaven and said "Now, about that flag..."
4. 1962 Pacific Northwest Big Blow
The wind was so strong on this day that planes were said to have "flown
backwards." (Begin 80s-style stand-up routine) It seems to me that a
plane
being blown backwards by wind is not flying at all. It's CRASHING! (Big
laugh). Besides, what kind of pilot would be stupid enough to fly into
170
mile-per-hour gusts? I once had a flight to Miami canceled because a
butterfly in Thailand flapped its wings. (Smattering of polite, confused
chuckles. Note: Use chaos theory bit for college crowds only).
3. 1992 Hurricane Andrew
In 1992, I was living in Houston and I remember following the
devastation
Andrew caused in south Florida, watching with fear, knowing that, after
it
picked up strength over the Gulf, our homes, our lives, could be next. I
shared a house with three NASA engineers, and one of them posted a chart
on
the refrigerator door. Every hour, when the radio announced the latest
position of the hurricane's eye, he would, with shaking hands, mark the
latitude and longitude so we could trace its diabolic path. And every
hour,
we'd silently pray: "God, please destroy Louisiana." And He did.
2. Tie: 1978 January Midwest "Superbomb"/1979 Jane Byrne Blizzard
Superbomb makes the list because it has the coolest name of any storm in
history. The following year, however, there was a storm of even greater
consequence. Jane Byrne was running for mayor of Chicago against the
powerful incumbent, Michael Bilandic, and she was all but flatlining in
the
polls. But on election day, the Midwest was hit with a terrible storm,
and
Byrne supporters, though fewer in number, were heartier,
better-conditioned,
and so tiny they could scamper across the snow like rabbits. They made
it
over the piling drifts and Byrne went on to become the most honest and
least
effective mayor Chicago ever had.
1. 1975 Edmund Fitzgerald Storm
Back in college, at the end of a long night, my buddy John and I used to
stumble out of various bars singing: "At 7pm the old cook came on
deck/He
said 'Fellas it's too rough to feed ya'/At 11pm the main hatchway gave
in/He
said 'Fellas it's been good to know YAAAAAA.'" We thought we were funny.
Still, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" is a heck of a song, even
though, as far as I can tell, "feed ya" does not rhyme with "know ya."
Not at all. Certainly not the way,
in the first verse, "Kitchi-gummi" rhymes with "turned gloomy." Now
there
is a rhyme.
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