Her Name Will Be Faith (8 page)

"And Force Twelve is a
hurricane." Jo gazed at him over the rim of
her coffee cup. "How strong is that?"

"64 knots, or 75 miles per hour."

"And that's dangerous to everybody."

"It's dangerous. But 75 miles an hour is only
what we call a Category One storm, and its damage effect, in hurricane terms,
is minimal."

"That's right," she said. "Back at the
studio you mentioned that Anita was Category Four. How strong is that?"

"That is strong," he
said. "You see, although all winds of more than
75 miles per hour are hurricanes,
it is possible to have winds twice
that
speed. So to differentiate between what we might call an ordinary hurricane and
a real killer storm, the Weather Bureau divides them up
into categories, depending on wind strength. Category One contains
winds of 74 to 95 miles an hour. Okay, that'll
knock down a few trees
and signs. Category Two, up to 110 miles an hour,
knocks over mobile homes and can get under poorly constructed roofs. Category
Three has
winds of up to 130 miles an hour.
Now you'd have big trees coming down
and some roofs coming right off.
But Category Four can reach 150 miles
per
hour, and that's more than double the speed of an 'ordinary' hurricane.
It's
real nasty. You really want to be battened down tight in those circumstances,
or your roof will almost certainly go."

"Sounds horrific. A 150-mile-an-hour wind. Hard
to imagine."

"It's not the ultimate."

"You mean there are stronger winds?"

"There have been. Not very
often, thank God. In fact only about four
this
century, at least in the Western Atlantic."

"And that's Category Five, right?"

"Right. When you get that, whole buildings, and I
mean properly constructed buildings, can get blown down."

"But what would cause a Category Five to
happen?"

"Well..." he signaled
for fresh cappuccinos. "Nobody actually knows. Nobody actually knows
enough about why hurricanes spawn at all. Sure
we know they won't form unless the water temperature is high enough.
But that's not to say they will appear the moment
the temperature reaches
26
Centigrade. Just as we don't know why they sometimes fizzle and
why they
sometimes keep on building. The jet streams have a lot to do
with it. Those are the upper atmosphere winds,
which are very strong
but have nothing to do with barometric pressure or
heat; they're caused
by the earth's
rotation. If they happen to be blowing over where a
hurricane is
forming, they can scatter the rising air before it becomes a system. Again,
when a hurricane hits land it tends to dissipate, because land temperatures
aren't as stable as those of the sea."

"Is that why, after they
have tracked west across the ocean and reached
America, they generally turn back?"

"Not really. That is part of the earth's rotation
also."

Jo regarded her notes. She had
enough for a small book. "That's all
Just great," she said. "But tell me one thing
more, Richard: how dangerous
are hurricanes? I mean, compared with earthquakes or volcanoes or
things like that? I know they can push up tidal
waves..."

"We call them storm surges," he murmured.

"...in places like
Bangladesh, and drown a lot of people, but those
are exceptional circumstances, surely, with vast low-lying areas
exposed
to the sea? The porter in my
apartment says his father told him about
the '26 hurricane down in
Florida, which killed a lot of people."

"Over four hundred," Richard said.
"Florida was much more sparsely
populated
then than now. Jo, in terms of energy release, a hurricane is
the most destructive of all natural phenomena, and
that includes volcanoes
and earthquakes. Just for example, even a small
hurricane generates as much energy as several atomic explosions added together.
There is no radiation, of course, and no searing heat. But it is still the
mightiest force known to nature."

"I hadn't realized that."

"Very few people do."

"So it's the wind which causes the most
damage."

"Oh, no. It's the water.
Figure this: a Category One storm will push
up
a storm surge of maybe five feet above normal water level. Now,
remember, it is not a wave, nor is it a rise of
tide. It is a surge, which
may arrive several hours before the wind and
start flooding low-lying coastal areas, and then continue for as long as the
wind is blowing. And
this surge gets bigger
with every increase of wind. A Category Three
storm could have a storm
surge of as much as twelve feet above normal."

"And Category Five?"

"The highest storm surge we
have recorded is about 20 feet above
normal.
But it could go higher than that. And this, of course, is on top of
the tidal range, which could be a big one if it
was a spring tide, so that
on top of
the surge there will be waves of as much as 5o feet high,
breaking."

"My God! Thank heaven we don't have things like
that in New York."

"You could. Don't forget Gloria."

"Back in 1985," she
recalled. "Oh, yes. We were all panicking like
mad. But she didn't turn out to
be half as bad as people expected, or as
you
weather forecasters said she would be."

"That was because the Big Apple is one hell of a
lucky city," Richard told her. "Consider these points. Gloria was a
Category Three storm, big enough in all conscience, but a long way short of the
biggest possible.
Then she passed east of New
York, the center, that is. That's very
important, because of that
anti-clockwise movement I was telling you about. In the northern hemisphere a
hurricane pushes out its strongest winds and biggest seas to the right of it as
it moves, and thus in a west
moving storm
the extreme conditions are always found in the northern
half –
what sailors call the dangerous semi-circle. The front quarter of this
semi-circle is the most dangerous of all. With Gloria, as she was moving north
by the time she came up here, that quadrant was on the northeast, that is,
always out at sea. If she had come ashore, if, say, the center had crossed the
coast over Atlantic City, it would have been a different matter: you'd have had
the strongest winds blowing up Broadway. And then again, when Gloria did come ashore,
on Long Island, she
did so at low water. If
she'd gotten there at the top of a high tide there
could have been incalculable damage, and even
loss of life. So you see, it
could happen."

"But will it ever?"

He grinned. "You'll have to ask God that. But it
most certainly could,
given the right
atmospheric conditions, or I guess I should say, the wrong
conditions."

"Is there anything that could
be done to avert it, or mitigate the
damage,
if it were to happen?"

"There's not a thing anyone
can do to avert a hurricane. The only
practical
step which can be taken to mitigate the worst effects, provided warning is
received in time, would be to evacuate the whole threatened area."

Jo stared at him in amazement. "You mean, if a
major hurricane were likely to hit New York, you'd evacuate the city?"

He shrugged. "If a really major storm were taking
a bead on us, I'd certainly recommend it." Another grin. "And then
shoot myself when it veered off."

"I guess someone else would beat you to it,"
she smiled. "This is all great stuff, Richard. Now let me ask you that
last $64,000 question: is there going to be a major storm this year?"

"That's another one for the deity, I'm
afraid."

"But aren't there some signs you can use?"

"Sure. And as it happens, we have them. The ocean
temperatures are somewhat higher than normal for the time of year. And this
warmth is pretty widespread."

"So you think there could be a big one?"

"I think there is going to
be a lot more hurricane activity than usual,
this year. I won't go further than that."

"Well, as I said, that was
just great. Now I have to put it all into
readable
English." And then forget all about you as soon as I am given
another subject to interview, she thought. But
today she didn't want to
do that. Perhaps because her quarrel with
Michael had left her feeling
isolated;
however long she had lived in America, this was his country,
not hers.
Even the Donnellys, who had so willingly and enthusiastically taken her to
their hearts, were his family, not hers.

Perhaps Richard felt the same way. "Do I see you
again?" he asked.

"I'll send you a copy of the article," she
promised. "But you know,
what you've
told me today has given me an idea. I'm sure an awful lot
of people would like to know something more about
hurricanes than the
old wives' tales
which is all they normally get. Have you thought of giving
a series of talks, say at the end of a forecast?
Especially now we're into
June, and if there are going to be a lot of
storms this year."

"Have you thought of the scheduling? Kiley would
throw a fit."

"I've an idea he might go
for it," Jo said, remembering that it was
Kiley who had set up this interview to publicize
his new boy. "And what I would like to do is conduct some interviews with
the man in the street,
get his opinion on what you had to say, find out just how much he knows
about hurricanes, whether he
believes one could ever hit New York, and
so on. It could make interesting reading, and the two
would tie in together.
What about it? I'll have Ed Kowicz – he's my editor – give
Kiley a call.
And then, at the end of the
season, I could interview you again."

"Sounds brilliant." His
crooked smile played over his face. "But I'd
hate to think you're not going to interview me again
until October."

"Where are we going,
Mom?" Owen Michael looked down at the East
River in puzzlement as they left school and drove
over Manhattan Bridge.

"To the beach," she announced.

"Oh, Jees, that's great!"

"But Mommy, we don't have
any swim things," Tamsin complained.

"No problem. We'll buy new ones."

"I'm hungry," Owen
Michael said, waiting breathlessly for her reaction.

"How does the thought of a
double, double, king-size take you?"

"Neat! Fantastic!"

"Oh, Mommy! Smashing. But
why? You usually call burgers non
food."
The little girl bounced up and down in the back seat.

"They are non-food. But
today's a special treat." She felt like a
schoolgirl playing truant; it was that sort of a day.

She bought bright yellow
swimsuits and towels for them all at a
beachfront store. They swam first, then sat under a beach
umbrella to
eat
their hamburgers, washing them down with Seven-Ups, and walking
away licking ices. After another
swim Jo's offer of a speedboat ride round
the Jamaica Bay islands was promptly accepted. They
started back at six
and
Owen Michael complained of hunger pains – so they found a
restaurant and she handed the kids
a menu. While they ate she went over
her notes and added various comments or ideas – and
found herself
thinking of that crooked
smile.

Owen Michael pushed back his
chair. "Jees, if I eat any more my
eyeballs
will be pushed out on to my plate."

"Ugh! Don't be
disgusting," Tamsin scolded. She, too, was full.

Michael was waiting for them in
the apartment. "Jo! Thank God! I
thought..."
He looked miserable.

"Hi!' she breezed.
"Like to fix me a drink while I bath these two?"

"Okay." He nodded. "I'll bring it to
you."

While the bathing progressed,
Michael paced between bathroom, bed
room, and lounge, hovering anxiously, searching her face
every time she
looked
at him for indications of her feelings. He watched as the kids
hugged her goodnight.

"Thanks, Mom, for a super
treat." Owen Michael's arm squeezed her
neck until it hurt.

"Yeah, thanks, Mommy. What'll we do next?"

"Well, on Saturday, how about the zoo up at
Prospect Park?"

"Ooh, yes. Terrific. Dad..."
Owen Michael looked up at his father.
"Couldn't
you come too?"