DAN SOUCOUP Copyright © 2019, Dan Soucoup
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ATLANTIC CANADA’S GREATEST STORMS DAN SOUCOUP Copyright © 2019, Dan Soucoup All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission from the publisher, or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, permission from Access Copyright, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario M5E 1E5. Nimbus Publishing Limited 3660 Strawberry Hill Street, Halifax, NS, B3K 5A9 (902) 455-4286 nimbus.ca Printed and bound in Canada NB1438 Design: John van der Woude, JVDW Designs Editor: Angela Mombourquette Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: Atlantic Canada's greatest storms / Dan Soucoup. Names: Soucoup, Dan, 1949- author. Identifiers: Canadiana 20190158247 | ISBN 9781771087711 (softcover) Subjects: LCSH: Storms—Atlantic Provinces—History. Classification: LCC QC959.A85 S68 2019 | DDC 551.5509715—dc23 Nimbus Publishing acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities from the Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, and from the Province of Nova Scotia. We are pleased to work in partnership with the Province of Nova Scotia to develop and promote our creative industries for the benefit of all Nova Scotians. CONTENTS Introduction ix CHAPTER 1 1745: Grand Armada Tragedy 1 CHAPTER 2 1775: Independence Hurricane 11 CHAPTER 3 1851: Yankee Storm 17 CHAPTER 4 1869: Saxby Gale 23 CHAPTER 5 1873: Great August Gale 31 CHAPTER 6 1885: The Tragic Labrador Disaster 37 CHAPTER 7 1900: Galveston Hurricane Comes to Canada 47 CHAPTER 8 1905: Year of the Deep Snow 57 CHAPTER 9 1907–33: Blizzards and Railway Collisions 63 CHAPTER 10 1921 and 1959: Avalanche at The Battery 71 CHAPTER 11 1924: The Summer Calamity of ’24 77 CHAPTER 12 1926–27: Bluenose Survives the Sable Island Storms 83 CHAPTER 13 1927: Newfoundland’s August Nightmare 95 CHAPTER 14 1929: Newfoundland Tsunami 103 CHAPTER 15 1932–38: Storms and Disasters of the Thirties 109 CHAPTER 16 1959: Escuminac Disaster 117 CHAPTER 17 1973: Harbour Breton Landslide 125 viii ATLANTIC CANADA’S GREATEST STORMS CHAPTER 18 1982: Sinking of the Ocean Ranger 131 CHAPTER 19 1991: The Perfect Storm 139 CHAPTER 20 1993: A Gypsum Boat and a Superstorm 149 CHAPTER 21 2003: Hurricane Juan 157 CHAPTER 22 2010: Hurricane Igor 163 CHAPTER 23 2013: The Miss Ally Hits a Nor’easter 171 CHAPTER 24 2015: Deep Freeze 183 CHAPTER 25 2016: Cape Breton’s Thanksgiving Day Flood 193 CHAPTER 26 2017: Ice Storm 199 Timeline 205 Bibliography 215 INTRODUCTION Over the years, winter blizzards, floods, and even tornadoes have created havoc in Atlantic Canada, but by far the worst natural dis- asters have been hurricanes. In fact, the word itself suggests pend- ing doom, coming from the Spanish huracán, which was, in turn, derived from a Carib diety, “Juracán,” whom the Taíno people said was a bringer of chaos and disorder. The typical hurricane comes to Canada’s east coast between June and November after spawning in either the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, or, more often, the Atlantic Ocean. Yet the origins of most hurricanes are actually cloaked in sand and dry winds half a world away, when hot air from the Sahara blows over Western Africa and mixes with the moist air over the Atlantic. These low-pressure systems can develop into tropical depressions in the doldrums around the Cape Verde Islands. The equatorial sun warms the ocean, and this hot, humid air rises and then cools. As air pressure drops at the ocean’s surface, winds come in to replace the vacuum from the escaping air. These conditions—warm water and hot air with cool air above, plus persistent winds—are ripe for the birth of a hurricane; they have been described as having the effect of unleashing trapped boiling water. x ATLANTIC CANADA’S GREATEST STORMS Trade winds generally blow westward towards the Caribbean Sea, and in the northern hemisphere, the winds rotate in a counterclockwise fashion as the burgeoning storm churns west and then northward. But only a small number of weather systems that begin to develop this way turn into full-fledged hurricanes. Some cyclones die out before being organized, while others only develop into tropical depressions (winds below 63 kmh) or tropical storms (below 119 kmh.) Once tropical storms reach 117 kmh, they are named (since 1953, with human names) according to a list pro- vided by the World Meteorological Organization. Of those named, only a small number end up as hurricanes. But while tropical storms and hurricanes usually travel in fam- iliar patterns, they are never fully predicable, and, in fact, some of the largest storms on record—such as the Galveston Hurricane and the Perfect Storm—have surprised weather experts. These storms ended up going in unexpected directions before intensify- ing and becoming increasingly destructive. But most big storms that charge up the Atlantic turn northeastward, in the classic c-shape, then lose their momentum as they hit the colder waters of the North Atlantic. Some storms coming north can transition into what meteor- ologists call extratropical storms. These different kinds of storms have become more common in the twenty-first century, and can, in fact, be the most dangerous of all the cyclones entering northern latitudes. Some of these extratropical cyclones have cold, rather than warm, air at their centres, and are able to generate energy by combining with a warm system nearby. Both the Perfect Storm of 1991—which produced thirty-metre waves, sinking the Andrea Gail—and the Superstorm in 1993 were extratropical systems that had transitioned into hybrid storms that packed incredible vitality and destructive energy. It can be argued that Atlantic Canada’s location in the cold waters of the high latitudes has been its saving grace, since many mas- sive hurricanes have wilted into tropical rainstorms before making INTRODUCTION xi landfall. But this has not always been the case. In fact, Canada’s Hurricane Facts east coast is situated at the very top of the eastern seaboard, Tropical disturbances in the Atlantic and tropical storms fuelled by Ocean usually begin as tropical the warm waters of the Gulf depressions, but once they reach Stream can deliver an explo- sustained winds of 63 kmh, they sive blow, especially if waters become tropical storms. After reaching 117 kmh, the storm receives around Sable Island and the an official name, and in reaching Gulf of Maine are warmer than sustained winds of 119 kmh, the storm normal. becomes a Category 1 hurricane. Late-summer hurricanes The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane have historically been called Wind Scale was originally established August Gales in Atlantic Can- by wind engineer Herb Saffir and ada, ever since the arrival of meteorologist Bob Simpson, and is the Great August Gale of 1873. essentially an extension of the old But these large systems can British Navy Beaufort scale, which measures sustained winds. Here’s how appear throughout the hurri- the categories break down: cane season, as did the more recent hurricanes, Juan and Category 1: winds from 119–153 kmh Igor, which both struck in late Category 2: winds from 154–177 kmh September. And while only Category 3: winds from 178–208 kmh two to three per year make Category 4: winds from 209–251 kmh any sort of entry into Atlantic Category 5: winds from 252 kmh and Canada, the greatest threat is higher to mariners who are caught in Once a hurricane is declared, the open water. On land, flooding types of damage can vary, but all from the incredible amounts of categories are very dangerous. Storms rain dropped by hurricanes is that are classified as Category 3 and also a great concern for emer- higher can be especially devastating gency-measures organizations. and can include considerable loss of While much of the physical life and catastrophic damage. damage caused by storms has occurred on land, the Atlantic xii ATLANTIC CANADA’S GREATEST STORMS Ocean—or more specifically, the North Atlantic—looms large in this book. In this grey, roaring body of water, extreme wave heights are legendary and measure among the highest on the planet. Monster waves, some reaching towards thirty metres, have been measured recently by the World Meteorological Organization— and these waves seem to be occurring more often and with much more energy, packing incredible destructive power. Since 2000, some of the biggest hurricanes on record, such as hurricanes Juan and Igor, have entered the North Atlantic waters. And while the question of whether, or how much, the oceans are changing and adding more energy into their systems is open to debate, new extremes are almost certainly being reached. The 2017 hurricane season, for example, produced ten named hurricanes—six of them major hurricanes, including Harvey, Irma, and Maria—inflicting over $200 billion in damage in North America. Are these unprecedented figures perhaps the new nor- mal? Hurricane Harvey dropped a full 152 centimeters (five feet) of water on the city of Houston. Sea levels, temperatures, storm surges, and wind speeds all appear to be on the rise, according to the National Ocean Service, both in the North Atlantic and in the other ocean waters that cover 70 percent of the earth’s surface. Some of the newest ocean temperatures are the warmest on rec- ord, and in places like Galveston, Texas, water levels are rising at an average of five centimetres per decade. Weather has become more severe on the planet, and while meteorologists have pointed out that the trend is not certain to continue, it is not hard to imagine a time when Category 2 and 3 hurricanes are the new norm in Atlantic Canada.