November's Fury: The Deadly Great Lakes Hurricane of 1913 by Michel Schumacher-book Review-Five Stars

 

BOOK REVIEW - FIVE STARS

November's Fury: The Deadly Great Lakes Hurricane of 1913 by Michel Schumacher

I loved this fact-filled true story. My wife Jane and I have sailed the Great Lakes, their connecting rivers and locks to the Atlantic Ocean via the St. Lawrence Seaway. Our first voyage starting in Superior, Wisconsin, was on our home built and designed 46 foot sailing vessel Dursmirg. We have also transited the Atlantic, the St. Lawrence Seaway, and the Great Lakes by freighter.

We have witnessed in a November windstorm a large lake freighters broached sideways by a single wave through the Superior, Wisconsin, entry, and then miraculously straighten up in the blink of an eye to glide through the entry channel unscathed. That episode gave us everlasting nightmares.

EXCERPTS:

A “PERFECT STORM” on the Great Lakes, it would be the one that pounded the lakes from November 7 through November 10, 1913, leaving a wake of destruction unlike anything ever seen on freshwater at any point in recorded history. By the time the storm had blown out of the region, twelve boats had sunk, thirty-one more had been grounded on rocks or beaches, and dozens more were severely damaged. More than 250 men lost their lives. Eight boats, with their entire crews, were lost in a single day on Lake Huron alone.

Out on the lakes, hurricane-force winds built thirty- to forty-foot waves that mercilessly assaulted vessels unfortunate enough to be out on the water—

Similar weather conditions might revisit the lakes, but advances in science, technology, and communications have made it easier to stay out of harm’s way.

Larson described the sheer force generated by the kind of waves on Lakes Michigan and Superior and, later, Lake Huron: “A single cubic yard of water weighs about fifteen hundred pounds,” Larson wrote. “A wave fifty feet long and ten feet high has a static weight of over eighty thousand pounds. Moving at thirty miles an hour, it generates forward momentum of over two million pounds.”

The wind velocity on the open water vastly exceeded the velocities recorded on land.

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