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White Hurricane: A Great Lakes November Gale and America's Deadliest Maritime Disaster
The riveting account of a 1913 storm that paralyzed the heart of America Autumn gales have pursued mariners across the Great Lakes for centuries. On Friday, November 7, 1913, those gales captured their prey. After four days of winds up to 90 miles an hour, freezing temperatures, whiteout blizzard conditions, and mountainous seas, 19 ships had been lost, two dozen had been thrown ashore, 238 sailors were dead, and the city of Cleveland was confronting the worst natural disaster in its history. In White Hurricane, writer and mariner David G. Brown combines narrative intensity with factual depth to re-create the events of the "perfect storm" that struck America's heartland. Interweaving human drama, mystery, and historical consequence, Brown has created a vast epic ranging over Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, and Erie and echoing down the decades.
250 pages, Hardcover
First published June 27, 2002
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November 27, 2017
This was a thorough account of one of the worst meteorological maritime disasters in United States history, covering not only the events leading up to the disaster, but what caused it or exacerbated it (both meteorologically and in terms of human decisions), as well as providing examples of the suffering and heroism during the storm and some of the aftermath and long ranging effects. _White Hurricane_ tells the tale of the worst storm ever to hit the Great Lakes since shipping began, an epic storm in early November 1913 (not quite 19 months after the sinking of the Titanic). Though November gales on the Great Lakes aren’t uncommon, this storm was unprecedented (before or since) in its ferocity, occurring thanks to a complex interaction of a blast of frigid polar air and warm, moist air in a low-pressure cell moving up from the Gulf of Mexico. Resulting in what some termed a “weather bomb,” this storm lasted four days, had sustained winds as high as 75 miles an hour, gusts upwards of 90 miles an hour, freezing temperatures, white-out blizzard conditions, heavy snowfalls, and waves 35 feet or higher on the Great Lakes themselves.
Though the Department of Agriculture’s Weather Bureau had issued storm warnings on Friday morning, November 7, this proved inadequate owing in large part to the fact that meteorology was at the time still very much an emerging science, with little to no understanding of the nature of fronts, cyclone structures, and upper atmospheric phenomena (the jet stream was undiscovered still), a lack of timely data (many weather stations often only transmitted to the Weather Bureau’s central offices twice a day and often only a couple of readings of temperature, wind speed, wind direction, and barometric pressure), and with tremendous gaps in the distribution of local weather offices to make readings (there were virtually no weather stations in the sparsely populated areas north and west of the Great Lakes, which meant that “[s]ignificant weather often developed in that wilderness without attracting notice”).
Since the prediction of weather and the subsequent dissemination of that knowledge played such a large role in the disaster, a significant amount of time is spent on the daily operation of the national and local Weather Bureau offices, detailing how readings were made, transmitted, and weather maps at the national and local offices were made. Weather maps were created by hand from the twice-daily data, but as of course fax machines and wire photo transmitters did not yet exist, this information had to be sent back to each local office using a complex telegraphic code and then redrawn so that local newspapers and others could read the maps, resulting in forecasts hours behind the actual data (which to me I will admit sounded more advanced for 1913 than I had imagined). Predictive powers were often quite weak, relying heavily on a combination of educated guesses and looking at historic data, which while going back by that point several decades couldn’t handle at all truly anomalous events such as the “White Hurricane.” Much of weather forecast relied on trying to find natural patterns based on the data from past decades, a technique called “weather typing” made possible by collecting data from weather stations throughout the country.
Though the Weather Bureau didn’t predict the severity of the storm nor its duration, it did predict bad weather and had issued storm warnings prior to the beginning of the storm to all 112 individual Weather Bureau Signal Stations around the lakes, with each station flying the appropriate flags and hanging the appropriate lanterns, with many signal stations located at “Lifesaving Service stations, revenue cutter docks, commercial wharves, and even some yacht clubs.” Sadly, this warning system “was simply not capable of conveying detailed information about the location of storms or their severity…captains were being told to duck for cover, but the signals did not tell them what they were ducking from or where to take cover.”
A great many ship captains in 1913, even when they had access to Weather Bureau maps and warnings (not all ships at the time had radios), often preferred to rely on their own weather instincts “over government forecasts issued by deskbound bureaucrats who had never sailed the lakes.”
The Great Lakes are important today for commercial shipping but in 1913 were vital, as at the time the combined Great Lakes fleet represented one-third of the entire U.S. merchant fleet (not even counting all the Canadian vessels), all ships heavily laden with coal, iron ore, limestone, and grain. The reader will learn a good bit about the ships and sailors of the Great Lakes at the time and not in a manner that was overwhelming or distracting (a helpful glossary is included in the back of the book). The author covers “package freighters” (“the delivery trucks of the Canadian north woods, linking communities virtually inaccessibly except by water”), “canalers” (Great Lakes vessels built to be able to manage the size of the locks in the canals connecting Lake Ontario to the lower St. Lawrence River, which meant ships could be at most 250 feet in length), and straight deckers (a type of bulk freighter unique and very common to the Great Lakes, deriving its name from the long expanse of straight deck between the forward pilothouse and at the stern the boilerhouse, a configuration designed to allow the maximum possible length of uninterrupted cargo hold amidships, what one naval architect called “shoe boxes with a point at one end and a propeller at the other end”). The evolution in general of lake ships was covered, with the early years of the 20th century the last years in which wooden schooners still did significant (though declining) trade, their last productive years being mainly through World War I.
Though a great deal of time was spent on the saga of the weather forecasters trying to predict the storm and warn people of it, the stars of the book were the horrific conditions endured by the captains and crew of individual ships and those who tried to save wrecked and marooned ships from the various Lifesaving Stations. Though perhaps they could have been detailed in a bit more narrative format, nonetheless it made for riveting reading, as the reader followed along day by day (the book was organized by chapters detailing the events of particular days) how each crew and Lifesaving Station dealt with the crisis. I wish there was an index to go back and help track the progress of particular ships and crews, but as the crisis unfolded day by day in the book it still made for great reading.
As dangerous as a storm with hurricane force winds and at times almost no visibility was at sea, it was arguably more dangerous on the Great Lakes. Ships were always in danger of running out of lake, much more than a ship at sea was at risk of running out of ocean. Freshwater waves were often choppier and higher than the heavier, usually smoother salt water waves. Lake water splashing on the cold decks and superstructures of ships was more likely to freeze when it hit, adding weight, visibility issues, changing the center of gravity of a ship, and sometimes trapping crews inside cabins and the like when they were encased in armor-like ice.
The storm was devastating, costing 178 sailors their lives and sinking eight modern steel ships (manly during one 4 hour period, a rate of loss compared to some of the U-boat attacks during the world wars), with many ships run aground or damaged by contact with other ships, shorelines, or reefs.
One of the things I found fascinating was the glimpses of life in 1913 that the book offered. The very warm temperatures preceding the “White Hurricane” for instance were blamed for outbreaks of diphtheria and scarlet fever in Marblehead, Ohio, where the town had been quarantined for a month and some of the dead were buried beneath slabs of poured concrete to prevent the disease from “rising from the ground.” A fair amount of time in one section detailed the loss of power and virtual halt of transportation in Cleveland, where the author detailed where such things didn’t matter (lack of electric lights wasn’t anywhere near the problem it would be for later years and much of the heating and cooking wasn’t dependent upon electricity at all) and where it did matter (most people bought food nearly every day as people lacked refrigerators for the most part, so closed markets and stores that can’t get supplies caused big problems). Though no one starved in Cleveland, there were heroic efforts to get supplies from farms to stores and in the case of homes, milk (the saga of getting milk out of farms deserved a book all its own, with men on horseback riding into snow-choked cities to deliver milk). While cars weren’t especially common yet, streetcars and interurban trains were, and they were much affected by the huge snowfall.
Post storm coverage included Congressional and press inquires into whether the Weather Bureau failed (with much debate over whether or not it should have been called a hurricane and if hurricane flags and warnings should have been up), what responsibilities the ship captains and shipping companies held (particularly focusing on issues of inadequately powered ship engines, not enough life boats, pyramiding rather than leveling out of cargo that was poured into holds, the safety of hatches, and late season and end season bonuses for captains sailing), and intriguingly the identity of a mystery ship that was found floating upside down in Lake Huron (with an interesting diversion in the state of diving in 1913). Also, reminding me of today, there wars of words in the press and in politics, with one group, say captains, blaming the Weather Bureau while others accused them of dodging responsibilities themselves.
It was a pretty fast read, maybe a little slow going at first but I learned a lot even where the pacing dragged a little. Once the storm was at its height it read very fast. Overall I was quite glad I read it.
Though the Department of Agriculture’s Weather Bureau had issued storm warnings on Friday morning, November 7, this proved inadequate owing in large part to the fact that meteorology was at the time still very much an emerging science, with little to no understanding of the nature of fronts, cyclone structures, and upper atmospheric phenomena (the jet stream was undiscovered still), a lack of timely data (many weather stations often only transmitted to the Weather Bureau’s central offices twice a day and often only a couple of readings of temperature, wind speed, wind direction, and barometric pressure), and with tremendous gaps in the distribution of local weather offices to make readings (there were virtually no weather stations in the sparsely populated areas north and west of the Great Lakes, which meant that “[s]ignificant weather often developed in that wilderness without attracting notice”).
Since the prediction of weather and the subsequent dissemination of that knowledge played such a large role in the disaster, a significant amount of time is spent on the daily operation of the national and local Weather Bureau offices, detailing how readings were made, transmitted, and weather maps at the national and local offices were made. Weather maps were created by hand from the twice-daily data, but as of course fax machines and wire photo transmitters did not yet exist, this information had to be sent back to each local office using a complex telegraphic code and then redrawn so that local newspapers and others could read the maps, resulting in forecasts hours behind the actual data (which to me I will admit sounded more advanced for 1913 than I had imagined). Predictive powers were often quite weak, relying heavily on a combination of educated guesses and looking at historic data, which while going back by that point several decades couldn’t handle at all truly anomalous events such as the “White Hurricane.” Much of weather forecast relied on trying to find natural patterns based on the data from past decades, a technique called “weather typing” made possible by collecting data from weather stations throughout the country.
Though the Weather Bureau didn’t predict the severity of the storm nor its duration, it did predict bad weather and had issued storm warnings prior to the beginning of the storm to all 112 individual Weather Bureau Signal Stations around the lakes, with each station flying the appropriate flags and hanging the appropriate lanterns, with many signal stations located at “Lifesaving Service stations, revenue cutter docks, commercial wharves, and even some yacht clubs.” Sadly, this warning system “was simply not capable of conveying detailed information about the location of storms or their severity…captains were being told to duck for cover, but the signals did not tell them what they were ducking from or where to take cover.”
A great many ship captains in 1913, even when they had access to Weather Bureau maps and warnings (not all ships at the time had radios), often preferred to rely on their own weather instincts “over government forecasts issued by deskbound bureaucrats who had never sailed the lakes.”
The Great Lakes are important today for commercial shipping but in 1913 were vital, as at the time the combined Great Lakes fleet represented one-third of the entire U.S. merchant fleet (not even counting all the Canadian vessels), all ships heavily laden with coal, iron ore, limestone, and grain. The reader will learn a good bit about the ships and sailors of the Great Lakes at the time and not in a manner that was overwhelming or distracting (a helpful glossary is included in the back of the book). The author covers “package freighters” (“the delivery trucks of the Canadian north woods, linking communities virtually inaccessibly except by water”), “canalers” (Great Lakes vessels built to be able to manage the size of the locks in the canals connecting Lake Ontario to the lower St. Lawrence River, which meant ships could be at most 250 feet in length), and straight deckers (a type of bulk freighter unique and very common to the Great Lakes, deriving its name from the long expanse of straight deck between the forward pilothouse and at the stern the boilerhouse, a configuration designed to allow the maximum possible length of uninterrupted cargo hold amidships, what one naval architect called “shoe boxes with a point at one end and a propeller at the other end”). The evolution in general of lake ships was covered, with the early years of the 20th century the last years in which wooden schooners still did significant (though declining) trade, their last productive years being mainly through World War I.
Though a great deal of time was spent on the saga of the weather forecasters trying to predict the storm and warn people of it, the stars of the book were the horrific conditions endured by the captains and crew of individual ships and those who tried to save wrecked and marooned ships from the various Lifesaving Stations. Though perhaps they could have been detailed in a bit more narrative format, nonetheless it made for riveting reading, as the reader followed along day by day (the book was organized by chapters detailing the events of particular days) how each crew and Lifesaving Station dealt with the crisis. I wish there was an index to go back and help track the progress of particular ships and crews, but as the crisis unfolded day by day in the book it still made for great reading.
As dangerous as a storm with hurricane force winds and at times almost no visibility was at sea, it was arguably more dangerous on the Great Lakes. Ships were always in danger of running out of lake, much more than a ship at sea was at risk of running out of ocean. Freshwater waves were often choppier and higher than the heavier, usually smoother salt water waves. Lake water splashing on the cold decks and superstructures of ships was more likely to freeze when it hit, adding weight, visibility issues, changing the center of gravity of a ship, and sometimes trapping crews inside cabins and the like when they were encased in armor-like ice.
The storm was devastating, costing 178 sailors their lives and sinking eight modern steel ships (manly during one 4 hour period, a rate of loss compared to some of the U-boat attacks during the world wars), with many ships run aground or damaged by contact with other ships, shorelines, or reefs.
One of the things I found fascinating was the glimpses of life in 1913 that the book offered. The very warm temperatures preceding the “White Hurricane” for instance were blamed for outbreaks of diphtheria and scarlet fever in Marblehead, Ohio, where the town had been quarantined for a month and some of the dead were buried beneath slabs of poured concrete to prevent the disease from “rising from the ground.” A fair amount of time in one section detailed the loss of power and virtual halt of transportation in Cleveland, where the author detailed where such things didn’t matter (lack of electric lights wasn’t anywhere near the problem it would be for later years and much of the heating and cooking wasn’t dependent upon electricity at all) and where it did matter (most people bought food nearly every day as people lacked refrigerators for the most part, so closed markets and stores that can’t get supplies caused big problems). Though no one starved in Cleveland, there were heroic efforts to get supplies from farms to stores and in the case of homes, milk (the saga of getting milk out of farms deserved a book all its own, with men on horseback riding into snow-choked cities to deliver milk). While cars weren’t especially common yet, streetcars and interurban trains were, and they were much affected by the huge snowfall.
Post storm coverage included Congressional and press inquires into whether the Weather Bureau failed (with much debate over whether or not it should have been called a hurricane and if hurricane flags and warnings should have been up), what responsibilities the ship captains and shipping companies held (particularly focusing on issues of inadequately powered ship engines, not enough life boats, pyramiding rather than leveling out of cargo that was poured into holds, the safety of hatches, and late season and end season bonuses for captains sailing), and intriguingly the identity of a mystery ship that was found floating upside down in Lake Huron (with an interesting diversion in the state of diving in 1913). Also, reminding me of today, there wars of words in the press and in politics, with one group, say captains, blaming the Weather Bureau while others accused them of dodging responsibilities themselves.
It was a pretty fast read, maybe a little slow going at first but I learned a lot even where the pacing dragged a little. Once the storm was at its height it read very fast. Overall I was quite glad I read it.
December 6, 2020
The true yet harrowing tale of the November 1913 storm on the Great Lakes that sank 12 ships (along with their entire crews), stranded another 31 ships, and took the lives of over 250
The extra-tropical cyclone that tore through the Great Lakes region in early November 1913 was a hurricane in all but name: mountainous 35 ft. waves, sustained winds of 60-70 mph with gusts of 90 mph, temperatures below freezing, and white-out snow conditions.
Those with an interest in extreme weather events (a la The Perfect Storm), shipwrecks, and Michigan maritime history will be thoroughly engaged by this engrossing narrative.
The extra-tropical cyclone that tore through the Great Lakes region in early November 1913 was a hurricane in all but name: mountainous 35 ft. waves, sustained winds of 60-70 mph with gusts of 90 mph, temperatures below freezing, and white-out snow conditions.
Those with an interest in extreme weather events (a la The Perfect Storm), shipwrecks, and Michigan maritime history will be thoroughly engaged by this engrossing narrative.
December 6, 2022
This was a blow by blow (pun intended) description of the hurricane that developed over the Great Lakes just a year after the Titanic sank. Similar thoughts of "invincibility" of boats on the lakes were common and contributed to great loss of life. A fledgling US Weather Bureau was unable to issue sufficient warnings. The book is very matter of fact but also weaves in stories of the individual tragedies and heroics to make it more personal.
If you're into shipwrecks, weather, disasters, or anything to do with the Great Lakes you should read this book. If you're not, this is probably a tedious read.
If you're into shipwrecks, weather, disasters, or anything to do with the Great Lakes you should read this book. If you're not, this is probably a tedious read.
September 21, 2018
For all the mates that live the Great Lakes, this is essential reading. It would be hard to even fathom the intensity of the White Hurricane of 1913. Eight ships were destroyed outright with over two dozen damaged or beached. Loss of life was over 250 sailors.
The book provides a good account of the storm and the ships caught in its grasp. The author has done a substantial amount of research and it shows.
Recommended
The book provides a good account of the storm and the ships caught in its grasp. The author has done a substantial amount of research and it shows.
Recommended
September 16, 2020
Excellent book about Great Lakes shipwrecks and survivals. I recommend it to anyone who loves accounts of shipwrecks.
January 12, 2021
Excellent account of the worst recorded storm in Great Lakes history, which took down 10 ships with crews of 18 to 28 - 10 Edmund Fitzgeralds in one gale. Mesmerizing.
July 20, 2021
An interesting read about tragic events that were caused by a horrific storm and the actions, reactions, and inactions of people to that event.
December 15, 2025
Excellently told tale of a chapter of forgotten history on the Great Lakes.
September 9, 2012
I thought that this book was fascinating. It chronicles the worst storm system in recorded history on the great lakes. Not a single one was spared, it was in winter and resembled a hurricane, hence the name. Using records from the time, David Brown tells a gripping story of the men and the ships that endured, and didn't, the storm. There are also coast gaurd stations and peoples. It is very readable. There are some maritime terms, but in context you could live in a desert and still understand. As a girl from a state with great lake connections I found it particularly interesting.
September 28, 2012
I knew nothing about this event. Got the book because I'm a fan of maritime history. Very glad I did. This is very good account of an amazing and disastrous event. The book does kind of jump around from the different ships as events unfold, so you really need to absorb the information to follow it accurately. It is well researched and the information is all there. If you're not an avid reader... this book may be confusing or hard to follow. It is a great story and if you can keep up with the bit and piece writing style, you should enjoy it.
March 30, 2015
I enjoy reading accounts of significant weather events throughout the history of the United States. Having lived in the Mid West on and off over a period of 10 years White Hurricane intrigued me. I know how unpredictable the weather in the Great Lakes region. This particular books illustrates just how much more challenging things were absent today's weather forecasting and communication technologies. A very well written book that kept my attention.
June 28, 2020
The author thoroughly brings this tragic event to life not just from an historical viewpoint, but manages to explain the meteorological ingredients involved in today's terms., yet understandable to any layperson.
Even if you read this excellent history in the middle of July - make sure you have a blanket handy!
Even if you read this excellent history in the middle of July - make sure you have a blanket handy!
June 4, 2014
Fascinating book that wasn't as repetitive as I thought it might be. The author balances explaining the storm, contemporary forecasting knowledge, and the stories of the ships that survived and succumbed to great effect. Pretty good writer too.
May 27, 2009
A real ainteresting way to follow this historic storm. It cronicles many of the ships almost on an hourly basis.
April 2, 2020
Read it again. Fascinating read.
August 15, 2014
was ok, maritime weather narrative - was looking for more personalized history of the men and ships
December 7, 2009
workman like, but good if you enjoy maritime disaster
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews