The Great Hurricane of 1780: The Story of the Greatest and Deadliest Hurricane of the Caribbean and the Americas

by Wayne Neely

The Great Hurricane of 1780, also known as Hurricane San Calixto II, is one of the most powerful and deadliest North Atlantic hurricanes on record. Often regarded as a cataclysmic hurricane, the storm’s worst effects were experienced on October 10, 1780. In The Great Hurricane of 1780, author Wayne Neely chronicles the chaos and destruction it brought to the Caribbean. This storm was likely generated in the mid Atlantic, not far from the equator; it was first felt in Barbados, where just about every tree and house on the island was blown down.

The storm passed through the Lesser Antilles and a small portion of the Greater Antilles in the Caribbean between October 10 and October 16 of 1780.Because the storm hit several of the most populous islands in the Caribbean, the death toll was very high. The official death toll was approximately 22,000 people but some historians have put the death toll as high as 27,500.

Specifics on the hurricane’s track and strength are unclear since the official North Atlantic hurricane database only goes back as far as 1851. Even so, it is a fact that this hurricane had a tremendous impact on economies in the Caribbean and parts of North America, and perhaps also played a major role in the outcome of the American Revolution.

This thoroughly researched history considers the intense storm and its aftermath, offering an exploration of an important historical weather event that has been neglected in previous study.

312 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 17, 2012

About the author

Wayne Neely is an international speaker, best-selling author, lecturer on hurricanes, educator, and meteorologist. Traveling extensively throughout the region and the world, Wayne addresses critical issues affecting all aspects of hurricanes, especially Bahamian Hurricanes which is one of his central areas of expertise. In addition, in most of his books he also includes controversial topics such as, Global Warming, El Nino and man's overall impact on the weather and climate of the region and the rest of the world, but if you were to ask him he would tell you his area of familiarity and love is for Bahamian hurricanes. The central themes of his books are always on hurricanes in general and the impact of hurricanes on all aspects of mankind's ever expanding society. He's a Weather Forecaster in Nassau, Bahamas and has been there for well over 22 years. He has a great passion for writing and does it in his spare time when he is not working at his main job as a Weather Forecaster at the Department of Meteorology. Wayne Neely is a certified Meteorologist working at the Department of Meteorology in Nassau, Bahamas for the last 22 years-prior to that he majored in Geography and History at the College of The Bahamas in Nassau. He then attended the Caribbean Meteorological Institute in Barbados where he majored and specialized in weather forecasting. His love for hurricanes and the weather came about while growing up on the island of Andros where he listened quite regularly to his parents, grand parents and other older residents within the community talking about a major hurricane which occurred in 1929 and devastated the Bahamas. That piqued his interest in hurricanes and got him started on writing his first book called 'The Great Bahamas Hurricane of 1929.' He then went onto write his second book called 'The Major Hurricanes to Affect the Bahamas' followed by his third book 'Rediscovering Hurricanes' (Foreword by Herbert Saffir),his fourth book on hurricanes called 'The Great Bahamian Hurricanes of 1926'(Foreword by Bryan Norcross), followed by his fifth book 'The Great Bahamas Hurricane of 1866(Foreword by Phil Klotzbach), his sixth book 'The Great Bahamian Hurricanes of 1899 & 1932'(Foreword by Professor William Gray) and his seventh book 'The Great Hurricane of 1780(Foreword by Dr. Steve Lyons) has just been recently released and the rest is history. Over the years, Wayne has written several articles on hurricanes and other severe weather events for some of the major local and international newspapers and magazines. He speaks quite regularly to schools, colleges, universities and frequently does radio and television station interviews both locally and abroad about the history and impact of Bahamian, American and Caribbean hurricanes and hurricanes in general.

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pass this one by. I don’t doubt that the author knows his meteorology and especially hurricanes, but he knows nothing about writing a book. Where was this book’s editor?? The same sentences were written over an over. Often within the same paragraphs! After slogging through about six or seven chapters without ever really addressing the actual hurricane of the title I finally had to give up and admit defeat.
What originally drew me to look this up was online discussions comparing hurricanes of the 2017 Atlantic season to this particular hurricane. Having not heard of it before, I sought this book out to learn about it. It sounded quite interesting regarding not only the damage caused to local islands but how it may also have played a part in the Revolutionary War. But even after beginning the chapter that was titled after the hurricane in question and suffering through more of the same horrible writing and repeating and never actually learning anything I had to give up. There are too numerous example to mention but for instance, the author outlines letters or speeches in depth only to turn around and quote them verbatim showing the earlier outlines were almost exact duplicates of the actual text. We don’t need the overview ahead of time! Or explaining over and over hurricane science apparently not realizing he said the same thing in a slightly different way mere sentences before, or repeating them outright in different chapters. It’s incredibly poorly put together and is a real shame because there’s not a lot else out there about a potentially truly interesting topic.

[S. Dawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Neely had the ingredients to develop a tale that would do justice to this epic cataclysm: in-depth meteorological knowledge, engaging primary resources, a storm so consequential that it is still discussed centuries later. But like a tropical disturbance struggling against 30 knots of westerly shear, it was never organized enough to reach its potential.

I really wanted to like this book. Natural disasters (and hurricanes in particular) are one of my favorite topics, and I had long wanted to read a good account of this legendary storm. Unfortunately, several of the chapters were painfully disjointed.

I do think this book has potential. If Mr. Neely can get his publisher interested in a revised edition, a good editor should be able to assist in creating a more cohesive narrative. I hope I have the opportunity to read a redeveloped version of this story some time in the future.

[Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Book