Relationship with Cuba

Cuba: Welcome

Medicc (Oakland, CA). "Medicc Deplores President Trump's Rollback on US Opening to Cuba: Unhealthy, Unreasonable, Unwise." June 19, 2017.

Cuba: Text

Willis Moore, director of the United States Weather Bureau in 1900, decided to shut down all communication between Cuban weathermen and the people of the U.S. He went even further to ban direct communication between the U.S. Weather Bureau's office in Havana and the office in New Orleans. Cuba would report their information to Washington and there, the decision would be made of what information they should give to the American people. (1)

Cuba: Body

Cuba: Image

"Blown Away: In 1900 a Monster Hurricane Devastated Galveston, Texas, but as Meteorologist Al Roker Reveals in His New Book, Politics and Ego at the National Weather Bureau Helphed Make the Storm the Deadliest in American History."

Cuba: Text

Galveston Misled

The bureau incorrectly informed Galveston that there was only a disturbance, "not a hurricane," of a storm that would go into a "recurve" and not hit Galveston at all. The storm was "intended only by heavy rains and winds of moderate force" but it was expected to go north toward Norfolk then hit the Atlantic Ocean, completely missing the Gulf Coast. (2)

Cuba: Text

Cuban meteorologists were perhaps the best in the world at "assessing and predicting the tracks of hurricanes" and, therefore, they knew that the violent hurricane was in fact heading for the Texas Gulf Coast. However, they chose not to warn the U.S. because of their problematic relationship following the Spanish-American War when the United States defeated the Spanish and therefore, occupied Cuba, but would not annex it to become its own self-governing nation. (3, 4)

Cuba: My Work

The Unexpected Surprise

"Forecasters were overly confident in their primitive technology, which did not yet include satellites or doppler radar."

- Amanda Ripley (5)

"The storm came very much by surprise. By the time people realized that something really unusual and quite serious was happening, all the exit routes off the island had been destroyed."

- Erik Larson (6)

"It must've been just utterly terrifying."

- Erik Larson

Cuba: List

(1) "Blown Away: In 1900 a Monster Hurricane Devastated Galveston, Texas, but as Meteorologist Al Roker Reveals in His New Book, Politics and Ego at the National Weather Bureau Helphed Make the Storm the Deadliest in American History." American History, October 2015, 28+.http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A422325814/GPSu=va _pcollegiate&sid=GPS&xid=2b3499ec.

(2) "Blown Away"

(3) "Blown Away"

(4) "The Spanish-American War: The United States Becomes a World Power." Teacher's Guide Primary Source Set. Accessed May 19, 2019. https://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/ primarysourcesets/spanish-american-war/pdf/teacher_guide.pdf.

(5) Ripley, Amanda. "The 1900 Galveston Hurricane." Time, September 15, 2008. Accessed April 3, 2019. http://cont ent.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1841442,00.html.

(6) "Interview: Erik Larson discusses Galveston's deadly hurricane of 1900." Day To Day, September 21, 2005. Literature Resource Center (accessed January 14, 2019). https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A161876690/LitRCu=v a_p_collegiate&sid=LitRC&xid=9e3ce5f5.

Cuba: Text