Power of Prayer

Hurricane Season and the Unknown Paths

September 13, 2004


I have watched with wonder the track of the latest hurricane, Ivan, and I could not resist sharing some history of these powerful hurricanes. Below is Hurricane Ivan's track, notice it traveling between all these islands, missing major landfall.

During the years I lived in Florida and the Bahamas, from 1957 to 1989, I was fortunate to only experience one major hurricane, Cleo, which winds were approximately 105 mph in our area when it hit. The worst winds hit was through the night, and my mother bundled us all in makeshift beds in the hallway. The winds were ferocious sounding and it was an amazing experience that has remained etched in my mind very clearly, although I was only 11. We were without electricity for almost a week following that storm. I remember my father brought home a half gallon of ice cream and we had to eat it all in one sitting. We had well water and no electricity to pump the water, so we couldn't flush the toilets. Trees were down, of course, but nothing like roofs ripped off as we all had good, study homes in our neighborhood, with no trailers in our neighborhood.

There were many other storms that brushed our area, mostly as tropical storms or tropical storm winds as the main part of the hurricane went through the Keys or the western shores of Florida. I experienced one of those tropical storms at sea. My father had a 40-foot sailboat that we took around every summer. One year we went across the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas to vacation. We always crossed at night, as the seas in the Gulf Stream are known to be calmer at night, which was a frightening experience for me. During are travels, a tropical depression moved upon us.

A tropical depression is a precursor to a tropical storm and then possibly, if the conditions are right, turns into a hurricane. A few hurricanes develop in the Caribbean area from tropical waves, but many come out of Cape Verde, off the African coast, which leaves a large expanse of sea to intensify and organize into the most dangerous storms that we have seen.

I remember the waves as huge, rolling hills, but they were not disorganized waves, thank God. We ended up anchoring on the leeward side of one of the islands, and waited out the storm for a few days, as the worst part traveled over us. The amazing part was the seas afterward. Of course, being a sailboat, we depended on the winds for our traveling. Although we had an engine, we rarely used it, except to motor into ports or inland waterways. The water was like glass. There was not a breath of moving air, and we were floating for hours getting no where. In that case, it was the calm after the storm!

Another time, we were heading down to the Florida Keys, and had made it down to Key Biscayne in Miami, when my father heard reports that a tropical storm had changed course and was heading our way. So in the middle of the night, we motored back to our home port before that storm hit. I was so sorry for all the boats anchored around us that night, wondering if they knew the storm was coming and could get to their destinations safely.

Hurricane Betsy & Inez

In 1965 and 1966 we had two more major hurricanes, Betsy and Inez. Hurricane Inez (left), one of those Cape Verde hurricanes, traveled through the Lesser Antilles and devastated it, then moved on to Hispaniola, Cuba, and the Florida Keys, before hitting landfall again on the Yucatan Peninsula and mainland Mexico. Winds in some countries went as high as 155 mph and the storm took up to 1,000 lives, 750 in Haiti alone.

Betsy in 1965, began as an African wave that moved northwestward over the Lesser Antilles and became a hurricane north of Puerto Rico. Then it weakened and made an anticyclonic loop about mid Florida, (see chart below) turning around and headed back through the Bahamas before hitting the Florida Keys. Betsy killed 13 people in Florida. After it pounded the Keys, it tracked across the Gulf of Mexico to a second landfall in Louisiana, where it killed 58, with a 10 ft. storm surge and 155 mph winds. Apart from a near miss by Hurricane David in 1979 and Floyd's passage thorough the keys in 1987, Betsy and Inez were the last hurricanes to affect Southeast Florida for the next 26 years.

There were no mass evacuations in Florida and the Keys back then. You always hunkered down and stuck it out. Many of the major hurricanes from decades before were not well known to subsequent residents, as Florida did not start exploding until after these 60's hurricanes and few who settled there thought hurricanes were that great of a probability. The population has more than doubled in the last forty years, and in many communities, it has been that long since the last significant hurricane. Many coastal areas are especially vulnerable because of their unique evacuation problems. In the Keys, for example, only one highway offers escape for many thousands of residents. The 1935 hurricane, which moved through the central Keys on Labor Day, illustrates the evacuation dilemma. As it approached Andros Island in the Bahamas, it was a category 1 storm. It took just over forty hours to become a category 5 storm and was the strongest to ever hit the United States.

Watching the recent news you know how long it takes to evacuate the Keys, and the lead time that needs to occur. Even if the hurricane does not hit, the financial losses are great, when you have to evacuate for days on end until the danger passes or the storm has hit. South Florida's largest income producer is the tourist industry and tourists are the life blood of the Keys. Although residents are now allowed to travel back into the Keys, tourists are told they have to wait another day or two from Hurricane Ivan.

A friend of mine who lives on the East Coast, suggested, after Hurricane Charley missed his state, "The Governor of Florida should have asked all those residents to pray together to turn away the storm from Florida and from the hurricane's devastating effects, instead of mass evacuations." He saw what prayer did to protect his homeland. I would like to share with you, that two hurricanes later the Governor has done it, along with the combined effort of mass evacuations. Below is his official request to all faith-based leaders.

JEB BUSH GOVERNOR
STATE OF FLORIDA
THE CAPITOL
TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA 32399-0001
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2004
GOVERNOR BUSH ANNOUNCES WEEKEND OF PRAYER TALLAHASSEE -

Governor Jeb Bush today asked for people of all faiths to take a moment during their religious services this weekend to join him in prayer for those who have been impacted by Hurricanes Charley, Frances and potentially Ivan. "The people of Florida have weathered brutal blows, and are braced for yet another challenge as Hurricane Ivan approaches our shores," said Governor Bush. "At this time of unprecedented challenge, I've drawn comfort and strength from my own personal faith, and have been lifted by the prayers of others."

Attached please find a letter from Governor Bush to faith-based leaders regarding the weekend of prayer.

During times of challenge, men and women of all religions draw strength from their faith, and others discover the solace and power of prayer and other expressions of the religion they may have forgotten. The people of Florida have weathered brutal blows, and are braced for yet another challenge as Hurricane Ivan approaches our shores. As governor, I've drawn comfort and strength from my own personal faith, and have been lifted by the prayers of others during the unprecedented events of the last few weeks. Our work to relieve the suffering of the thousands of Floridians devastated by the hurricanes continues, and our preparation for Ivan is ongoing. This weekend, I'm asking people of all faiths to take a moment during their religious services to offer a special prayer. I ask them to pray for the souls we've lost to nature's power, for the recovery of this great state and, if Florida cannot be spared from Ivan, I ask them to pray for the strength to face what lies ahead with the resolve and generous spirit required to serve each other and rebuild together. Please extend this invitation to the members of your group or congregation. Ask them to join us, and lift our state in prayer this weekend. May God bless and keep you close.

Sincerely, Jeb Bush Governor

Jamaica, an island of 2.6 million people, was saved from a direct hit when the hurricane unexpectedly wobbled and lurched to the west Saturday, September 11th, although it still suffered heavy damage, destroying homes and toppling trees. You can see on the Ivan map at the top of the page, that the eye jogged away from Jamaica at the last minute. The Jamaican leader P.J. Patterson had urged his people to pray.

"We have to prepare for the worst case scenario. Let us pray for God's care," Patterson said Wednesday night, on September 8th. "This is a time that we must demonstrate that we are indeed our brothers' and sisters' keeper."

God bless him and the Jamaicans. And God bless Governor Jeb Bush and all who have been praying for the protection from this storm and for the other recent storms. If you look at the path of Ivan, and the storm's path, missing Cuba as well, we truly have seen a miracle that a much worse scenario was spared these islands, and now possible all of Florida. But it isn't over yet. It is going to hit landfall somewhere.

Over the years I have seen these hurricanes do crazy turns, like Betsy and Inez above, although some have gone hundreds of miles up the east coast and then turned around and come back, hitting a very unexpected area. You cannot help but feel some greater hand of karma directing some of these storms.

I have one more hurricane from history to show the tremendous amount of people and land that can be affected. It was Hurricane Donna in 1960, which had a tremendous impact on the entire eastern seaboard of the United States. She was a category 5 hurricane at one point. On the line, the purple areas represent 5, red 4, and orange a category 3.

Donna roared into the northeast Caribbean at peak intensity late on Sept. 4. It then rampaged across Puerto Rico and the Bahamas before swiping southern Florida on Sept. 10 with 135 mph sustained winds and peak gusts to 175 mph in the Florida Everglades. Donna then turned and, crossing the Florida Peninsula, raced northward along the East Coast, lashing every state from South Carolina to New York with hurricane-force winds before slamming into New England on Sept. 12 with winds gusts up to 130 mph at Block Island, R.I.

Donna crossed Long Island with a 100-mile-wide eye and then through New Haven, Conn. (In comparison, the recent Hurricane Francis' eye was 80 miles wide, but the storm itself was almost 1,000 miles wide!) Donna ranks as one of Florida's most intense hurricanes as well as costliest. It is the only hurricane on record to spread hurricane-force winds from Florida, through the Mid-Atlantic States, to New England. The storm surge along the southwest coast of Florida reached 11 ft. Donna is the fifth strongest recorded hurricane to hit the United States.

Where Will Ivan Come Ashore?

Where will Ivan come ashore? Will she weaken considerably first? As I was prompted to compose a prayer and call for the this hurricane, I thought of the consciousness of the people in the area where I grew up. One would not wish this type of devastation on any people, no matter how low their consciousness. But when will people learn that their pleasure cults and selfish pursuits, with abortion, drug addictions and the desecration of the body of man and women, is the path that leads to not only the destruction of their own bodies, but the body of earth as well? So this prayer came through me, which I was grateful to receive.

For the most part, the United States is learning how to protect their people from these storms. The greatest loss (besides the human lives) is financial and the personal loss of people's homes and businesses. Maybe these losses will help people realize that the most important thing in our lives should not be our material possessions and our selfish pursuits, but the pursuit of the path of love and the expressing of that love in myriad ways like in mercy, compassion and forgiveness.

Indeed, the aftermath in the clean-up experiences is an opportunity for people to witness the one great thing about America–her people's hearts. The flame of giving, sharing abundance, love and the spirit to always rebuild. Mercy is abundantly seen and experienced. And we pray that the islanders will also experience and feel God's mercy. Haitian's experienced a tremendous devastation from this storm, where voodoo is heavily practiced. Another similar place in the United States is New Orleans. Could this storm be heading there? It is in God's hands.

Karma Main DIrectory

Copyright © 2007 Shangra-la Mission, Inc