1 Our word for these storms comes from Hurakán, a one-legged Mayan deity who summoned the Great Flood from his perch in the windy mists.
2 The Mayans built their major cities inland away from flooding, showing a better understanding of Hurakán’s rages than the engineers who designed the New Orleans waterfront.
3 In 1609 a group of English settlers en route to Virginia were struck by a hurricane and washed ashore at Bermuda—an event that reportedly helped inspire Shakespeare’s Tempest.
4 Hurricanes laid waste to so many powerful armadas that, during the Spanish-American War, President McKinley declared that he feared the storms more than the Spanish navy. In response he established a network of storm-warning stations, the forerunner of today’s National Hurricane Center.
5 During World War II, a British flying instructor, Colonel Joe Duckworth, bet his pilots he could fly straight into a hurricane. Amazingly, he succeeded.
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