Whither weather?

Politics, infrastructure get in way

Tourists were summering on the beach of Galveston, Texas, on Sept. 7, 1900, “an ideal day as far as weather was concerned,” but Weather Observer Isaac Monroe Cline, who studied the tides and winds, concluded that “great danger was approaching.”

Thus, on the 8th he began issuing warnings, first for the visitors to leave and then for residents close to the shore to move to higher ground. By later that afternoon Cline recognized that “an awful disaster was upon us.” To this date the 6,000 to 12,000 casualties ranks as deadliest in United States history, and among the dead was Cline’s wife.

Cline went on to fame.

His memoir, Storms, Floods and Sunshine, went through three editions from 1945 to 1951, and the National Weather Service’s highest award—for operational excellence—bears his name.

What is often overlooked is that Cline’s career started in Arkansas. Born in Monroe County, Tenn., in 1861, he entered Hiwassee College at age 16, receiving a rigorous classical education even as he continued to work on the family farm. Upon graduating at age 20, Cline was accepted into the U.S. Army Signal Corps, and at Fort Myer received full military training, including cavalry instruction since the Signal Corps was a cavalry unit.

In 1870, Congress had authorized the Signal Service weather division, which initially consisted of Weather Observers on military bases. Cline was accepted into the program, and after a thorough grounding in meteorology, was sent to Little Rock as an assistant observer. During his spare time, he attended the Medical Department of the University of Arkansas (now UAMS).

Just as graduation was approaching, he was sent to Fort Smith where the Observer had died. Cline found the office a wreck and drew up plans for a more suitable building in a better location. It was from the new office that Arkansas’ most thoroughly documented 19th century tornado stuck on Jan. 11-12, 1898, and was recorded in detail by J.J. O’Donnell, the Weather Bureau’s official Observer.

Cline received his medical degree on March 29, 1885, and was sent to Texas, ending up at Galveston in 1889. He added a Ph.D. degree in 1896 from what in 1902 became Texas Christian University.

Meanwhile, in 1891 the Department of Agriculture took over the program. Under its direction observers were prohibited from issuing warnings or using terms like cyclones or tornadoes. And they blocked out the long-established weather information network, run by Catholic priests, on tropical storms.

Anti-Catholicism had been rife since the 1850s. The nativist movement took the name The American Party, although it’s best remembered as the Know-Nothings. The motto easily could have been “Keep America Great” even though the real natives, the American Indians, were kept away from the polls until 1924. Arkansas was no exception, as witnessed by the Convent Inspection Act of 1915 or that in the second Ku Klux Klan phase during the 1920s Blytheville’s Jewish Rosenthal family sheltered a Catholic neighbor family.

Nativism in the department included trying to deny the priests the use of telegraphic cables. Compounding the situation, Washington firmly believed that storms from the tropics did not go into the Gulf of Mexico. Hence, Cline, in Galveston, received no advance warning and furthermore had violated rules by giving early warnings. Afterwards, Cline was transferred to New Orleans, where he witnessed the Mississippi River Flood of 1903. New Orleans witnessed the highest crest on record. Cline had established reporting stations and from that knowledge, warned residents of impending dangers. Washington’s response? “Deemed advisable for you to withdraw your warning of 21 feet until certain that stage will be reached.”

Nevertheless, the Levee Board began strengthening the levees. The river did reach that 21 feet, but levee collapse had been avoided. Cline was told his forecasts did not meet department standards and that he was to be reassigned. That did not happen, and Cline continued his meteorological studies. He retired in 1935, but not until the 1940s did the weather service begin issuing warnings.

The National Weather Service lists 21 Mississippi River floods from 1543 to the present. This year, July 1, 2019, marked the 203rd day of flooding, passing easily the 152 days of the famous Mississippi River Flood of 1927. The 2011 flood began when the Black River levee broke opposite Poplar Bluff, Mo., even as I was speaking on Randolph County’s Civil War history. Army Corps of Engineers historian Charles A. Camillo wrote an appropriately named book, Divine Providence.

America’s infrastructure has become a story of deferred maintenance. Although Congress authorized a 12-lock replacement for the McClellan-Kerr Navigation System, it remains unfunded. The system received considerable damage from this year’s flood and remains mostly inoperable from Little Rock to Tulsa.

The 2019 flood is yet another example of America’s internal rot. “Leave America in Ruins” is the more apt slogan for our times.