Editor’s
Notes
After the pummeling the Gulf Coast
took in 2017, I was reminded of the article
below written in 1962 by Harold Wells
about the 1961 Hurricane Carla...
The Good Side of Hurricane Carla
That there can be a good side to such
a destructive, terrifying great storm like
Hurricane Carla is almost an unknown
story. This tremendous storm was
actually as great a benefactress to marine
life as it was a destroyer for mankind.
A great storm like Carla literally, and
actually plows up the ocean bottom over
all the area that it passes. This deep
plowing releases great quantities of long
buried chemicals of decay, which are the
basic food of all sea vegetation.
Everything in the sea must live on plants
or on animals that do live on plants to
obtain the necessary chemicals of life.
Vegetation of the sea grows in
enormous quantities, most of it invisible
to the naked eye. A given area of sea
produces many more tons of vegetation
than a like area of land can produce. The
greatest part of this vegetation is a
microscopic plant called D IATOMS , which
is so small and numerous that possibly
every drop of sea water may contain two
hundred or more of them. D IATOMS float
freely in the sea and make their own food
from chemicals in the water and sunlight.
This one-cell microscopic plant is
eaten by microscopic animals called
Z OOPLANKTON . These are the food for
larval Shrimp, Crabs and other miniature
forms of marine life. This process of the
larger eating the smaller continues up the
scale, passing along the life-giving
chemicals of sea vegetation. The
abundance of chemicals plowed up from
the decay on the sea bottom, greatly
increases the quantity and quality of the
basic food of all marine life. All growth
and even the total number of any species
of fish, is in direct relation to the amount
of food available.
Opening of long-closed old Passes
to the Gulf, the deepening and scouring
of channels caused by the great tides of
Carla are considered by most people to
be the only benefits of this storm. These
are very important but (are temporary). But
the enormous increase in both size and
quantity, made possible by the huge
increase in food, could last for years.
So there is a good side to Hurricane
Carla, for fishermen at least. It is
predicted that 1962 will be the greatest
fishing year that Gulf Coast fishermen
have had in a long, long time.
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