"'I was nearly drowned and became unconscious, but recovered through being crushed by the timbers and found myself clinging to my youngest child, who had gone down with myself and my wife. Mr. J. L. Cline joined me five minutes later with my other two children, and together with a woman and child whom we had picked up from the raging waters, we drifted for three hours, landing three hundred yards from where we started. There were two hours that we did not see a house or any person, and from the swell we inferred that we were drifting to sea, which, in view of the north-east wind that then was blowing, was more than probable. During the last hour that we were drifting, which was with south-east and south winds, the wreckage on which we were floating knocked several residences to pieces. When we landed about 11:30 P. M. by climbing over floating debris, the water had fallen four feet. It continued falling, and on the following morning the Gulf was nearly normal. "'While we were drifting, we had to protect ourselves from flying timbers by holding planks between us and the wind, and with this protection we were frequently knocked great distances. Many persons were killed on top of the drifting debris by flying timbers, after they had successfully escaped from their wrecked homes. In order to keep on the top of the floating masses of wrecked buildings, one had to be constantly on the look-out and continually climbing from drift to drift. Hundreds of people had similar experiences.' "Fearful as was the disaster," the Forecaster continued, "it would have been incalculably worse had it not been for the Weather Bureau warnings. Hundreds of people were saved by retiring to the upper portion of the town during the afternoon of the hurricane and no amount of foreknowledge could have told the sudden four-foot rise in the Gulf. Galveston learned her lesson, too, as was shown in the recent hurricane." "I don't understand those hurricanes a bit," declared Fred, "they don't seem to act like tornadoes, and instead of coming from the west, like all the rest of our weather, they come up from the south-east. How is that, Mr. Levin?" "The West Indian Hurricanes," the Forecaster replied, "are storms which are also called tropical 'cyclones' and which in the China Sea are known as 'typhoons,' and the fearful stories that one has read of the typhoon in the China seas applies equally to the hurricanes that strike our Gulf coasts. "Like all other tropical cyclones, the West Indian Hurricanes are formed by an upward rising current of air over a moist heated area. There are five cradles of such storms. One is over the Pacific ocean south-east of Asia and gives the coast of China, the Philippine Islands and Japan the typhoon. A second and a third are in the north and the south parts of the Indian Ocean. A fourth, which is less frequent, is found east of Australia.