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Passage Three

For more than two days in September 1974, the people of Honduras shut their windows, locked their door and crouched in their homes. Fifi was outside, and people were frightened.

Yet, Fifi wasnt a violent criminal. It was a hurricane, one of the most destructive natural phenomena in the world.

Why do we give human names to hurricanes Two hundred years ago, many hurricanes in the Caribbean were named after the saints day on which the storms occurred. Later, storms were known by the name of the city where they came ashore. Finally, in 1953, hurricanes started getting peoples names — specifically female names. Male names were added in 1979.

There are six sets of names all together. Each list is used every six years and consists of 21 names, starting with every letter but Q, U, X, Y and Z. The names alternate between males and females.

A storm wont get a name until its winds reach about 62.4 kph, at which point it becomes a tropical storm. At 118.4 kph it is declared a hurricane.

The 126 names on the list are used only for storms that form off the Atlantic coast of the US. There are separate lists for the Pacific. If a hurricane should cross from the Atlantic to the Pacific, it would get a new name.

Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in the US, is in charge of picking names for storms of the Atlantic coast. He works together with his counterparts in two dozen other countries in the Caribbean, Central America and North America.

“If we have a hurricane that causes a large loss of life or damage, a country will request that the name be retired,” he said. “If its French name, we replace it with a French name, Spanish, with a Spanish. Sometimes, people write in to suggest names for hurricanes.”

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