Liz Skilton's innovative study tracks the naming of hurricanes over
six decades, exploring the interplay between naming practice and
wider American culture. In 1953, the U.S. Weather Bureau adopted
female names to identify hurricanes and other tropical storms.
Within two years, that convention came into question, and by 1978 a
new system was introduced, including alternating male and female
names in a pattern that continues today. In Tempest: Hurricane
Naming and American Culture, Skilton blends gender studies with
environmental history to analyze this often controversial
tradition. Focusing on the Gulf South-the nation's "hurricane
coast"-Skilton closely examines select storms, including Betsy,
Camille, Andrew, Katrina, and Harvey, while referencing dozens of
others. Through print and online media sources, government reports,
scientific data, and ephemera, she reveals how language and images
portray hurricanes as gendered objects: masculine-named storms are
generally characterized as stronger and more serious, while
feminine-named storms are described as "unladylike" and in need of
taming. Further, Skilton shows how the hypersexualized rhetoric
surrounding Katrina and Sandy and the effeminate depictions of
Georges represent evolving methods to define and explain extreme
weather events. As she chronicles the evolution of gendered storm
naming in the United States, Skilton delves into many other aspects
of hurricane history. She describes attempts at scientific control
of storms through hurricane seeding during the Cold War arms race
of the 1950s and relates how Roxcy Bolton, a member of the National
Organization for Women, led the crusade against feminizing
hurricanes from her home in Miami near the National Hurricane
Center in the 1970s. Skilton also discusses the skyrocketing
interest in extreme weather events that accompanied the
introduction of 24-hour news coverage of storms, as well as the
impact of social media networks on Americans' tracking and
understanding of hurricanes and other disasters. The debate over
hurricane naming continues, as Skilton demonstrates, and many
Americans question the merit and purpose of the gendered naming
system. What is clear is that hurricane names matter, and that they
fundamentally shape our impressions of storms, for good and bad.
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