October 11, 2016

On Oct. 7, 2016, people in Les Cayes, Haiti, search through the wreckage left by Hurricane Matthew days earlier. Credit: Julien Mulliez, UK Department for International Development (licensed under CC BY 2.0)

This past weekend, Hurricane Matthew ravaged the southeast Atlantic coast of the United States, causing flooding and accidents that killed at least 33 people in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia. The storm then weakened and turned out to sea, but flooding from heavy rains and storm surges continued in a number of areas. Matthew’s worst destruction, however, came days earlier when the hurricane made landfall in Haiti. There, the storm killed around 1,000 people and triggered a number of cholera cases. Deaths were also reported at sea and in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.

A NASA satellite captured this image of Hurricane Matthew along the coast of Florida on Oct. 7, 2016. Credit: NASA’s Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team

Hurricane Matthew formed as a tropical storm off the west coast of Africa in late September. The system strengthened as it prowled across the Atlantic Ocean, building into a hurricane as it entered the eastern Caribbean Sea. Peaking in strength at Category 5—the strongest hurricane rating with winds above 150 miles per hour (240 kilometers per hour)—Matthew scudded northwest and crashed into Haiti on October 4, devastating the country’s southwestern Tiburon Peninsula. Entire villages and farms were flattened or washed away, with contaminated water causing outbreaks of cholera. That same day, the storm lashed the eastern tip of Cuba, causing severe flooding in and around the city of Baracoa. Over the next two days, the storm rumbled over the Bahamas, doing its worst on Grand Bahama island just off the coast of Florida.

Hurricane Matthew rolled through the Caribbean Sea and up the southeast coast of the United States in early October 2016. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

Hurricane Matthew then skirted the southeast coast of the United States, where mass evacuations had cleared many people from harm’s way. From October 7 through October 9, the storm caused flooding from Saint Augustine, Florida, up to Fort Pulaski, Georgia; Charleston, South Carolina; and inland into North Carolina and Virginia. Savannah, Georgia, recorded the highest rain total during the storm—more than 17 inches (44 centimeters). Around Greenville, North Carolina, flooding washed out highways and bridges, stranded motorists, and forced people to the roofs of their homes. In that state, boat and aircrews rescued more than 1,000 people—700 in central Cumberland County alone. Evacuations of coastal areas were fairly successful, but inland areas were often caught off guard. The storm also knocked out electric power for more than 2 million people and forced the closures of thousands of business and schools—including the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, which closed for just the fourth time in its history.

May 13, 2014

The long-lost remains of the flagship commanded by Christopher Columbus on his first voyage to the Americas may have been located off the coast of Haiti, according to American oceanic explorer Barry Clifford. The discovery of the Santa María, a ship involved in the most important voyage to shape the history of the modern world, is considered by many as the Holy Grail of underwater archaeology. Columbus’s voyage unintentionally changed Europeans’ commonly accepted views of the world. The voyage also set in motion a far-reaching exchange, known as the Columbian Exchange, of plants, animals, and diseases between Afro-Eurasia (Africa, Europe, and Asia) and the Americas.

Christopher Columbus, under the sponsorship of King Ferdinand V and Queen Isabella I of Spain, set out from Palos, in southwestern Spain, on Aug. 3, 1492, to search for a westward route to Asia. His fleet included three ships–the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María. Before noon on October 12, the ships landed on an island in the Caribbean Sea. Columbus named the island San Salvador (Spanish for Holy Savior).

Clifford and his team originally discovered the remains of a wooden shipwreck in waters 10 to 15 feet (3 to 4.5 meters) deep off the northern coast of Haiti in 2003. They measured and photographed the wreck, which included an iron cannon that resembled such weapons common in the 1400′s. But the explorers did not attempt collect any of the remains. Only years later, when Clifford was able to examine the photographs in detail and compare them to historical records did he realize they may have come upon the Santa María.

A replica of the Santa María, the ship that Christopher Columbus himself captained on his first voyage to the Americas. (© Slidepix/Dreamstime)

In 2014, Clifford returned with his team to investigate the shipwreck with metal detectors and sonar. They found that the dimensions of the wreck matched well with known measurements of the Santa María. Columbus’s flagship was larger than the small, sturdy caravels of the time (which included the Niña and Pinta), and it had a deck amidships. The location of the wreck also correlated well with accounts written by Columbus himself.  The Santa María sank after it crashed and split apart on a reef near Cap-Haïtien, in present-day Haiti, on Christmas Eve night in 1492. Columbus and the crew managed to salvage some items from the stricken ship, which then drifted some distance on ocean currents. In January 1493, Columbus and his crew boarded the Niña to return to Spain.

So far, Cifford’s team has not conducted any excavations to retrieve artifacts that will be needed to prove the ship is indeed the Santa María. The cannon spotted in 2003 has apparently been stolen by looters. The government of Haiti has agreed to provide funding for excavations that could prove that the wreck is that of this most historically important ship.

Additional World Book articles:

• Exploration (The age of European exploration)
• Indian, American (Indians of the Caribbean)
• Latin America (European discovery and exploration)