The hit musical Hamilton kicks off its Houston run tonight at the Hobby Center, and I’ll be there. It’s my third time seeing the show! If you really know me, then you know I grew up a theater kid in Albuquerque, New Mexico, dreaming of making it to Broadway. That didn’t quite happen, but hey I did become a certified meteorologist and was part of The Christmas Carol last December, so I didn’t exactly throw away “my shot.”
Hamilton is an incredible show! But as a meteorologist, there’s one part of Alexander Hamilton’s story that blows me away. A devastating hurricane tore through the West Indies in 1772, and that storm didn’t just change his life, it shaped the future of the United States. The below photo is me and my daughter at the musical in Los Angeles.
Before the Hurricane:
Alexander Hamilton was born and raised in the small town of Nevis, part of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. A self-taught reader, he wrote and published poetry in the Royal Danish American Gazette. The newspaper described the hurricane that struck on August 31, 1772, as “the most dreadful hurricane known to the memory of Man.” The storm devastated the region, destroying nearly every ship off the shores of Dominica and wiping out an estimated $2.5 million worth of sugar cane crops.
Below are excerpts from a letter Hamilton wrote to his father after the hurricane hit his home.
Good God! What horror and destruction. It’s impossible for me to describe or you to form any idea of it. It seemed as if a total dissolution of nature was taking place. The roaring of the sea and wind, fiery meteors flying about in the air, the prodigious glare of almost perpetual lightning, the crash of the falling houses, and the ear-piercing shrieks of the distressed, were sufficient to strike astonishment into Angels.
A great part of the buildings throughout the Island are levelled to the ground. Almost all the rest very much shattered; several persons killed and numbers utterly ruined; whole families running about the streets, unknowing where to find a place of shelter; The sick exposed to the keenness of water and air, without a bed to lie upon, or a dry covering to their bodies; our harbours entirely bare. In a word, misery in all its most hideous shapes spread over the whole face of the country.
Hamilton was only 16 when he wrote this!
If you’ve seen the musical, you might recognize the line “without a bed to lie upon” woven into one of the songs. His descriptions are vivid, and for those of us who have experienced a hurricane firsthand, his words feel hauntingly accurate.
I first heard this quote in 2003 when I moved to Houston; Chief Meteorologist Frank Billingsley took me to one of his hurricane preparedness talks, where he shared Hamilton’s words to emphasize the sheer power of these storms. These talks are something we do for large companies as part of their monthly safety meetings. Little did we know that, 20 years later, Alexander Hamilton’s story would take Broadway by storm!
Interestingly, Hamilton never intended for his letter to be published. But what was divine circumstance, it circulated and was eventually printed in the Royal Danish American Gazette on October 3, 1772, with this preface:
“The Author’s modesty in long refusing to submit to Publick view, is the reason of making its appearance so late as it now does.”
Hamilton’s account of the aftermath:
But see, the Lord relents. He hears our prayers-the Lightning ceases. The winds are appeased. The warring elements are reconciled, and all things promise peace. The darkness is dispelled and drooping nature revives at the approaching dawn. Look back, Oh! my soul, look back and tremble. Rejoice at thy deliverance, and humble thyself in the presence of thy deliverer.
Yet hold, Oh, vain mortal! Check thy ill-timed joy. Art thou so selfish as to exult because thy lot is happy in a season of universal woe? Hast thou no feelings for the miseries of thy fellow creatures, and art thou incapable of the soft pangs of sympathetic sorrow? Look around thee and shudder at the view. See desolation and ruin wherever thou turnest thine eye. See thy fellow-creatures pale and lifeless; their bodies mangled, their souls snatched into eternity, unexpecting. Alas! perhaps unprepared!
Hamilton’s closing to his father:
I am afraid, sir, you will think this description more the effort of imagination, than a true picture of realities. But I can affirm with the greatest truth, that there is not a single circumstance touched upon which I have not absolutely been an eye-witness to.
What happened next:
This letter changed everything. Even the governor wanted to know who had written it. Impressed by Hamilton’s talent, the island’s wealthiest residents came together to fund a scholarship, sending him to Boston, Massachusetts, for a proper education.
And Hamilton kept writing. It was his words that caught the attention of George Washington. By the age of 20, he had become Washington’s chief staff aide!
If you know the story or have seen the musical, you know what happens next, not just in Hamilton’s life, but in the founding of our country.
I read Ron Chernow’s biography Alexander Hamilton, and as incredible as Hamilton’s life was, what’s almost equally amazing is how Lin-Manuel Miranda read that same book and transformed it into the groundbreaking musical we see on stage today.
If you’d like to see the show, 40 tickets are available every night for just $10. It runs through Sunday, March 23. You’ll need the Hamilton app to enter the lottery.
To read Hamilton’s full letter to his father, click here.
