1791: "The Night Lake Erie Rose”

0:00On the night of October 18th, 1844, people sleeping near Buffalo's waterfront had almost no warning that Lake Geary was about to come into their homes. For several days, strong northeast winds had pushed water towards the western end of Lake Geary, and then the wind had abruptly reversed. A violent southwest gale began driving water back towards Buffalo. At Lake Geary's narrow, eastern end. The result was an enormous storm-driven surge and sage. Water rushed into the lower parts of Buffalo so quickly that contemporary accounts described neighborhoods under two to eight feet, or about 0.6 to 2.4 meters of water, with them roughly a half hour. One account described an advancing wave about four feet or 1.2 meters. Later accounts sometimes associate the event with a water level difference approaching 22 feet,

1:01or 6.7 meters across Lake Geary. Now that doesn't mean a 22 foot wall of water struck Buffalo. A federal engineering account reported flooding at Buffalo roughly 10 feet or 3 meters above the lake's ordinary level. Buildings that were torn apart. Warves and harbor defenses were damaged. Canal boats were carried into city streets. Contemporary reporting counted more than 100 buildings destroyed, and more than 80 canal boats driven ashore between Buffalo and Black Rock. The exact death toll varies among historical sources, although modern Great Lakes references commonly cite 78 deaths. And this was not a tsunami. A sage happens when wind and atmospheric pressure move water across and enclosed or partly enclosed body of water. When conditions change, the displaced water can oscillate back across the basin, much like water sloshing from one end of the bathtub all the way to the other.

2:04And Lake Geary is particularly susceptible because it's the shallowest of all the Great Lakes. Powerful winds can produce dramatic differences in water level between its western and eastern ends. Buffalo newspapers in 1844, they didn't need modern terminology. They described what people saw when the water came rushing back towards the city. It was as though a dam had broken way. More than 180 years later, Lake Geary still produces satias. The physics that devastated Buffalo in 1844, it never went away. This was the original October surprise. These are interesting things with JC.