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To: NautiNurse
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=1979+%2Bnaming+%2Bhurricanes

Given that names are only retired when major damage is sustained and the rest are recycled ... no chance.

A quick review at Google reveals that most of the articles listed -- all of the government's site -- don't give credit where credit is due but the Family Education Network does:

By 1979, men's names were added in response to protest from women's groups.

More info at the Merriam Webster cool words site:

... in that year of 1954, Carol, Edna, and Hazel came along, creating together over a billion dollars in damage and taking some 176 lives. During that horrific storm season, there were a number of complaints about giving these death-dealing storms women's names, but the furor died out by the end of the season, and the mail to the weather bureau turned in favor of female names.

New lists were developed every year until 1971 when a semi-permanent list of ten sets of names was established. But then storm clouds gathered in the form of complaints which held that the naming system was not only inherently sexist but also did not take into account the Spanish- and French-speaking victims of hurricanes in the Caribbean.

At first the National Weather Service explained that the names were not an insult to women but a compliment to their powerful force in nature. At one point it was officially stated that women's names were easier to pronounce than men's.

"Women," responded the national vice president of the National Organization for Women, "are not disasters, destroying life and communities and leaving a lasting and devastating effect."

[40 million unborn dead beg to differ.]

One feminist, according to a 1972 UPI story, had proposed naming all future hurricanes after congressmen, and a letter to the Baltimore Sun suggested that they be given the names of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Though impractical, such suggestions could have been a headline writer's dream--"Senator Goldwater Slams into Gulf Coast."

In 1975 the Australians, who started it all, announced that they would alternately name tropical storms with male and female names, and in 1977 the United States went to a meeting of the World Meteorological Organization where it agreed to alternate male and female names, as well as to take other languages, beginning with French and Hispanic names, into account. The new kind of list went into effect in the Pacific in 1978 and the Atlantic in 1979.


154 posted on 09/21/2002 7:38:24 PM PDT by Askel5
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To: Askel5
proposed naming all future hurricanes after congressmen

Now that's not a bad idea!

158 posted on 09/21/2002 7:40:44 PM PDT by NautiNurse
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