Nation: A Monster from the Caribbean

One of the century's wildest hurricanes turns tame over Texas

Its itinerary sounded like something drawn up by a Caribbean cruise director: Barbados and St. Lucia, Haiti and Jamaica, Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and the U.S. Gulf Coast. But the voyage left shattering death and destruction in its wake. Hurricane Allen brought savage 185 m.p.h. winds and 20-ft. waves. It wiped out most of the Caribbean banana crop, demolished thousands of homes and killed more than 100 people before its final landfall in Texas. Said Noel Risnychok, a meteorologist at Miami's National Hurricane Center, as...