Every now and then, a hurricane like Georges, currently wreaking havoc on the other side of the Atlantic, may play a part in world diplomacy or, perhaps, descend into the realms of farce. Let us look at two examples.
A century ago, a little before the hurricane season of 1898 was due to start, a network of hurricane warning stations was established along the eastern seaboard of the US. Shortly before they became operational, however, when the inventory was checked at one such installation on the coast of Carolina, it was found to lack that most essential of accoutrements - the privy and its hut had disappeared.
There was, of course, a national fuss and a tribunal. It was discovered that a local citizen, admiring the privy's quality, had taken it unto himself and installed it on his nearby property.
Amid great publicity, the outhouse was reluctantly returned, complete with contents - only to be completely demolished very shortly afterwards on October 2nd, 1898, in a famous storm which, even to this day, is remembered in the region as "the Privy Hurricane".
By contrast, some years previously a major storm in the Samoan Archipelago had defused an ugly situation which might otherwise have advanced the date of the first World War by 30 years.
It happened that during the 1870s and early 1880s, Samoa was in turmoil as local chieftains struggled with each other for supremacy. As was the custom of the time, and no doubt for very altruistic reasons, the major powers felt it their duty to step in and sort things out.
Bismarck, in particular, had ambitions to make the islands a protectorate of Germany. In pursuit of this noble aim, his gunboats, shelling a Samoan village, destroyed some US property. To make matters worse, a group of German sailors ripped down and burned the US flag.
US warships headed for the region and, on March 16th, 1889, the ships of the two countries faced each other across the harbour of the Samoan town of Apia. War, it seemed, was unavoidable.
Then came the hurricane. The savage storm passed directly over Apia and reduced the opposing fleets to combined chaos. The seamen of both nations helped one another in their struggle to survive the savage elements and the Samoans came to the aid of both.
In the end, about 150 men were drowned. However, in the immediate aftermath of this mutual disaster, political grievances were forgotten for a time and, in due course, the future of Samoa was resolved by diplomatic means.