Donn Beach Calls Tulsa Rainmaker (vintage story)

(from the Abilene (Texas) Reporter 11 August 1963)

Overseas Calls Tulsa Rainmaker

TULSA. Okla. (AP) - Tulsa's
mysterious rainmaker has become
an international figure, the
Tulsa World said Saturday.
The rainmaker, who has kept
both his identity and method secret,
has been contacted by Donn
Beach, president of Don the
Beachcomber Enterprises in
Honolulu, to fly to Hong Kong to
relieve a nine-month drought
there.
Beach contacted the rainmaker
alter reading of the Tulsan in a
national news magazine. The rainmaker
now claims to have
brought rain to Tulsa in five announced
attempts out of five. One
of the rains was a nine-inch deluge
that flooded streets and
paralyzed Tulsa traffic briefly on
July 27.
Beach told Tulsa World columnist
Troy Gordon The Royal Air
Force has tried many times to
end the Hong Kong drought with
cloud seeding, but there has been
no rain there.
Beach said he "thought maybe
we could get some dough to bring
the rainmaker over to do his
stuff."
The rainmaker has offered to
bring rain to San Angelo, also in
the middle of a drought, for $10,-
000 and expenses. Businessmen in
the town are trying to raise the
money.
"Beach seemed very enthusiastic
about this." The rainmaker told
Gordon. "I told him I could bring
them Rain in Hong Kong). He
said the ground is so dry they
could use up to 20 inches."
Beach said he asked the rain-
maker to mail some background
to show Governor Robert Black of
Hong Kong.
"I don't want anything out of
this," Beach who owns Don the
Beachcomber restaurant in Hon-
olulu told the World. "I just want
some rainfall.
The rainmaker's reaction?
"This is the biggest thing that
has ever happened to me," he
said. "Anybody would be an idiot
not to enjoy it."

(I wonder if he was successful????)

"I can't die until the government finds a safe place to bury my liver."
Phil Harris

[ Edited by: pappythesailor 2007-08-13 19:59 ]

I don't think so. I just dug this up.

By 1963, the development works for new water supply sources had not been completed causing the Government to worry that it would be unable to provide people with sufficient fresh water. The low rainfall further aggravated the situation. From May 1962 to April 1963, only 1,439 mm of rainfall was recorded, which was 761 mm less than the average annual rainfall of 2,200-mm. On 31 March 1963, Hong Kong's reservoirs only held 5.355 billion gallons of water, which was only 51% of the total storage capacity. These factors indicated that Hong Kong desperately needed the wet season rainfall to fill up the reservoirs. Unfortunately, April and May had very little rainfall, and the Government was forced to exercise water rationing on 2 May 1963. This allowed the public 3 hours of water supply every day. On 16 May, the restrictions were further tightened so people only received 4 hours of water provision on alternate days. By 1 June the water stored in reservoirs had declined to 175,000,000 gallons, only 1.7% of the total storage capacity! The Government declared that it could only supply water to the public for 4 hours, every 4 days. Restrictions remained in force for nearly a year until 27 May 1964, when Typhoon Viola struck Hong Kong, bringing with it heavy downpours.

I don't think rainmakers can take credit for typhoons.