On the 15th and 16th of March 1889, a tropical hurricane (as most of its contemporaries called it ... modern people might prefer the term "typhoon") struck the South Pacific island kingdom of Samoa. In the port of Apia, on the northern coast of the Samoan island of Upolu, seven foreign warships were anchored in the town's small and very exposed harbor, protecting their national interests during a time of domestic Samoan political unrest. Active German military involvement in the local crisis was perceived as a threat to U.S. commerical interests in the islands, and the U.S. Navy's Pacific Station flagship, USS Trenton, and the smaller U.S. warships Vandalia and Nipsic were present as a "show of force" in opposition to the German corvette Olga and gunboats Adler and Eber. This tense situation carried a serious risk of war between those two countries. Also anchored in Apia harbor was the British Royal Navy corvette Calliope and several civilian vessels.

Though the weather was visibly threatening in the hours before the storm, the senior officer present, U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Lewis A. Kimberly, had decided to remain at Apia, basing his decision on local opinion that the hurricane season was already past. However, the force of wind and waves proved much greater than anticipated. With the exception of the relatively modern Calliope, which was able with great difficulty to steam out of the harbor in the teeth of the storm, the ships' anchors and engines proved unable to resist the blow. Eber, the smallest of the warships present, was blown into the reef and completely destroyed, with the loss of nearly all of her crew. Adler and Vandalia also suffered heavy personnel casualties and were wrecked beyond any possibility of recovery. Trenton, whose steam powerplant was extinguished by water entering through her low hause pipes, dragged her anchors and was also wrecked, though losses among her men were light. Olga and Nipsic were run ashore, but both were later hauled off and repaired.

The shocking violence of the storm, which took the lives of more than fifty U.S. Sailors and Marines, and about ninety Germans, overwhelmed the international naval confrontation. A diplomatic settlement of the Samoan question followed, though the islands' internal problems were not over and foreign intervention again took place during the next decade. Within the United States' Navy, the Samoan Hurricane was seen as something of a "last gasp" of the age of wooden cruisers, muzzle-loading guns, full sail rig and moderate steam power. Already in 1889 the "New Navy"'s steel ships, with powerful engines and modern ordnance, were beginning to enter service and, in the next half-decade, would almost completely displace what contemporary opinion regarded as the seagoing "relics" of the post-Civil War era.