Hurricane Hortense was observed in the Atlantic Ocean on 12 September 1996 by two high-frequency over-the-horizon radars in Texas and Virginia, looking at backscatter from the ocean surface. Dual radar coverage permits construction of an unambiguous surface-wind-direction field and a vector surface-current field with about 15-km resolution in the storm's vicinity. The known location of a storm band coincides with a region of surface convergence indicated by the radar. The surface-current field lags the wind field by about 3 h and shows the strongest ocean response to the right of the storm track, with near-inertial rotation in the storm's wake. Analysis of surface-wave directionality shows that it depends on the recent wind-direction history at each point. ¿ 1997 American Geophysical Union