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Isaac's Storm : A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
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MSRP: $25.95
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Additional Isaac's Storm : A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History Information
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At the dawn of the twentieth century, a great confidence suffused America. Isaac Cline was one of the era's new men, a scientist who believed he knew all there was to know about the motion of clouds and the behavior of storms. The idea that a hurricane could damage the city of Galveston, Texas, where he was based, was to him preposterous, "an absurd delusion." It was 1900, a year when America felt bigger and stronger than ever before. Nothing in nature could hobble the gleaming city of Galveston, then a magical place that seemed destined to become the New York of the Gulf.
That August, a strange, prolonged heat wave gripped the nation and killed scores of people in New York and Chicago. Odd things seemed to happen everywhere: A plague of crickets engulfed Waco. The Bering Glacier began to shrink. Rain fell on Galveston with greater intensity than anyone could remember. Far away, in Africa, immense thunderstorms blossomed over the city of Dakar, and great currents of wind converged. A wave of atmospheric turbulence slipped from the coast of western Africa. Most such waves faded quickly. This one did not.
In Cuba, America's overconfidence was made all too obvious by the Weather Bureau's obsession with controlling hurricane forecasts, even though Cuba's indigenous weathermen had pioneered hurricane science. As the bureau's forecasters assured the nation that all was calm in the Caribbean, Cuba's own weathermen fretted about ominous signs in the sky. A curious stillness gripped Antigua. Only a few unlucky sea captains discovered that the storm had achieved an intensity no man alive had ever experienced.
In Galveston, reassured by Cline's belief that no hurricane could seriously damage the city, there was celebration. Children played in the rising water. Hundreds of people gathered at the beach to marvel at the fantastically tall waves and gorgeous pink sky, until the surf began ripping the city's beloved beachfront apart. Within the next few hours Galveston would endure a hurricane that to this day remains the nation's deadliest natural disaster. In Galveston alone at least 6,000 people, possibly as many as 10,000, would lose their lives, a number far greater than the combined death toll of the Johnstown Flood and 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.
And Isaac Cline would experience his own unbearable loss.
Meticulously researched and vividly written, Isaac's Storm is based on Cline's own letters, telegrams, and reports, the testimony of scores of survivors, and our latest understanding of the hows and whys of great storms. Ultimately, however, it is the story of what can happen when human arrogance meets nature's last great uncontrollable force. As such, Isaac's Storm carries a warning for our time.
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What Customers Say About Isaac's Storm : A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History:
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But the most powerful account of the book is the descriptions of utter desolation and loss in the days following the blow. The author follows Isaac's personal dilemma at the uncertainty of such storm's occurrence, his inaction in the face of such uncertainty and the subsequent self-reproach that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. One doesn't wonder even for a second at the seriousness of Nature's death delivering system. The reader is lost in the history of the early 20th century, amidst the picturesque Galveston, its culture and its customs.
What's truly bizarre is the fact that I read Isaac's Storm in September of 2008 when Hurricane Ike hit Galveston at almost the same spot as the hurricane described in the book 108 years earlier (you can guess my utter amazement at this coincidence). I searched the Internet and discovered historical pictures of the devastated city, but these pictures became real for me only through the descriptions of this book.If you are interested in learning about this troubling event and Nature's infinite and unpredictable powers, I highly recommend this book. No one is spared as men, women, children and all types of animals succumb to the mortal forces of wind and water. Isaac's Storm is the true account of the devastation of Galveston in 1900 from the arrival of one of the most powerful hurricanes in the historical tracking of US meteorology.
The arrival of the Hurricane and the obliteration of the city is written with an exceptional attention to detail. Other books in similar matter: Krakatoa: The Day The World Exploded by Simon Winchester. The story centers on Isaac Monroe Cline, a pioneer in science of meteorology, and the hours before and days after the cataclysmic event. The hours leading up to the end are described with an almost electric charge.
For that he gets four stars. Still, it's worth reading for sure. Larson has done his homework for this book. In fact, things haven't changed that much over one hundred years in America, as the events surrounding the onslaught and aftereffects of the beast Katrina have demonstrated.
This book is a potboiler filled with interesting and horrifying facts, but also a bit too much journalistic and manipulative writing. For his short, melodramatic sentences that are supposed to leave the reader gasping, he gets a demerit. He's dug up a buried part of the American experience and done a good job presenting it. Of the books I've read by Erik Larson ("Thunderstruck," "The Devil in the White City,") this one is the most sensational and clearly is stretching the facts to shock the reader.
Some parts of this book really convey the horror, randomness, and madness of the storm, the flooding, and the incredibly powerful gales. At least that's my impression. The terrifying story of the Galveston hurricane, which the cover of this book screams out to be "the Deadliest Hurricane in History," reflects racist views in America (Cuban forecasters were ignored), thick-headed government officials (Willis Moore), and sexism, as the men in Galveston laughed at their fearful wives in the face of the monstrous storm bearing down on the completely unprotected city.
While Katrina did severe damage to New Orleans and surrounding areas, imagine how a similar storm 109 years ago would have damaged a coastal region with absolutely no clue that the storm was coming. A great read for the historian, anyone interested in weather and storms, as well as any public servant in government. Erik Larson tells the story of the horrific Galveston Hurricane through his usual descriptive experiences of key people at the moment of the disaster, which was the worst National Disaster ever to hit the U.S., with over 6,000 deaths attributed to the unexpected storm. Political intrigues, racial bigotry, pride and ignorance all effected the tragic hurricane's results, and Larson tells the story incredibly well.
Couldn't ask for more. I received my book in a very timely matter and the condition was excellent.
If you like history and a good read, give Isaac's Storm a try. It is a great read from start to finish and will send you back for another of Larson's other titles. You won't be disappointed. Erik Larson is the master at writing non-fiction novels that read like fiction. The story of the Galveston hurricane is riddled with details that make the story and people come to life.
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