Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History

This was written several years before Hurricane Katrina. His talent of weaving the real characters into his non-fiction story telling is amazing. This is the story of the early history of the National Weather Service and the attempts to predict hurricanes on the coasts. Fascinating! Erik Larsen is one of my favorite authors.

The moral(s) of this book -- NEVER ride out a Hurricane. Don't always trust the Weatherman or those who think they know it all while your dog is howling to get out of the area and your bunions are too.

Larson's stunning narrative almost puts one on a roof traveling helter skelter in raging floodwaters in a black night. The sense of fear, loss, tragedy, suffering is palpable.

This is a book that makes one think long and hard on Mankind - vs - Mother Nature.

What tragedies could have been averted if people just packed up and left that city! The signs were everywhere but because of one "Voice of Authority", a tragedy was NOT averted and the bodies piled up. Family members watched their loved ones die. A loyal family dog, sensing that one member was missing from the family floating on a roof, dove into the waters to find that person and perished as well. Horrific destruction that happened to the city did NOT have to happen to its inhabitants.

An absorbing read and one that touches the heart with its descriptions of such unnecessary and terrible suffering.

In September 1900, a hurricane developed in the Atlantic Ocean, bounced off the eastern end of Cuba and went 800 uninterrupted miles across the Gulf of Mexico before dumping it's fury of the City of Galveston Texas, nearly wiping it off the face of the earth. Didn't anyone see it coming?

Yes and No; and that's what makes this such an involving story. Could a warning have saved more people (over 25% of the population,6000 people died) or would the resulting panic have killed more? During the storm all three train trescles leading to the city were destroyed, and most ships were pushed out of the bay (some as much as 5 miles). Since so few buildings were left standing, how many would have survived? Hard to say but at least they would have had a chance? Ask the people of New Orleans how much help it was to them? The aftermath then, was handled better by the army; than by FEMA today, rebuilding began within two days.

Larson does a masterful jobs of describing the effect of the hurricane on the people who lived through it and how they reacted. His prose is so strong that you can almost feel the battering of the rain on the buildings and the anguish of the people fighting for their lives against an enraged sea. Read it, you won't be disappointed.

This is a wonderful story and is told in such a way that it makes you feel like you're right there in the midst of it. Beautifully and realistically written, and you don't want to put it down!

Background
I read Isaac's Storm, by Erik Larson, around 1998. Recently I had occasion to thumb through it again which has prompted this review. Larson covered three killer hurricanes, two killer blizzards and one flash flood.

Galveston and related Hurricanes
My first impression was that anyone who had read this book, about a major hurricane, would never consider riding out such a storm. Larson painted a frightening story of brick homes and brick schools being torn apart by the surging waters.
Isaac Cline was the U. S. Weather Service Chief at Galveston at this time. This book gives much detail on the Galveston storm. This hit the island in September 1900, with very little warning. Indeed it was the arrogance of the U. S. Weather Service in general, and Issac Cline, their station chief for this area, in particular, that essentially preempted any warning. "Cline was one of the 'new men', a scientist who believed he knew all there was to know about the motion of clouds and the behavior of storms." First, the U. S. Weather Service refused to pay any attention to any inputs from Cuba. The U. S. Weather Service had men stationed in Cuba who "said the storm was nothing to worry about." Cuban's "own weather observers, who had pioneered hurricane detection, disagreed." Secondly the U. S. Weather Service insisted that, any storm warning had to come from the Washington office, with absolutely no exceptions. Finally Isaac had the conviction, and public position, that no hurricane could ever hit Galveston, as they would be steered north before reaching as far west as Galveston. With such a position Cline had no motivation to try and influence headquarters.
Larson cited two older hurricanes in his book.
* September 16, 1875 - "The storm raised an immense dome of water and shoved it through Indianola, pushing the waters of the Gulf and Matagorda Bay inland until for 20 miles the back country prairie was an open sea." This storm took 176 lives.
* August 20, 1886 - This storm completed the destruction of Indianola. So many residents were killed that the survivors abandoned the town completely.
In 1891, "in the wake of a tropical storm that Galveston weathered handily" Cline was asked to appraise the city's vulnerability to extreme weather. Isaac wrote: "The opinion held by some - - - that Galveston at some time will be seriously damaged by some such disturbance is simply an absurd delusion." He made this statement in spite of the fact that the maximum elevation of Galveston Island, at that time, was an almost trivial 8.7 feet above sea level. He made it also in spite of the two killer hurricanes hitting and destroying the town of Indianola, about 150 miles southwest of Galveston on Matagorda Bay.
Cline had a "model" of Gulf hurricanes, namely that no hurricane could ever hit Galveston, as they would be steered north before reaching as far west as Galveston. His "model" of these storms was clearly fatally flawed, or politically influenced, and it resulted in 6,000 to 10,000 deaths.
Larson suggests there was a "scent of boosterism" behind this article, and that he was writing an article that Galveston promoters would be happy to see. Could this have been a harbinger of things to come? Could Cline have been the first government weather scientist to prostitute himself by writing favorable papers on the weather for his sponsors?
Then the storm hit. Both the U. S. Weather Service and Isaac Cline looked very arrogant before the storm, and also in defending their overall performance, after the storm.

Other extreme weather events
Larson also covered two blizzards and one flash flood in his book in this book.
* Hail and flash flood, August 1885 - "a severe downpour near San Angelo, including hailstones the size of ostrich eggs, killed hundreds of cattle and created a flash flood with An escarpment of water that Isaac estimated to be 15 or 20 feet high."
* Blizzard, November 1888 - this surprise blizzard destroyed 150 vessels off New England, and caused the death of 450.
* Blizzard, January 1899 - "this blizzard swept much of the South. Icebergs 10 feet high flowed down the Mississippi past New Orleans." This storm even hit Galveston and piled snow on it's beaches and drove water out of the Bay into the Gulf exposing portions of the bay bottom.

Conclusion
Isaac's Storm shows the incredoble wrath of hurricanes, 105 to 125 years ago. It also depicts the incredible spectrum of extreme weather events, also of the same vintage. All in all a most interesting and rewarding book, one that I would recommend highly.