A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
Erik Larson - ISBN - 9780375708275
Rapt attentiveness will envelope you within a short period of exposure to this riveting tome on the 1900 Galveston hurricane--the worst natural disaster in American history. Isaac Monroe Cline was the bureau chief on station for the newly created U.S. Weather Bureau at the time, and Larson builds the story around this man. Smart, well informed, thoughtful, careful and hubristic; he considered himself expert on all matters concerning weather prediction, and exhibited the demeanor of much of the world at a time when man had concluded he could control most everything, overcome all hazards, and perhaps run the planet as he saw fit. Some similarly disposed man on the continent, he reminds, designed and built the "unsinkable" Titanic!
Exact measurement was not possible at the time, but the unnamed storm is felt to have been accompanied by winds in excess of 140 mph, with ocean swells in excess 30 feet, while the highest elevation on the island was but 15 feet. Thus Galveston Island became Atlantis, albeit for only a little while.
The understanding of hurricanes was primitive at the time, but weathermen weren't aware of how ignorant they were. Storms were known to follow nearly fixed courses after all! They originate deep in the Caribbean, hook east over Florida, and track up thru the Carolinas before turning back out to sea. Always! They just could not be expected to go west. While the Cubans staffing the American station in Havana counseled otherwise, the director of the American staff, and his superiors in Washington, were convinced that these were stupid, emotional people given to making all manner of inaccurate claims. The fact that they were more advanced than the U.S. never occurred to anyone up this-a-way. Americans simply wouldn't listen to the Cubans, and they "lost" the storm headed straight for Texas because they were looking for it around Tampa.
Without ship to shore radio, etc., there was no way for ships in the gulf to report the horrendous happenings encompassing their whereabouts. Larson has spent many days researching the data and reports interestingly on the anatomy of storms and the course and calamity of this particular one, eye-witness accounts from sea captains, notes from various government departments, and more. It's not unlike McCullough's book on the Johnstown flood, reviewed here years ago,
The storm brought death and incredible destruction, yet they are but half of the story. The fate of the people at the hands of nature brought out their heroism and determined response, as it had during and after the Johnstown Flood only 11 years before. 10-12,000 people died, 6,000 on the island alone; just under 20% of the population.
Larson has now "done it" for a third time. Devil in the White City is in the top 30 (or so) of my strongly recommended books. Thunderstruck and the current offering add to his successes. He always manages to take some "out of the mainstream" subject and render it as a very readable tract well worth the time to indulge in a good read. Skilled writer, he.
