Fascinating tale of the Galveston Hurricane of 1900

Perhaps the most compelling story about a massive hurricane is “Isaac’s Storm” by Erik Larson. This account tracks the deadly progress of the 1900 Galveston hurricane, the worst natural catastrophe to strike North America, through the eyes of the very man that failed to accurately guage the intensity of the storm, Galveston resident and meterologist Issac Cline.

Not just a collection of eye-witness accounts of the resulting death and destruction, the book is also a fascinating history of the beginnings of meteorology and climate sciences in the United States.

Issac Cline was one of the first of a small cadre, including his brother Joseph, that made up the nascent United States Weather Bureau. The author traces Cline’s steps through the creation of not only that agency but the development of weather forecasting in America, to the fateful day of September 8, 1900 when disaster struck the island just off the Texas Gulf coast.

Author Erik Larson does a masterful job of piecing together Clines’ life and his struggle with bureacracy in Washington D.C. and the limited communications technology at that time, giving a fully rounded picture of a man who so desperately wanted to do the right thing, who knew thousands of lives were at stake, and yet like most of Galveston Island was nearly destroyed by his own limitations both as a man and as a scientific professional.

It is a very deeply human story, as Larson also traces the arc of Cline’s personal life and professional struggles culminating in the dramatic loss of his wife and child during the height of the storm. It is truly chilling narrative.

Personally, I love stories where science, history and individual human histories intersect, and I couldn’t put this one down. That’s also true of two other Erik Larson books I’ve enjoyed:

“Thunderstruck”, which juxtaposes scientific advancement with criminal intrigue at the turn of the century, tracing the development of transatlantic communications and the story of Marconi with a murderous homeopathic physician in London.

I also couldn’t put down “Devil in the White City”, an earlier Larson book and New York Times bestseller, which follows the gruesome path of a homeopathic physician cum serial killer in late 19th century Chicago, H.H. Holmes who may have been responsible for as many as 200 murders, all during the building and opening of the historic 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair and exposition. Larson brilliantly intertwines two very different stories into one seamless spellbinder. It is truly a ‘ripping yarn’.

Before you leave off here, make sure you’ve read my own personal account of Hurricane Donna, the Category 4 storm of 1960 that hit south Florida and continued to wreck havoc up the length of the Atlantic seaboard. It will be on the second page of Main Journal posts.

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