When learning about and understanding natural hazards, hurricanes have always been of great interest to me. Particularly I am fascinated with the force and destruction these storms can generate. Immediately when I heard about this book, “Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History” by Erik Larson, I was interested in reading it. The book is about the hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas in 1900. At the time, Galveston was a growing city that was supposed to be as great as cities like New Orleans, Baltimore, and San Francisco. Galveston was always competing with Houston at the time to become the greater city of Texas. However, as you will see, the hurricane changed Galveston’s plans in this race for greatness. The book mostly follows the life of Isaac Monroe Cline, who was stationed in Galveston by the National Weather Bureau as chief meteorologist, hence the name “Isaac’s Storm.” However, the book does follow other people’s roles and stories that happened with this hurricane. The book makes it very interesting in viewing the storm these various people involved with the disaster.
The book begins by going through the life story of Isaac from his childhood in Tennessee to his education at the United States Army Signal Corps. I think the author did this so the reader has a better understanding about both the personality of Isaac and the manner in which he conducted his work. Isaac accelerated quickly through the ranks during his time at the Signal Corps, during which time her learned about meteorology and also taking on other studies during his own time. The book also talks about the different meteorologist jobs Isaac had before landing his position in Galveston. Such jobs were in Arkansas and other parts of Texas. There are interesting stories about bizarre weather experiences Isaac encounters. One story talked about how a flash flood occurred because softball size hail came down and melted so quickly causing the flash flood in Texas. Another intriguing story was about when waters came rushing down a river in Texas from snow melt further north. This water was so cold that is stunned the fish in the river and people would go down to the river and pull out fish with their bare hands. These stories helped show how fascinated Isaac had become with weather and how he became obsessed with being as knowledgeable as he could with weather. One thing Isaac liked to think was that he was so good at was predicting the weather. However, from all of his personal experiences with weather, he had never experienced a hurricane until he came to Galveston. Although he was aboard a ship once that endured a hurricane, it was not nearly as severe as the one that destroyed Galveston in 1900. This later proved to be fatal for he downplayed these destructive storms. Larson often discusses the rivalry of a relationship between Isaac and his younger brother, Joseph. The bitter relationship between the two brothers becomes very evident later both during and after the hurricane came in 1900. One reason that this better relationship may have developed was because Joseph worked for his older in Galveston. Isaac conducted his work with a strict manner and took it very seriously for he knew many people relied on his work. He would often dismiss Joseph’s advice and opinions and act as he, Isaac, were always correct and that his brother had much to learn. Another reason that Isaac took his job so seriously in Galveston, and other places where he worked for the Weather Bureau, was because at the time the U.S. Weather Bureau was seen as a joke by many people. The Weather Bureau at the time had a bad reputation for workers that did not conduct their work in a professional manner. Also, the Bureau’s ability to report and correctly forecast weather was not so good. During this time in America, the book describes how much people became reliant on new technology and felt that they could concur anything. And the fact that the Weather Bureau was incapable of doing so concerned people in America. Many U.S. politicians tried to take down the Weather Bureau. However, as hurricanes threatened the nation’s welfare, the desire to understand hurricanes began. This is what made Isaac work so hard for his job so he could help give the Weather Bureau a good name. He also was obsessed with what caused these storms and the ability to predict them. The Weather Bureau was lucky to have a man like Isaac who took his job so seriously for meteorology was a very big phenomenon as the beginning of the century.
While providing a good understanding about Isaac and the Weather Bureau, Larson also interjects with stories and facts about the history of weather and meteorology. He gives examples of famous tales of sailor’s that experienced hurricanes. Such tales include stories about Christopher Columbus and how his gold was on the only ship that survived a hurricane. Other examples included the hurricane that hit England in 1703 and the hurricane season of 1780. As three major hurricanes ravaged the Caribbean in 1780, it destroyed many army vessels for the French, Spanish, and British militaries as these three countries were in a fight for who could take over the seas of the Americas. One of these hurricanes depleted Britain’s fleet so badly that it caused them to call of their attack on Puerto Rico in their goal to take it from the Spanish. This is a great example of how hurricanes can change the course of history. While providing exciting stories about hurricanes and how they affected people in the past, Larson also talks about how people came to better understand hurricanes. People started to notice by looking at their barometers, that a drop in air pressure usually indicated foul weather was about to follow. Also people started to study how things like temperature and the Earth’s rotation may be factors in hurricanes as well. I found the story about how people came to understand that the Earth rotated because a German mathematician by the name of Joseph Furtenbach. He loaded a canon and shot it straight up in the air. He predicted that the canon ball would land to the side of the canon due to the Earth’s rotation. Once he fired the canon, Furtenback ran to the canon and sat directly on top of it. If here were wrong, the canon ball would have fallen directly on him and would have killed. Luckily for him, he was correct in his prediction and the canon ball landed away from where he sat on the canon. This book made me realize how far along human beings have evolved in understanding weather and forecasting it. However, one thing that disheartened be a little was how people throughout history, before the technology we enjoy today, would keep logs about the weather and try to learn and understand it themselves. The book gave many examples of how people have barometers to keep track of the air pressure. I am sure many people still do this today, but I think people today take weather forecasts for granted while not actually understanding weather patterns. This book makes me want to get my own little weather station and better understand the weather myself.
After all of this background knowledge, the story of the actual storm had begun. In our Environmental Hazards class, taught by Professor Joe Hupy, we learned about the Swiss cheese model. Basically this means when every possible thing can go wrong, it does. This is what happened with the hurricane that hit Galveston Texas in 1900. For starters, this city’s highest point was only 8.7 feet above sea level. Even the slightest of floods would greatly impact Galveston. Although the book notes that many of the houses were raises on stilts and brick, this proved to not be enough when the hurricane hit. It also seemed that Isaac started be become a little cocky in his confidence that a hurricane could never hurt Galveston. He gave speeches and wrote articles on how Galveston location was perfect for it was shielded from hurricanes. Isaac talked about how the shallow water off the coast of Galveston was perfect for destroying the waves of a hurricane. Later knowledge shows that these shallow waters only feed into the storms power. Based on Isaac’s articles, the city of Galveston decided against building a seawall to help protect them from any sort of storms. Another mistake the U.S. Weather Bureau made was cutting of telegrams by the Cubans. The U.S. had become jealous in the Cuban’s ability to predict hurricanes. However, it turns out that the Cuban’s were much more knowledgeable in predicting hurricanes and they correctly tracked the storm for heading towards Texas. The U.S. predicted the storm as going through Florida and eventually dumping into the Atlantic. For this reason the Texas and the rest of the U.S. thought they had nothing to worry about and were unprepared for any such storm. Other factors that played into this Swiss cheese model was that the storm knocked down telegraph lines in Key West, thus hindering the ability to predict the pattern of the storm. Also there were no other hurricanes during this season of 1900 in the Gulf of Mexico. The summer of 1900 already created record hot temperature at the time and by not having any hurricanes go through the Gulf the waters remained very warm. These warm waters helped make the hurricane stronger that hit Galveston. People were ignoring the signs that severe weather was about hit Galveston. For example, Isaac and others noticed that there were high waves and rising water despite any wind at the time. This would have indicated that a storm was further out at sea to cause these waves that reached Galveston. Also a lot of the people were playing in the water throughout the town and along the beach that had started to flood the city when they should have been evacuating the city and getting to high ground. People noticed the water continually to rise rapidly and even could see the water flow from east to west. After awhile as winds and rising continued to hit the city did people start to become concerned. However, many people just thought of this as another flood and everything would be fine for people continued to carry on with their daily routines. But when things like the roof collapsing at Ritter’s Restaurant and dead bodies flowed through the city, people started to realize that a bad storm had arrived. Just to show how rapid the water was rising, Isaac and other’s noted at one time the water rose 4 feet in only 4 seconds. People started to get to higher grounds in buildings. As it turned out this proved to be fatal the strong winds and other debris carried in the water would act at battery rams to houses. People talked about how strong the wind was and said they even saw bricks being blown horizontal to the ground. The hurricane destroyed almost all of the buildings and the people in them. The story of how Isaac and his family survived seemed impossible. They were in there house, which was considered one of the stronger homes in the city, and when the water carried it away and eventually knocked it over most of their family escaped. However, his wife, Cora, and many of the other fifty people who took shelter there, were unable to resurface form the water. Isaac’s family, which included his three daughters, along with Joseph managed to stay afloat and various pieces of debris flowing in the water and eventually survived the storm. Unfortunately, his wife who was also pregnant at the time did not survive the hurricane. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the storm had a barometric reading of 27.49 inches and an estimated wind speed of 200 mph. When Larson described the damage in the aftermath of the hurricane, it was hard to imagine such things. When groups came back into the city to search for survivors on lifeboats, it reminded from the scene from the 1997 film Titanic, when they had to move away dead bodies as the boat moved through. Once the waters had receded, with temperatures around 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the smell of eroding corpses filled the city. There were so many dead bodies that they ran out of places to bury everyone so that had to burn the corpses. I cannot imagine the horrific smell that would have filled the city as they tried to clean up. It was hard for the people to know how many people actually died, but they estimated the death toll at 8,000 making it one of the deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history. Despite this disaster causing so many deaths due to the inability for the Weather Bureau to do their job, they made is seem so as though they had no responsibility for so many deaths. Following the hurricane, the ban on Cuban weather reports. Also the city decided to build a seawall which withstodd many hurricanes in 1919, 1932, 1941, 1943, 1949, 1957, 1961, and in 1983. After the storm, Isaac became obsessed as to why this hurricane that hit Galveston killed so many people. He was stationed in New Orleans where he retired by request of the Weather Bureau.
