Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars | 9,290 ratings
Price: 15.75
Last update: 09-09-2024
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At the dawn of the 20th 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.
Top reviews from the United States
Mary Picard5.0 out of 5 stars
Recommend to all a very well written book of history
Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2024
Read this in two days! I love how this author writes! Easy read but full of historical facts!!! Recommend to all my friends and family
wxnotes4.0 out of 5 stars
One of the worst natural disasters in American history
Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2011
Galveston, Texas was one of the most vulnerable US cities ever built. The tens of thousands of residents on the island in 1900 were unaware of this fact. Times were too exciting to be concerned with natural disasters: the frontier had closed, the American West was booming, and the race with Houston was on to become Texas' primary port city. Besides, their trusted meteorologist, Isaac Cline, insisted as a rule that Texas was safe from hurricanes. Isaac's Storm details the disastrous hurricane that permanently changed the rules and the history of Galveston forever. Erik Larson's carefully researched book explains the systemic mistakes that contributed to the disaster and shares the accounts of those who survived the worst of the storm. Larson prudently combines the perspectives of the government officials, victims, and rescuers to tell a complete story of one of America's worst natural disasters.
While Isaac Cline serves as Larson's main source, the book is more of a story about the hurricane than about Isaac himself. Still, Isaac Cline was a fascinating character and Larson gives a detailed history of his early life and education background. It quickly becomes apparent that Cline was a good man trying to do his best to understand and predict the weather despite working for the incompetent US Weather Bureau. Isaac Cline's shortcomings were not directly his fault, as he lived in a time of limited technology and scientific understanding of the weather and a career dependent upon keeping his superiors appeased.
The Weather Bureau's Washington officials, headed by Willis Moore, were more interested in raising their own stature than improving their department. The Bureau's forecasts took on an aura of supreme confidence, characterized by a "complete absence of doubt or qualification." (Larson 114). Ignoring evidence to the contrary, they predicted the incoming disturbance to recurve northward before reaching Texas, since that's what all West Indies hurricanes did. In reality, the disturbance was a powerful storm guided westward by high pressure over the eastern US.
The Bureau also clashed with Cuban weather forecasters, who were decades ahead of their time due to the warning system established by Fr. Bernito Vines in the late 1800s. Larson's analysis of the romantic nature of Cuban forecasters may contain some hyperbole, but the primary theme is that the Cubans took the cautious approach due to the uncertainty of forecasting, while the optimistic US Weather Bureau would not even mention the word "hurricane" in its forecasts in order not to agitate the public. The decision by Moore to block weather cables from Cuba would be considered criminal by today's standards.
Since the Weather Bureau's leadership was counterproductive, the reader may hope that Isaac Cline will step up as the hero and save the residents of Galveston from impending doom. Isaac, the loyal servant, was not up to the task. He gave lectures and wrote editorials supporting the idea that the island was safe from a major disaster. One of the biggest strengths of Isaac's Storm is Larson's analysis of Galveson islands' attitude, corroborated by Cline, toward the island's vulnerability. At the turn of the century, Americans began to feel invincible to natural disasters. The iron, steel, and steam age was at its peak and people were rushing to western boomtowns with promises of wealth and success. Galveston was also in direct competition with Houston as Texas' port city, so it certainly could not show any sign of weakness.
Any natural disaster of this magnitude requires a perfect hit and a long list of contributing factors. But above all, the science and technology had not yet reached the level needed to prevent a disaster. In the 21st Century, people still live dangerously close to the coast, track forecasts can still go wrong, and people still are reluctant to evacuate. The difference is that there is an advanced communication and rescue network to relay the latest information and advise people to leave, or save them if they are trapped. As Larson notes, even a minor upgrade such as ship radios would have allowed the Louisiana to radio ahead and warn Galveston that a hurricane was coming. As Larson's map shows, not all of Galveston Island was covered in water, so the death toll could have been mitigated with any sort of definite warning about the hazard that was approaching.
Larson focuses mostly on the human and societal causes and impacts, but also includes a brief but dramatic elucidation of the hurricane's inception from an easterly wave into a dangerous cyclone. The account was well researched and is meteorologically correct, but the power of the storm is much better described by firsthand observations than by the combination of scientific definitions and vivid imagery of water vapor condensing, rising, and mixing while African children observe the clouds (Larson 22).
As a reporter and historian, Larson is charged with uncovering the "whys" and "hows" of the Galveston Hurricane and connecting them with the broader themes of US History. To an extent it is necessary to describe the basic laws of nature that govern the hurricane and the prevailing wind patterns that guided it straight to Galveston. Hurricanes are ferocious and extremely powerful, but their purpose is to redistribute heat in the atmosphere and ocean, not to punish the ignorant humans that dared build a city on its coastline.
The above is not necessarily intended as a critique of Larson, as his descriptions of the developing hurricane are pithy and limited to early in the book. Still, Larson's third-person storm narratives, specifically pages 26-27, are too melodramatic. Larson introduces Chaos Theory as the cause of the hurricane's formation and then quotes William Jennings Bryan's famous refute of manifest destiny spoken merely a month before the Galveston Hurricane:
Destiny is the subterfuge of the invertebrate, who, lacking the courage to oppose error, seeks some plausible excuse for supporting it.
The quote does sum up the errors of the Weather Bureau, Galveston residents, and Isaac, but the quote is out of place without a deeper explanation of the political and cultural feuds ongoing at the time. It would have been interesting and pertinent to add more about the prevailing culture instead of the mechanics of hurricane formation. Considering the number of mistakes leading up to the hurricane, one might have expected some redemption or admission of failure in Isaac's Storm's closing chapters. Unfortunately, Larson finds that little was learned. Galveston constructed a sea wall that has since held, but it was impossible to save the city's once booming economy. Willis Moore of the Weather Bureau fabricated Isaac Cline's account into folklore, suggesting that thousands of lives were saved by the Bureau and that hurricane warnings had been issued in advance. Neither was true. Moore wrote the storm off as an anomaly, a freak of nature (Larson 272). Larson notes that a few editorials were critical of the Bureau, but Moore covered up the injustices for the most part. We now know that the Galveston storm did not precipitate reform and history repeated itself in the 1928 Lake Okeechobee Hurricane.
Considering the book's title, the most surprising conclusion is that Isaac Cline is not the hero of the Galveston Hurricane. Cline did his best, but his weather knowledge and instincts were simply not enough with the technology of the time and conflicting bureau instincts. Haunted by the storm, Isaac went on to become a leading hurricane expert, especially in the area of storm surge, which was the primary killer in Galveston. Isaac never forgot that his decisions cost many lives, including some of his family members. A storm of this caliber changes history forever and most of it is not for the better.
To aid understanding visually, Isaac's Storm could have benefited from some pictures of the devastation and a map of Galveston Bay. While describing the aftermath, Larson quotes several residents and visitors who explain they were left speechless or that words could not describe the devastation. Although the book omits pictures, it is easy to look a few up on the internet (see Wikipedia)
A map of the Galveston Bay area from the time would also have been helpful. Galveston Island's geographic location explains how storm surge battered the island from both directions, but it was hard to envision Larson's descriptions without seeing how the long fetch from a northerly wind could create a surge on the backside of the island. In addition, the locations of various railroads and the large bridge were left to the readers' imagination.
The 1900 Galveston Hurricane goes down in the record books as the deadliest hurricane in US History by far, with an estimated 8,000 to 12,000 dead. Considering the devastation and the wealth of available primary sources, it is surprising that it took until the 100th anniversary for an historian to write a full account of the storm. With hurricane science finally advancing significantly in the 1940s, a death toll of this magnitude will almost certainly never be seen again in the US. Unfortunately, science and advance warnings cannot protect property, and we have seen Miami (1926) and New Orleans (2005) both suffer long term economic damage. Future hurricanes will undoubtedly wipe out coastal development again.
Those who follow recent US Hurricanes may also be left wondering why the Galveston Hurricane was an impressive Category 4 at landfall, while other recent hurricanes such as Rita (2005) and Ike (2008) weakened before landfall in the western Gulf. The most likely explanation is that a warm eddy broke off from the loop current and drifted westward until it was in shallow water off the Texas coast. With no cold water below to mix upward, the storm was able to intensify in a region that is generally incapable of maintaining a Category 4 hurricane. Since Larson took the time to describe how hurricanes form, he should have gone into more detail about the loop current eddies.
Isaac's Storm is a well researched book that is enlightening and informative for both the weather enthusiast and the average reader. The chronicles of the weather bureau's failures are especially stunning. Where historical details were not available, Larson constructs a reasonable story to help the reader envision life at the end of the nineteenth century. The accounts of the storm are as vivid and terrifying as a horror novel. What is most interesting about Isaac's Storm is not just Isaac Cline's personal beliefs, but the defiant attitude of technological superiority that permeated through all levels of society from common citizens up to the US government officials. Galveston in 1900 was extremely vulnerable to any kind of storm surge and there was precedent from the 1886 Indianola Hurricane. Ignorance and overconfidence were a deadly combination.
While Isaac Cline serves as Larson's main source, the book is more of a story about the hurricane than about Isaac himself. Still, Isaac Cline was a fascinating character and Larson gives a detailed history of his early life and education background. It quickly becomes apparent that Cline was a good man trying to do his best to understand and predict the weather despite working for the incompetent US Weather Bureau. Isaac Cline's shortcomings were not directly his fault, as he lived in a time of limited technology and scientific understanding of the weather and a career dependent upon keeping his superiors appeased.
The Weather Bureau's Washington officials, headed by Willis Moore, were more interested in raising their own stature than improving their department. The Bureau's forecasts took on an aura of supreme confidence, characterized by a "complete absence of doubt or qualification." (Larson 114). Ignoring evidence to the contrary, they predicted the incoming disturbance to recurve northward before reaching Texas, since that's what all West Indies hurricanes did. In reality, the disturbance was a powerful storm guided westward by high pressure over the eastern US.
The Bureau also clashed with Cuban weather forecasters, who were decades ahead of their time due to the warning system established by Fr. Bernito Vines in the late 1800s. Larson's analysis of the romantic nature of Cuban forecasters may contain some hyperbole, but the primary theme is that the Cubans took the cautious approach due to the uncertainty of forecasting, while the optimistic US Weather Bureau would not even mention the word "hurricane" in its forecasts in order not to agitate the public. The decision by Moore to block weather cables from Cuba would be considered criminal by today's standards.
Since the Weather Bureau's leadership was counterproductive, the reader may hope that Isaac Cline will step up as the hero and save the residents of Galveston from impending doom. Isaac, the loyal servant, was not up to the task. He gave lectures and wrote editorials supporting the idea that the island was safe from a major disaster. One of the biggest strengths of Isaac's Storm is Larson's analysis of Galveson islands' attitude, corroborated by Cline, toward the island's vulnerability. At the turn of the century, Americans began to feel invincible to natural disasters. The iron, steel, and steam age was at its peak and people were rushing to western boomtowns with promises of wealth and success. Galveston was also in direct competition with Houston as Texas' port city, so it certainly could not show any sign of weakness.
Any natural disaster of this magnitude requires a perfect hit and a long list of contributing factors. But above all, the science and technology had not yet reached the level needed to prevent a disaster. In the 21st Century, people still live dangerously close to the coast, track forecasts can still go wrong, and people still are reluctant to evacuate. The difference is that there is an advanced communication and rescue network to relay the latest information and advise people to leave, or save them if they are trapped. As Larson notes, even a minor upgrade such as ship radios would have allowed the Louisiana to radio ahead and warn Galveston that a hurricane was coming. As Larson's map shows, not all of Galveston Island was covered in water, so the death toll could have been mitigated with any sort of definite warning about the hazard that was approaching.
Larson focuses mostly on the human and societal causes and impacts, but also includes a brief but dramatic elucidation of the hurricane's inception from an easterly wave into a dangerous cyclone. The account was well researched and is meteorologically correct, but the power of the storm is much better described by firsthand observations than by the combination of scientific definitions and vivid imagery of water vapor condensing, rising, and mixing while African children observe the clouds (Larson 22).
As a reporter and historian, Larson is charged with uncovering the "whys" and "hows" of the Galveston Hurricane and connecting them with the broader themes of US History. To an extent it is necessary to describe the basic laws of nature that govern the hurricane and the prevailing wind patterns that guided it straight to Galveston. Hurricanes are ferocious and extremely powerful, but their purpose is to redistribute heat in the atmosphere and ocean, not to punish the ignorant humans that dared build a city on its coastline.
The above is not necessarily intended as a critique of Larson, as his descriptions of the developing hurricane are pithy and limited to early in the book. Still, Larson's third-person storm narratives, specifically pages 26-27, are too melodramatic. Larson introduces Chaos Theory as the cause of the hurricane's formation and then quotes William Jennings Bryan's famous refute of manifest destiny spoken merely a month before the Galveston Hurricane:
Destiny is the subterfuge of the invertebrate, who, lacking the courage to oppose error, seeks some plausible excuse for supporting it.
The quote does sum up the errors of the Weather Bureau, Galveston residents, and Isaac, but the quote is out of place without a deeper explanation of the political and cultural feuds ongoing at the time. It would have been interesting and pertinent to add more about the prevailing culture instead of the mechanics of hurricane formation. Considering the number of mistakes leading up to the hurricane, one might have expected some redemption or admission of failure in Isaac's Storm's closing chapters. Unfortunately, Larson finds that little was learned. Galveston constructed a sea wall that has since held, but it was impossible to save the city's once booming economy. Willis Moore of the Weather Bureau fabricated Isaac Cline's account into folklore, suggesting that thousands of lives were saved by the Bureau and that hurricane warnings had been issued in advance. Neither was true. Moore wrote the storm off as an anomaly, a freak of nature (Larson 272). Larson notes that a few editorials were critical of the Bureau, but Moore covered up the injustices for the most part. We now know that the Galveston storm did not precipitate reform and history repeated itself in the 1928 Lake Okeechobee Hurricane.
Considering the book's title, the most surprising conclusion is that Isaac Cline is not the hero of the Galveston Hurricane. Cline did his best, but his weather knowledge and instincts were simply not enough with the technology of the time and conflicting bureau instincts. Haunted by the storm, Isaac went on to become a leading hurricane expert, especially in the area of storm surge, which was the primary killer in Galveston. Isaac never forgot that his decisions cost many lives, including some of his family members. A storm of this caliber changes history forever and most of it is not for the better.
To aid understanding visually, Isaac's Storm could have benefited from some pictures of the devastation and a map of Galveston Bay. While describing the aftermath, Larson quotes several residents and visitors who explain they were left speechless or that words could not describe the devastation. Although the book omits pictures, it is easy to look a few up on the internet (see Wikipedia)
A map of the Galveston Bay area from the time would also have been helpful. Galveston Island's geographic location explains how storm surge battered the island from both directions, but it was hard to envision Larson's descriptions without seeing how the long fetch from a northerly wind could create a surge on the backside of the island. In addition, the locations of various railroads and the large bridge were left to the readers' imagination.
The 1900 Galveston Hurricane goes down in the record books as the deadliest hurricane in US History by far, with an estimated 8,000 to 12,000 dead. Considering the devastation and the wealth of available primary sources, it is surprising that it took until the 100th anniversary for an historian to write a full account of the storm. With hurricane science finally advancing significantly in the 1940s, a death toll of this magnitude will almost certainly never be seen again in the US. Unfortunately, science and advance warnings cannot protect property, and we have seen Miami (1926) and New Orleans (2005) both suffer long term economic damage. Future hurricanes will undoubtedly wipe out coastal development again.
Those who follow recent US Hurricanes may also be left wondering why the Galveston Hurricane was an impressive Category 4 at landfall, while other recent hurricanes such as Rita (2005) and Ike (2008) weakened before landfall in the western Gulf. The most likely explanation is that a warm eddy broke off from the loop current and drifted westward until it was in shallow water off the Texas coast. With no cold water below to mix upward, the storm was able to intensify in a region that is generally incapable of maintaining a Category 4 hurricane. Since Larson took the time to describe how hurricanes form, he should have gone into more detail about the loop current eddies.
Isaac's Storm is a well researched book that is enlightening and informative for both the weather enthusiast and the average reader. The chronicles of the weather bureau's failures are especially stunning. Where historical details were not available, Larson constructs a reasonable story to help the reader envision life at the end of the nineteenth century. The accounts of the storm are as vivid and terrifying as a horror novel. What is most interesting about Isaac's Storm is not just Isaac Cline's personal beliefs, but the defiant attitude of technological superiority that permeated through all levels of society from common citizens up to the US government officials. Galveston in 1900 was extremely vulnerable to any kind of storm surge and there was precedent from the 1886 Indianola Hurricane. Ignorance and overconfidence were a deadly combination.
Barry5.0 out of 5 stars
Great read
Reviewed in the United States on May 16, 2024
This was a great book about an amazing and devastating event.
Daniel L Grace5.0 out of 5 stars
Great History - great book. I recommend it to any reader who enjoys reading real history.
Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2024
If you love to read history, you'll love to read Isaac's Storm. It demonstrates the folly of human beings
in any and all ages.
in any and all ages.
Steven M. Anthony3.0 out of 5 stars
Short History of the 1900 Galveston Hurricane
Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2020
I’ve read several of Erik Larson’s non-fiction works and have always found him to be educational and entertaining. This book, focuses on the Galveston hurricane of 1900, the largest natural disaster in American history, killing over 6,000 people. The book is told largely through the eyes of the National Weather Service station agent in Galveston at the time, Isaac Cline.
As you can imagine, weather forecasting, at the turn of the 20th century, was in its infancy, especially as regards tropical storms and hurricanes. The 1900 Galveston hurricane hit a Texas coast that was completely unprepared, at least partially as a result of conflict between American and Cuban weather services.
Unbeknownst to me, Galveston was one of the most prosperous cities in the United States at the time of the hurricane, eclipsing its next-door neighbor, Houston, as the port of choice for the region. The hurricane largely destroyed the city and allowed Houston to supplant Galveston for regional supremacy.
The story has many interesting tidbits, not just as relates to Galveston and the hurricane, but also the formation and early operation of the National Weather Service and previous posting held by Cline.
The book is rather short and contains a few silly exaggerations, such as claiming that Cline registered a temperature of 134 degrees one summer in Amarillo, and that a raging flood resulted from an upstream hailstorm in the same area, due solely from melting of the hail stones. It also claims storm surges of over 30 feet for the Galveston Hurricane, which certainly seems unlikely.
All in all, a short entertaining read, but not exceptional.
As you can imagine, weather forecasting, at the turn of the 20th century, was in its infancy, especially as regards tropical storms and hurricanes. The 1900 Galveston hurricane hit a Texas coast that was completely unprepared, at least partially as a result of conflict between American and Cuban weather services.
Unbeknownst to me, Galveston was one of the most prosperous cities in the United States at the time of the hurricane, eclipsing its next-door neighbor, Houston, as the port of choice for the region. The hurricane largely destroyed the city and allowed Houston to supplant Galveston for regional supremacy.
The story has many interesting tidbits, not just as relates to Galveston and the hurricane, but also the formation and early operation of the National Weather Service and previous posting held by Cline.
The book is rather short and contains a few silly exaggerations, such as claiming that Cline registered a temperature of 134 degrees one summer in Amarillo, and that a raging flood resulted from an upstream hailstorm in the same area, due solely from melting of the hail stones. It also claims storm surges of over 30 feet for the Galveston Hurricane, which certainly seems unlikely.
All in all, a short entertaining read, but not exceptional.
Mary Lins4.0 out of 5 stars
Riveting!
Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2022
“Isaac’s Storm” by Erik Larson, tells the true story of the 1900 Galveston hurricane that devastated Galveston and allowed Houston to become the 4th largest port in the country. Mainly this is the story of Isaac Cline, who was a meteorologist at the time, when meteorology and forecasting were rudimentary (compared to today). The book is rich with details of the storm’s path, progress, and destruction, as well as the peccadilloes and politics of the US Weather Bureau of the era.
I currently live, and grew up in, the southeast part of Houston, just 30 miles from Galveston. We regard Galveston as our most fun and magical sister-city. From the time I was a child to just last month, when I go over the Causeway on I-45 and onto the island, if feel like the scene in “The Wizard of Oz” when Dorothy goes from sepia Kansas into Technicolor Oz. I truly love Galveston and have always been enamored with her rich history. (Thank goodness its Juneteeth history has finally been recognized with a Federal Holiday!)
All that to say that I found Larson’s account to be well researched, rich is detail, riveting, and both heartbreaking and hopeful. I don’t read much non-fiction, but this was as engrossing and “close to home”.
I currently live, and grew up in, the southeast part of Houston, just 30 miles from Galveston. We regard Galveston as our most fun and magical sister-city. From the time I was a child to just last month, when I go over the Causeway on I-45 and onto the island, if feel like the scene in “The Wizard of Oz” when Dorothy goes from sepia Kansas into Technicolor Oz. I truly love Galveston and have always been enamored with her rich history. (Thank goodness its Juneteeth history has finally been recognized with a Federal Holiday!)
All that to say that I found Larson’s account to be well researched, rich is detail, riveting, and both heartbreaking and hopeful. I don’t read much non-fiction, but this was as engrossing and “close to home”.
pattyo5.0 out of 5 stars
Isaac' s Storm
Reviewed in the United States on March 23, 2024
I was going to recommend a
Book Club read,but decided it would not be a good discussion book. However I found this book very interesting and historically informative.
Book Club read,but decided it would not be a good discussion book. However I found this book very interesting and historically informative.