Customer Reviews

Isaac's Storm: The Drowning of Galveston - 8 September 1900

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I have been facinated by hurricanes since I was a kid and experienced Hurricane Agnes in 1972, which by the time it reached this area, was only a tropical storm, and still did major damage. I loved this book. The author gives such a vivid description of what is is like to be a mere human being at the mercy of such a powerful storm. I think this book should be required reading for middle school or high school students studying weather; it has all the elements of science and human drama.

Great book,reads like a novel...the storm is,by far, one of the most interesting and compelling characters, from its humble beginning as a warm breeze on the edge of the African deserts, to its transformation into one of the most devastating hurricanes to ever strike the Texas coast. In their pigheaded jockeying for positions in the newly formed National Weather Service, the petty bureaucrats blew this one out of their collective wazoos. Their refusal to listen to, indeed, even squashing the advice from Cuban forecasters,who had been observing storms for a few hundred years, cost thousands of lives.This should be MUST reading for anyone living on the U.S.coast.

This is a very compelling book and progressively sucks you into its real-life drama. I've read alot of books on hurricanes, natural disasters and outdoor adventures and this is one of the best in my opinion. Larson does a good job of showing how the National Weather Bureau worked in a pre-Doppler age and how one man's choices could have dire effects on how people responded to a storm. I am reminded of the Hurricane of '38 when people perished on islands only a stone's throw away from the Connecticut shore. It's inconceivable to us that so many people could be caught unaware in this day and age with today's technology but there still remains a certain psyche of "weather denial" that existed in 1900. The book becomes even more gripping as the waters rise to 2nd floors of homes and people struggle against the currents rushing through the streets in complete blackness, no less. Larson also is thorough about the aftermath and the horrific aspect of many floating bodies to contend with, as morbid as it sounds, he paints a vivid picture. It all makes me wish I had studied metereology!