Isaac's Storm: A Man, A Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History

by Erik Larson
273 pgs

As you can tell from this blog, I read very little by authors who write non-fiction. But Erik Larson is one of the few whose books make it to my list, and each one has been worth my time. This one was no exception. Even though it's one of his earlier books, and the shortest one I've read so far, because it was written by Larson, it was both educational and entertaining at the same time.

Isaac's Storm is the historical account of the hurricane that hit Galveston Texas in 1900, killing somewhere between 6,000 and 12,000 people, making it the deadliest natural disaster in United States History. Isaac Cline was the chief meteorologist at the U.S. weather Bureau's Galveston office at the time, and it was his belief that the Galveston area would never lie in the path of a hurricane. He had made his belief known in newspaper articles prior to 1900, so hen reports started coming in of the storm in the Gulf of Mexico, Cline didn't raise the alarm until it was too late for people to take steps to protect themselves.

Larson does an excellent job of not only detailing the storm and its devastation, he also does an admirable job of breathing life back to many of the people who lived in Galveston at the time, whose lives either ended, or were forever changed by the storm.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆