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A review by wildweasel105
Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson
4.0
When will man ever learn that he cannot...ever...predict Nature? Erik Larson has a masterful gift of bringing this question to the forefront of history by way of the recorded events surrounding the deadliest hurricane to strike the U.S. - the Galveston hurricane of September 1900.
This is the story of one Isaac Cline, who is head of his district office of the newly formed U.S. Weather Bureau in Galveston Texas. His decisions, both good and bad, ultimately lead to the costly underestimation of the track of the monster storm that swept past Cuba and entered the Gulf of Mexico rather than steer northward towards Florida as most of his colleagues predicted.
But remember, 120 years ago, there was only a fraction of the advanced technology we enjoy today. The seemingly "off the cuff", rudimentary observations and data collecting capabilities of these weathermen of yesteryear simply could not match the precision of storm prediction they really needed. The result: a massive destruction of one of the fastest growing cities on the Gulf at the turn of the 20th century.
This is a must for both meteorology and history buffs!
This is the story of one Isaac Cline, who is head of his district office of the newly formed U.S. Weather Bureau in Galveston Texas. His decisions, both good and bad, ultimately lead to the costly underestimation of the track of the monster storm that swept past Cuba and entered the Gulf of Mexico rather than steer northward towards Florida as most of his colleagues predicted.
But remember, 120 years ago, there was only a fraction of the advanced technology we enjoy today. The seemingly "off the cuff", rudimentary observations and data collecting capabilities of these weathermen of yesteryear simply could not match the precision of storm prediction they really needed. The result: a massive destruction of one of the fastest growing cities on the Gulf at the turn of the 20th century.
This is a must for both meteorology and history buffs!