Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History, Erik Larson
First published in 1999, Larson’s book tells of a deadly hurricane and of Isaac Cline, who led the U.S. Weather Bureau’s local office. As usual, Larson’s history reads like an engrossing novel, full of vivid characters, strong descriptions, and absorbing action.
Cline distinguished himself during his education at Hiwassee College, earning a recommendation from that institution’s president to General William Hazen, in command of the Army weather service. In 1882 Hazen head-hunted Isaac Cline to join the outfit. At that time, the organization faced internal corruption and public scorn, its forecasts no better than random guesses. Cline did not much care for Army life, but he enthusiastically pursued the study of meteorology.
In 1891 Isaac wound up taking charge of the Galveston weather station. In 1893, the service left the Army and became a unit of the Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Weather Bureau, now headed by the egotistical Willis Moore.
In Galveston, Isaac met and married his wife Cora, became the father of three daughters, and recruited his younger brother Joseph (the quality of assistants that Moore sent Isaac’s way was sub-par at best). Cline tried to understand and to formulate a Law of Storms. Maddeningly, Moore was fiercely protective of the Bureau’s data. He strictly forbade exchanging information with Cuban meteorologists, who had a respectable track record forecasting tropical storms. They were superstitious peasants, Moore said. He also barred Bureau employees from mentioning the word “hurricane” in print, except to deny that any given storm was one.
As for Isaac, he asserted that Galveston was hurricane-proof. In early September 1900, a definite tropical storm developed and lashed Cuba, but Isaac insisted it would turn north somewhere around the Florida Keys and scoot up the coast. It did not, but barreled west and right into Galveston, where it caused a storm surge that destroyed about half of all the buildings on the island and killed upward of 6,000 people (though until his death in 1955 Isaac insisted that the actual toll was only half that).
We see the storm’s toll on the Clines, too. Joseph had warned that the storm was coming and that Isaac should call for an evacuation; no, Isaac said, this was just a Gulf gale because the Law of Storms said the big one had turned north. Terrible things happened. An orphanage was home to 103 orphans and nuns, until the storm killed all but three of them. Isaac’s wife drowned. His and Joseph’s houses were destroyed. Isaac created a myth of his own: he had raced along the shore on that morning urging people to evacuate. Larson shows how that never happened. Joseph remained furious because Isaac had disregarded his advice that the family needed to move to higher ground. Nonsense, Isaac said. His house would weather anything. It did not
The Cline brothers ceased even speaking to each other. Galveston, which had been on track to become the major Texas port, was never the same after that September. And Larson tells us the story of a most imperfect understanding of a fatally close to perfect storm.
Recommended.
