Isaac's Storm

Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History, Erik Larson (The Worst Hard Time; Devil and the White City --both highly recommended).

Unreasonably short one-sentence description of the book: The story of the hurricane that decimated Galveston, Texas in 1900, centered on Isaac Cline, the resident meteorologist stationed there.

Random snippets:

• The city was not evacuated, despite sufficient evidence that a deadly storm was approaching. Many of the more than 6000 lost lives could have been saved were it not for politics, egos and a tragic unwillingness to admit the possibility of errors in judgment.
• Prior to the flood, Galveston was a bustling city of great promise, with over 500 saloons.  "The city exhibited a rare harmony of spirit. Blacks, whites, Jews and immigrants lived and worked side by side with an astonishing degree of mutual tolerance. Through the Negro Longshoremen's Association, Galveston's black population controlled wharf labor and enjoyed a standard of living higher than almost anywhere else in the country."
• During this period, meteorology was an emerging science and the National Weather Bureau was trying to establish credibility with a skeptical public.
• Generally, people believed that no storm could be greater than the worst of the past--a common human fallacy. Cline, a respected meteorologist, labeled those that suggested Galveston could be ravaged by a hurricane as suffering from "absurd delusions." "It would be impossible for any cyclone to create a storm wave which could materially injure the city."
• Related fact: A tsunami is a small hump of water travelling at great speeds--up to 500 mph--which explodes when it hits shores.
• So many Galveston citizens were washed away in the sea that many people would not eat fish, shrimp or crabs for several years.  Those corpses that remained were stacked and burned, the stench of the pyres carrying miles out to sea.
• The Galveston Flood exhibit was one of the most popular at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, where a machine launched an artificial tidal wave over a model of the city.
• In 1910 a seawall was constructed, rising 17 feet above the beach and behind a wall of 27-foot granite boulders, which was referred to as "one of the greatest engineering works of modern times."  In addition, the entire city was elevated; using manual screw jacks to raise 2000 buildings, which were supported by 11 million pounds of fill.
• Galveston's Relief Committee was a new form of government, with a strong mayor overseeing commissioners for various functions.  This was hailed as a new dawn, supplanting Tammany style city organizations.

For 2017, I am revisiting 50 books I've enjoyed in the past few years and sharing a few interesting  facts and findings I discovered in them.