Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 3, 2019 8:55:30 GMT -8
Isaac's Storm
by Erik Larson
Other notable books by this author: The Devil in the White City, Thunderstruck
Info: Kindle edition
Genre: non-fiction
Publication Date: October 19, 2011
Quick Rating: A readable book about the great hurricane that flattened Galveston, Texas in 1900. It combines the fledging science of weather prediction with a detailed recounting of the event, putting you as near as you'd want to be to such a disaster.
Length: 338 pages
Summary: At the dawn of the twentieth century, a great confidence suffused America. Isaac Cline was one of the era's new men, a scientist who believed he knew all there was to know about the motion of clouds and the behavior of storms. The idea that a hurricane could damage the city of Galveston, Texas, where he was based, was to him preposterous, "an absurd delusion."
There are several things you can garner from this book. One, man is an ignoble animal (at least many are). There’s an account of the wreck on a sandbar off England. Sailors are clinging to the masts. Those on shore see them. Most venture out in boats — to salvage what cargo they can while leaving the sailors to drown (although a few people did save a significant number of these sailors).
Two, experts and bureaucrats rarely have your best interest at heart. The fledging National Weather Bureau specifically did not give out hurricane warnings because they did want to cause a panic. But the panic wasn’t the problem. It was the backlash against them if they were wrong that worried them. Can you trust them on “climate change”? Don’t.
Three, crowds are a stupid animal. It’s heartbreaking to see the floodwaters slowly descend on Galveston and yet everyone thinks it is a reason for a picnic or a day off.
Add to that author Erik Larson’s obsessive need to virtue signal (white man = bad) and you have a rip-roaring adventure.
I’m still trying to make my way through Larson’s ponderous Dead Wake about the last sailing of the Lusitania. And I will try again, if only because I’m 26% into it
But Isaac’s Storm is a much more brisk read. And the personal accounts in Dead Wake that are excruciatingly dull are better chosen and much more interesting in Isaac’s Storm.
The effect of these detailed accounts is to put you in the thick of things. By far, the best part of this book is the run-up to the hurricane when people first notice some waves crashing ashore that are a little larger than normal. While reading this you’ll be screaming “Run for the hills.” But, at least according to this account, nobody does. They’ve had floods before and the rising waters cause little alarm.
It certainly didn’t help that the official Weather Bureau was forecasting fair weather, only to much later hedge its bets by mentioning a storm — but one that was insignificant and about which no one should be alarmed.
The context of the story is a good one as well. Galveston was in rapid competition with Houston to be the port city of Texas. It’s not a spoiler to tell you that the hurricane changed the outcome of this race. But there is still much interesting history that (as a non-Texan) I’d never heard.
This is not a scientific book by any means, but it does give you a fair understanding of what the state of weather prediction was at the time. There was not much expertise at all. But there were certainly a lot of predictions. And the bureaucrats (some really horrible men) were so interested in forwarding their bureaucracies (under the guise of making sure this fledging science wasn’t besmirched) that they were hostile to anyone (such as the forecasters on Cuba) who showed more expertise than they did.
Isaac Cline himself, although an accomplished man, doesn’t ultimately come out of this as a particularly commendable character. But one of the flaws of this book is the lack of summing-up or daring to draw conclusion (other than, of course, white people are bad). For instance, while reading this you assume that nearly everyone in Galveston was drowned. But at the end (horrific as this number was), it was only about 15% of the population that was killed. We hear nothing about those who either evacuated the city or were safe in their homes, although we do learn eventually that at least a few structures survived. How many? Again, there is little overall context.
But those flaws aside, this is one of the best disaster books I’ve read. It gives you the feeling of being there. Larson articulates the fine-grained tragedies of the folks who were struggling for their lives in houses where the water was creeping ever upward. In one astonishing instance (verified by several eyewitnesses), the water increased in depth by four feet within mere seconds.
Granted, if details such as the weather don’t interest you, you might skip this one. Even so, there is enough detail about the period to make it an interesting history book. Also, at least in the Kindle edition that I read, it included no pictures. You can easily enough find those on the web but it seems a major oversight for a book such as this.
And as with some of his other books, the author seems to hyperventilate regarding “relationships.” We’re constantly told about how the relationship between Isaac and his brother became strained. But this never amounts to anything. The author speculates on why they drifted apart but this relationship (good, bad, or indifferent) is just an attempted add-on of drama that falls flat. There were some interesting bits about Clara Barton as well, but for this author, criticizing women is generally forbidden. Still, there is a suggestion the Barton was a bit of a prima donna.
Many of the negatives reviews I’ve read about this books said “too much weather.” But this a decidedly low-brow approach. Hurricanes are weather. There’s no escaping it. And I found, in fact, there were not enough details about the fledging science of weather prediction. But whatever was included was helpful background for the entire subject.
by Erik Larson
Other notable books by this author: The Devil in the White City, Thunderstruck
Info: Kindle edition
Genre: non-fiction
Publication Date: October 19, 2011
Quick Rating: A readable book about the great hurricane that flattened Galveston, Texas in 1900. It combines the fledging science of weather prediction with a detailed recounting of the event, putting you as near as you'd want to be to such a disaster.
Length: 338 pages
Summary: At the dawn of the twentieth century, a great confidence suffused America. Isaac Cline was one of the era's new men, a scientist who believed he knew all there was to know about the motion of clouds and the behavior of storms. The idea that a hurricane could damage the city of Galveston, Texas, where he was based, was to him preposterous, "an absurd delusion."
There are several things you can garner from this book. One, man is an ignoble animal (at least many are). There’s an account of the wreck on a sandbar off England. Sailors are clinging to the masts. Those on shore see them. Most venture out in boats — to salvage what cargo they can while leaving the sailors to drown (although a few people did save a significant number of these sailors).
Two, experts and bureaucrats rarely have your best interest at heart. The fledging National Weather Bureau specifically did not give out hurricane warnings because they did want to cause a panic. But the panic wasn’t the problem. It was the backlash against them if they were wrong that worried them. Can you trust them on “climate change”? Don’t.
Three, crowds are a stupid animal. It’s heartbreaking to see the floodwaters slowly descend on Galveston and yet everyone thinks it is a reason for a picnic or a day off.
Add to that author Erik Larson’s obsessive need to virtue signal (white man = bad) and you have a rip-roaring adventure.
I’m still trying to make my way through Larson’s ponderous Dead Wake about the last sailing of the Lusitania. And I will try again, if only because I’m 26% into it
But Isaac’s Storm is a much more brisk read. And the personal accounts in Dead Wake that are excruciatingly dull are better chosen and much more interesting in Isaac’s Storm.
The effect of these detailed accounts is to put you in the thick of things. By far, the best part of this book is the run-up to the hurricane when people first notice some waves crashing ashore that are a little larger than normal. While reading this you’ll be screaming “Run for the hills.” But, at least according to this account, nobody does. They’ve had floods before and the rising waters cause little alarm.
It certainly didn’t help that the official Weather Bureau was forecasting fair weather, only to much later hedge its bets by mentioning a storm — but one that was insignificant and about which no one should be alarmed.
The context of the story is a good one as well. Galveston was in rapid competition with Houston to be the port city of Texas. It’s not a spoiler to tell you that the hurricane changed the outcome of this race. But there is still much interesting history that (as a non-Texan) I’d never heard.
This is not a scientific book by any means, but it does give you a fair understanding of what the state of weather prediction was at the time. There was not much expertise at all. But there were certainly a lot of predictions. And the bureaucrats (some really horrible men) were so interested in forwarding their bureaucracies (under the guise of making sure this fledging science wasn’t besmirched) that they were hostile to anyone (such as the forecasters on Cuba) who showed more expertise than they did.
Isaac Cline himself, although an accomplished man, doesn’t ultimately come out of this as a particularly commendable character. But one of the flaws of this book is the lack of summing-up or daring to draw conclusion (other than, of course, white people are bad). For instance, while reading this you assume that nearly everyone in Galveston was drowned. But at the end (horrific as this number was), it was only about 15% of the population that was killed. We hear nothing about those who either evacuated the city or were safe in their homes, although we do learn eventually that at least a few structures survived. How many? Again, there is little overall context.
But those flaws aside, this is one of the best disaster books I’ve read. It gives you the feeling of being there. Larson articulates the fine-grained tragedies of the folks who were struggling for their lives in houses where the water was creeping ever upward. In one astonishing instance (verified by several eyewitnesses), the water increased in depth by four feet within mere seconds.
Granted, if details such as the weather don’t interest you, you might skip this one. Even so, there is enough detail about the period to make it an interesting history book. Also, at least in the Kindle edition that I read, it included no pictures. You can easily enough find those on the web but it seems a major oversight for a book such as this.
And as with some of his other books, the author seems to hyperventilate regarding “relationships.” We’re constantly told about how the relationship between Isaac and his brother became strained. But this never amounts to anything. The author speculates on why they drifted apart but this relationship (good, bad, or indifferent) is just an attempted add-on of drama that falls flat. There were some interesting bits about Clara Barton as well, but for this author, criticizing women is generally forbidden. Still, there is a suggestion the Barton was a bit of a prima donna.
Many of the negatives reviews I’ve read about this books said “too much weather.” But this a decidedly low-brow approach. Hurricanes are weather. There’s no escaping it. And I found, in fact, there were not enough details about the fledging science of weather prediction. But whatever was included was helpful background for the entire subject.