Isaac's Storm The Drowning of Galveston Author:Erik Larson On 8 September 1900, the deadlieset hurricane in American History ploughed into the unprepared port of Galveston, Texas. One-hundred-and-fifty mile an hour winds shredded clapboard houses with the force of dynamite. The sea followed, a solid wall of water twenty feet high. — The city's highest point was nine feet above sea level. Overnight be... more »tween six and ten thousand people lost their lives, houses were reduced to matchwood, and bodies were strewn miles inland across the prairie. It was, and still is, the worst natural disaster ever to strike the United States.
At the turn of the century the new US Weather Bureau had the finest forecasting technology at their disposal. With this 'perfect science' they were confident they were in control of the world, that the new century would be the American century. And in Galveston, Texas they had one of their most dependable meteorologists, Isaac Cline. Cline, like the rest of America, believed that man's ingenuity had tamed nature. He believed there was nothing to fear.
Fatally, Cline failed to read the signs until it was too late. By then, the bath-houses on the sea-front were being crushed by rolling breakers, children were playing unawares in the rising water, the railway line was underwater and ships in the bay were fighting for their lives.« less