Emily M. (nnaylime) - reviewed on 12/19/2009 + 14 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 2

I really like Larson's writing style - adding a novelistic element to prose. This was a truly horrifying and compelling story about the September 1900 storm that all but leveled Galveston, TX.

Of course, it was also about a period of time and the men and science of that time. Meteorology was in its infancy, and the bureaucracy was bloated and full of distrust . . . ultimately creating a situation where warnings could've been given but weren't.

And the resulting fallout was . . . both personally and on city-wide scale cataclysmic.

Though from it people learned. Galveston was raised. A seawall was built, and though future hurricanes hit the city (As a Houston resident, I remember watching Alcia hit in 1983) and led to *some* destruction, it was never on the scale of 1900.

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