Isaac's Storm Book Summary - Isaac's Storm Book explained in key points

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Isaac's Storm summary

Name: Isaac's Storm
Rating: 4.1 (25 reviews)
Author: Erik Larson

Erik Larson

A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History

4.1 (25 ratings)

28 mins

Table of Contents

Isaac's Storm
summarized in 9 key ideas

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What’s in it for me? Discover the fascinating story behind one of America’s worst natural disasters.

At the dawn of the twentieth century, Galveston, Texas was a city with boundless promise. It had a diverse population that coexisted with a remarkable level of harmony. Galveston was a place of prosperity for many.

But that all changed on September 8, 1900. By the time the sun rose on September 9, thousands would be dead, buildings disintegrated, hopes crushed. It was the worst natural disaster to hit the United States at that time, and it forever changed the course of the city’s history.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

how scientific hubris caused a massive storm to reach without warning;
how the storm forced families to make dreadful decisions; and
why some mysteries around the storm still persist.

Isaac Cline quickly rose through the ranks of the Weather Bureau to run the Galveston, Texas office.

The federal Weather Bureau started through an act of Congress in 1870. At that time it was called the Signal Corps, and its purpose was to not only provide detailed weather reports on the interior, but also for outer territories that served as bases of military operations or trade destinations.

However, by 1882, there were problems. The chief financial manager got caught embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars, employees were found to be making up forecasts, getting drunk, and using their offices for a variety of extracurricular activities. It was a mess. What the company needed was smart, diligent employees. People like Isaac Cline.

The key message here is: Isaac Cline quickly rose through the ranks of the Weather Bureau to run the Galveston, Texas office.

Isaac grew up in Monroe County, Tennessee, a land where tornadoes and summer lightning storms offered dangerous, mysterious, and exciting displays of weather’s awesome power. Isaac always had a focus to his studies, and later his career. So when the Signal Corps sent letters to colleges, seeking potential candidates to help fill its ranks, Isaac was recommended by no less than the president of his college.

Indeed, Isaac had a keen scientific mind and was a perfect match for the Weather Bureau. He arrived for duty in Washington, D.C., on July 6, 1882, and later wrote, “. . . it was just the kind of work I wanted.” Isaac trained at Fort Myer, where he learned the telegraph code that agents used to send information around the country.

For example, “Paul diction sunk Johnson imbue hersal.” These six words actually meant: “St. Paul 29.26 inches barometric pressure, -4 degrees temperature, wind six miles per hour, maximum temperature 10 degrees, dewpoint -18 degrees. This observation was at 8:00 p.m. and the local prediction called for fair weather.”

Isaac learned this coded language, how to use and read weather monitoring equipment, and also how to send messages through the use of flags, torches, and the light and mirror technique known as heliography. He was a rising star, and was soon tasked with helping to train new recruits. He kept a tidy workstation and even found spare time to go to medical school, from which he graduated in 1885. And by 1889, he was married, with a daughter.

In other words, he was a perfect agent. A shining example of the best the Signal Corps had to offer. The kind of agent who could help the program move past the scandals and bad reputation that had been dogging it for years. So, in 1889, Isaac was put in charge of the struggling bureau station in Galveston, Texas.

Popular scientific opinion suggested that strong hurricanes would never hit Galveston.

In the 1890s, scientific progress was being made, but much was still unknown. Certainly, when it came to weather, many things remained a mystery. And yet, preeminent meteorologists like Isaac Cline were starting to believe that they understood hurricanes.

Long before that, in the 1840s, the English sea captain Henry Piddington had published a series of papers followed by a book, The Horn-Book for the Law of Storms for the Indian and China Seas, that described the basic features and nature of a hurricane. It even provided other sea captains with a set of cards that allowed them to take wind readings and accurately position themselves in proximity to the center of the storm. And yet, 50 years later, there would still be much that science didn’t know about hurricanes.

As Isaac’s reputation blossomed in Galveston, weather communiqués with Cuba were blocked in an attempt to bolster the Bureau’s damaged one.

When he first encountered Galveston, Isaac found an exciting, vibrantly diverse town that was on the rise in many respects. Galveston sits along the shoreline of the Gulf of Mexico in southeast Texas, making it a convenient port town for trade and commerce. It also had a railway station, meaning that it could bring in travelers both by land and sea.

Isaac quickly made a name for himself as the man in charge of the local Weather Bureau station. He established himself as a smart, respected man of science, and given his fondness for fancy clothing and walking sticks, it was hard to miss him on the streets.

The hurricane began with little warning and few sensing the real danger.

The problem with silencing the Cuban meteorologists is that few people are more familiar with hurricanes. You don’t live long on the island of Cuba without getting first-hand experience of tropical storms and cyclones.

One Cuban meteorologist, Julio Jover, reported some worrying signs on Friday, August 31, 1900. Barometric pressure readings were unstable, which suggested activity over the Caribbean Sea that could very well be a cyclone. Jover’s report got to the local paper, La Lucha, and the Weather Bureau station in Havana. But it seemed like yet another reason for the cable ban because there was that word: “cyclone.” If that got out it would surely cause undue panic.

People sought safety as the storm began to bear down on Galveston.

Judson Palmer did come home early that afternoon. It was becoming clear that this was more than just a bad storm. This was something no one in Galveston had ever seen before.

Palmer was the secretary of the local YMCA and, like Isaac, a central figure in the community. Once he got home, he wanted his wife and six-year-old son to go to the YMCA. It was a big, sturdy building – surely one of the safest in town. Meanwhile, he would stay and look after the house.

Families fought for survival as the water levels rose dramatically.

Galveston sits in a unique position. It lays perpendicular along the coastline at a 45-degree angle. On one side is the Gulf of Mexico, and between Galveston and the mainland is the stretch of Galveston Bay. This means that, as the winds shifted, which happened as the hurricane moved along, water could come from two directions. The wind could blow water into the city from both the Gulf and the bay, and that’s just what it did.

The key message here is: Families fought for survival as the water levels rose dramatically.

Making it to the next day was a mixture of survival and luck.

When Isaac’s home gave way, the entire structure toppled to one side. At this moment, Joseph was standing by a window and next to two of Isaac’s daughters, Allie May and Rosemary. Instinctively, Joseph grabbed the children and together they crashed through the window as the house toppled over.

Suddenly, they were lying on top of what used to be the side of the house. The window they just crashed through was now looking down into a watery abyss. Joseph lowered the bottom half of his body through the window. He shouted for someone to grab hold of his legs, but no one did. He gave up.

The clean up was an arduous and uncertain process.

Exactly how many people died that day is hard to say. The Galveston News tried to keep a tally of names. The final list, published on October 7, contained 4,263 names. Judging by census polls, there was a loss of around 6,000 people. Others suggest a number closer to 10,000.

What’s certain is that it was deadlier than any other natural disaster the United States had seen at that time. Survivors were greeted the next morning by bodies everywhere. Some were bloated with water, others crushed under rubble, and many had been gruesomely killed by flying timber and roof shingles. There were new horrors laying, quite literally, at every step.

It was a highly unique hurricane that forever altered Galveston’s future.

The year 1900 was one of scientific hubris. Steam-powered boats were defying the mighty power of winds, rivers, and oceans alike. New discoveries were being made on a regular basis. In this climate, people like Isaac Cline had confidence that the scientific consensus on matters like hurricanes couldn’t possibly be wrong.

Certainly, this hubris played a role in what happened in Galveston on September 8, 1900. But the fact remains that no one had encountered a hurricane quite like this one.

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What is Isaac's Storm about?

Isaac’s Storm (1999) is a gripping account of the hurricane that devastated Galveston, Texas on September 8, 1900. Just as Galveston was becoming a world-class city, a storm arrived with little warning and crushed many of the community’s hopes and ambitions.

Best quote from Isaac's Storm

This is the story of Isaac and his time in America… when the hubris of men led them to believe they could disregard even nature itself.

—Erik Larson

Who should read Isaac's Storm?

Anyone moved by the indomitable power of nature
Fans of historical nonfiction
Storm chasers

About the Author

Erik Larson is an award winning author and journalist, whose writings have appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, and Time magazine. His popular nonfiction books include In the Garden of Beasts (2011), Thunderstruck (2006), and The Devil in the White City, which won multiple awards, including the Edgar Award for best true crime writing.

Categories with Isaac's Storm

History Nature & the Environment

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