olsenjd's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.25
lordcheez's review against another edition
5.0
Rip-roaring good story, in line with the Johnstown Flood by McCullough
brontherun's review against another edition
3.0
Within this story of a storm, lies the tale of two brothers. They lived together, they worked at the same government agency. They were additional parental units to the other's kids. And the natural schisms that existed in any relationship were blown wide open through the interactions and decisions they made in the face of the most deadly natural disaster in U.S. history. Isaac and Joseph Kline would not be living together, or working in the same building, 3 months after the hurricane hit. Their relationship would further diverge until they did not have contact the last years of their lives. The 1900 storm that blew away the Texas coastal town of Galveston, had the power to even break the bonds of families.
This is also the story of American hubris leading to monumental incompetence in government, which resulted in the loss life for thousands of American citizens. While this event happened 120 years ago, the systemic government problems that exacerbated the event, and the personal and political machinations that hindered a response, are very much lessons for today. Larson states, "Against the hubris of the day, what was a mere hurricane?" Today, we might substitute virus for hurricane for an equally valid point.
As one progresses through Isaac's Storm, it is impossible not to think about Hurricane Katrina. The book was published 6 years before Katrina, but the lessons like lack of preparation/avoidance activities and failure to recognize the extent of heated bay water at play in summer storms are there. Most significantly, delays and lack of funds for infrastructure projects (a sea wall in Galveston, the levees in Katrina) stand out as begging for comparison.
The toll in lives is not comparable - 1,836 for Katrina, with estimates anywhere from 6,000 to 12,000 for Galveston.
This is one of Larson's earlier works, and it does not transport me in the same way some of his other books have. But it is still hauntingly beautiful. One of my favorite passages:
"Cuban meteorologists had the same instruments as their American counterparts, and took the same measurements, but read into them vastly greater potential for evil. The Cubans wrote of hunches and beliefs, sunsets and foreboding. Where the Americans saw numbers, the Cubans saw poetry. Dark poetry, perhaps. The works of Poe and Baudelaire, but poetry all the same."
While I am a firm believer that the answers to helping one another survive may be found in science, without the compassion of the human angle, the science we developed will be used for profit or personal/political gain, not to benefit us all. That is a lesson we are obviously still learning, either via historical lessons of the Weather Bureau and its flubbing of the 1900 hurricane, or current events and our government agencies' inability to respond effectively to our modern disasters.
This is also the story of American hubris leading to monumental incompetence in government, which resulted in the loss life for thousands of American citizens. While this event happened 120 years ago, the systemic government problems that exacerbated the event, and the personal and political machinations that hindered a response, are very much lessons for today. Larson states, "Against the hubris of the day, what was a mere hurricane?" Today, we might substitute virus for hurricane for an equally valid point.
As one progresses through Isaac's Storm, it is impossible not to think about Hurricane Katrina. The book was published 6 years before Katrina, but the lessons like lack of preparation/avoidance activities and failure to recognize the extent of heated bay water at play in summer storms are there. Most significantly, delays and lack of funds for infrastructure projects (a sea wall in Galveston, the levees in Katrina) stand out as begging for comparison.
The toll in lives is not comparable - 1,836 for Katrina, with estimates anywhere from 6,000 to 12,000 for Galveston.
This is one of Larson's earlier works, and it does not transport me in the same way some of his other books have. But it is still hauntingly beautiful. One of my favorite passages:
"Cuban meteorologists had the same instruments as their American counterparts, and took the same measurements, but read into them vastly greater potential for evil. The Cubans wrote of hunches and beliefs, sunsets and foreboding. Where the Americans saw numbers, the Cubans saw poetry. Dark poetry, perhaps. The works of Poe and Baudelaire, but poetry all the same."
While I am a firm believer that the answers to helping one another survive may be found in science, without the compassion of the human angle, the science we developed will be used for profit or personal/political gain, not to benefit us all. That is a lesson we are obviously still learning, either via historical lessons of the Weather Bureau and its flubbing of the 1900 hurricane, or current events and our government agencies' inability to respond effectively to our modern disasters.
lyrrael's review against another edition
3.0
I dunno. I felt like there was something missing about this book, but I can't really put my finger on what it was.
ricefun's review against another edition
5.0
When I mentioned to a friend that I was visiting Galveston, TX for the week between Christmas and New Year's Day, he immediately recommended that I read Isaac's Storm, an early book by Erik Larson. I already loved Larson from The Devil in the White City and other writings, and so I immediately took his advice.
The catastrophic hurricane that devastated Galveston is evident all around the city once I was keyed into the event. I was so appreciative that I was reading this book while actually in Galveston. And I finished it in two days time because it was so captivating and described so vividly places and spaces that I was visiting. It is hard to believe that a disaster on that scale happened, in all likelihood because some men were unable to lay down their pride and prepare for a disaster - and also that it is so rarely spoken about in general US history today.
Having family just outside Johnstown, PA, and growing up with the story of the Johnstown Flood told over and over around meal tables, I was shocked that the destruction from this storm in Galveston was such a magnitude grater than what happened in PA. And I was touched to read in Larson's book that one community that sent aid money to the island was Johnstown - who knew this kind of community disaster so well.
My partner joined me on the island after doing some back country hiking/camping near Houston. I told him story after story about things that struck me from Larson's account of the hurricane. I talked about the storm exhibits I saw at the local Public Library and at the Galveston County Museum - which included jewelry and clothing pieces catalogued off of bodies that were never identified and pictures of bodies pulled from rubble - many never identified - lined up for blocks and stacked on carts to be burned. I watched intently for placards hung near front doors if houses/buildings survived the 1900 storm as I walked through neighborhoods. And I stayed awake late wondering if the storm predicted for my time on the island would have any drastic consequences (it did not, thank goodness).
I've listed this book as a favorite. If I read it in a different context, it may not have struck me so deeply. But in this case, it was the perfect book at the perfect time. And I suspect I will remember it for years to come.
The catastrophic hurricane that devastated Galveston is evident all around the city once I was keyed into the event. I was so appreciative that I was reading this book while actually in Galveston. And I finished it in two days time because it was so captivating and described so vividly places and spaces that I was visiting. It is hard to believe that a disaster on that scale happened, in all likelihood because some men were unable to lay down their pride and prepare for a disaster - and also that it is so rarely spoken about in general US history today.
Having family just outside Johnstown, PA, and growing up with the story of the Johnstown Flood told over and over around meal tables, I was shocked that the destruction from this storm in Galveston was such a magnitude grater than what happened in PA. And I was touched to read in Larson's book that one community that sent aid money to the island was Johnstown - who knew this kind of community disaster so well.
My partner joined me on the island after doing some back country hiking/camping near Houston. I told him story after story about things that struck me from Larson's account of the hurricane. I talked about the storm exhibits I saw at the local Public Library and at the Galveston County Museum - which included jewelry and clothing pieces catalogued off of bodies that were never identified and pictures of bodies pulled from rubble - many never identified - lined up for blocks and stacked on carts to be burned. I watched intently for placards hung near front doors if houses/buildings survived the 1900 storm as I walked through neighborhoods. And I stayed awake late wondering if the storm predicted for my time on the island would have any drastic consequences (it did not, thank goodness).
I've listed this book as a favorite. If I read it in a different context, it may not have struck me so deeply. But in this case, it was the perfect book at the perfect time. And I suspect I will remember it for years to come.