Isaac's Storm: The True Story of the Deadliest Hurricane in US History - Perfect for History Buffs & Weather Enthusiasts

This is a good book that fascinates and entertains.Larson writes in a breezy style (no pun intended) that keeps the pace moving while not neglecting facts and incidents that flesh the story out. The narrative voice reminds one more of a long magazine piece rather than traditional non-fiction, but this pacing helps make Isaac's Storm a quick read.The Galveston storm was a tremendous tragedy. At least six thousand people died in one of North America's most violent hurricains on record. Yet the timing of the storm (1900) also caught America at a self-confident moment that exposed the cost of hubris. We thought knew weather better than we did, thought we could tame nature, and thought that coastal development was immune to the ravages experienced by such places in other parts of the world. This storm provided a wonderful illustration of what happens when luck and happenstance are taken for understanding and certainty.Interesting tidbits abound in the story. The author does a good job of explaining the formation of cyclones and hurricanes and makes it interesting. The formation of the national weather bureau (and the petty jealousies that attended it in these years) is likewise iintersting and tells the story of why Galveston literally had no warning that it was in harm's way (the author leaves you with the impression that some warning could have been avaialable if not for human stupidity and bureaucratic turf consciousness). By far, however, the strongest voices in the story are those who witnessed a natural calamity that literally scraped the site of a city from the earth. The author provides very good descriptions (from eyewitnesses)of the hurricane itself and it's aftermath.The only fault with the book is that the author does put a lot of words and thoughts in character's heads. He admits this in his notes and I think gives a good defense of his methods -- and also has researched his story well enough that these licenses are strongly plausible. This may bother pure historians, but it helps make a good story.A very good read you may want to tackle in one sitting. It did make me wonder why anyone would want to live in Galveston today -- sea wall or not!