Isaac's StormA Man, a Time, And the Deadliest Hurricane in History

Written by: Erik Larson

Narrated by: Edward Herrmann

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Edition:: Abridged (Random House Audio)

Length:: 5 hours, 12 minutes

File Size:: 142 MB (5 files)

Published:: August 2006

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Summary

September 8, 1900, began innocently in the seaside town of Galveston, Texas. Even Isaac Cline, resident meteorologist for the U.S. Weather Bureau failed to grasp the true meaning of the strange deep-sea swells and peculiar winds that greeted the city that morning. Mere hours later, Galveston found itself submerged in a monster hurricane that completely destroyed the town and killed over six thousand people in what remains the greatest natural disaster in American history--and Isaac Cline found himself the victim of a devestating personal tragedy.

Using Cline's own telegrams, letters, and reports, the testimony of scores of survivors, and our latest understanding of the science of hurricanes, Erik Larson builds a chronicle of one man's heroic struggle and fatal miscalculation in the face of a storm of unimaginable magnitude. Riveting, powerful, and unbearably suspenseful, Isaac's Storm is the story of what can happen when human arrogance meets the great uncontrollable force of nature.

Quotes from the Critics

"A meticulously researched and compelling book that far exceeds the scope of the weather-disaster genre." - Wall Street Journal

"In ISAAC'S STORM, Erik Larson provides more than the biography of a weather event by assembling a complex fable from the horrific details such a storm leaves in its aftermath....Larson moves us through all of this, plus the history of hurricanes, the invention of weather science and a touch of chaos theory, with the dispatch of an adrenalized Charles Dickens." - San Francisco Chronicle

"This book is gripping, informative and imaginative from start to finish. Larson combines abundant "human interest" with a good dollop of history and just enough science. He is clear and succinct on the mechanics of these meteorological demons, and his lyrical descriptions of harmless water droplets swelling into gigantic, lethal, airborne armouries stir the spirit." - New Statesman

"With a novelized narrative full of images so vivid they linger into dreams, Larson tells the story of the catastrophic hurricane that struck Galveston on Sept. 8, 1900, killing at least 8,000 people." - Chicago Tribune

"At once a chilling disaster tale enlivened by survivors' accounts, this is also the tragedy of Isaac Cline....It's a tale just as thrilling and heartbreaking as the sinking of the Titanic." - Entertainment Weekly

"Isaac's Storm"...richly imagined and prodigiously researched, pulls readers into the eye of the hurricane, and into everyday lives and state-of-the-art science. It is a gripping account, horridly fascinating to its core, and all the more compelling for being true." - New York Times Book Review

"The author, a contributing editor of Time magazine, has produced a riveting, deeply researched narrative that is driven by a prose style of descriptive elegance and power. The result is authoritative history given the gloss of high journalism, and the sense of immediacy such a combination produces is at times breathtaking....Good as it is as disaster narrative, ISACC'S STORM also shines as a character study, as an anatomy of hurricanes, and as a lively expose of bureaucratic stupidity." - Washington Post Book World