Isaac’s Storm: The Drowning of Galveston, 8 September 1900 - Brossura

Larson, Erik

Brossura

ISBN 10: 1857028422 ISBN 13: 9781857028423

Casa editrice: Fourth Estate, 2000

Riassunto

Galveston, Texas, 8 September 1900. It’s another fine day in the Gulf according to Isaac Cline, chief observer of the new US Weather Bureau, but one day later, 6-10,000 people were dead, wiped out by the biggest storm the coast of America had ever witnessed.

Isaac Cline was confident of his ability to predict the weather: he had new technology at his disposal, ‘perfect science’, and, like America itself, he was sure that he was in control of his world, that the new century would be the American century, that the future was man’s to command. And the coastal city of Galveston was a prosperous, enthusiastic place – a jewel of progress and contentment, a model for the new century.

The storm blew up in Cuba. It was, in modern jargon, an X-storm – an extreme hurricane – and it did not circle around the Gulf of Mexicao as storms routinely did. On 8 September 1900 it ploughed straight into Galveston. It was the meteorological equivalent of the Big One. It was to be the worst natural disaster ever to befall America to this day: between six and ten thousand people died, including Isaac Cline’s wife and unborn child. With them died Cline’s and America’s hubris: the storm had simply blown them away. Told with a novelist’s skill this is the true story of an awful and terrible natural catastrophe.

Su questo libro

L'autore:

Erik Larson is a writer, journalist and novelist. Nominated for a Pulitzer prize for investigative journalism on The Wall Street Journal, he has taught non-fiction writing at San francisco State and Johns Hopkins.

Dalla quarta di copertina:

On 8 September 1900, the deadliest hurricane in American history ploughed into the unprepared port of Galveston, Texas. One-hundred-and-fifty mile an hour winds shredded clapperboard houses with the force of dynamite. The sea followed, a solid wall of water twenty feet high. The city's highest point was nine feet above sea level. Overnight between six and ten thousand people lost their lives, houses were reduced to matchwood, and bodies were strewn miles inland across the prairie. It was, and still is, the worst natural disaster ever to strike the United States.

At the turn of the century the new US Weather Bureau had the finest forecasting technology at their disposal. With this 'perfect science' they were confident they were in control of the world, that the new century would be the American century. And in Galveston, Texas they had one of their most dependable meteorologists, Isaac Cline. Cline, like the rest of America, believed that man's ingenuity had tamed nature. He believed there was nothing to fear.

Fatally, Cline failed to read the signs until it was too late. By then, the bath-houses on the sea- front were being crushed by rolling breakers, children were playing unawares in the rising water, the railway line was under water and ships in the bay were fighting for their lives.

Vividly recounted, and filled with the testimony of characters who lived through the cataclysm, Isaac's Storm is a compelling story of hubris, tragedy and, for some, remarkable and unlikely survival in the face of a vicious tempest, indifferent to human accomplishment and human life.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Fourth Estate
• Data di pubblicazione: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1857028422
• ISBN 13: 9781857028423
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 384