Reddit Reddit reviews Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History

We found 16 Reddit comments about Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

History
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American History
United States History
U.S. State & Local History
Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
Vintage Books USA
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16 Reddit comments about Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History:

u/Icantevenhavemyname · 18 pointsr/TropicalWeather

He was a pioneer in establishing what we know now as the NWS so you aren’t far off. One of the best books I’ve ever read is called Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson(Devil in the White City) that reads like a firsthand account recreated with what’s known from the actual history.

It’s a relatively quick read and it really dives into interesting things like how poor communication(among other socio-political issues) between the US and Cuba prevented the news of the 1900 storm getting out in enough time to do much about it. The book was gifted to me when I lived in Houston, and interestingly enough also explains how Houston became the dominant port city as a latent effect of the 1900 storm’s effect on Galveston and any future it may have had as the big-dog port city.

u/Hydro_Logic · 6 pointsr/TropicalWeather

If you wanted a glimpse into what tropical weather forecasting was at the turn of the 20th century read Isaac's Storm.

It's a page turner and will give you a good understanding of where we were as well as educate you about one of the worst disasters in US history.

u/mhedbergfan · 4 pointsr/TropicalWeather

Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson gives some background on hurricane dynamics while going through a case study from one of the deadliest natural disasters in US history. it is a fantastic piece of non-fiction for both the story and the science.

u/RedwoodBark · 4 pointsr/meteorology

I have three.

The first that comes to mind is an older book, called "Storm." It inspired my dad to become a meteorology major (sadly, the U.S. Air Force put him to use as a navigator instead of weather forecaster). The hero / heroine of the fictional story is a massive El Niño / atmospheric river event that rocks California, told in part from the perspective of a young meteorologist. It's an older book (copyright 1941), but despite being short on contemporary weather science, it's solid on the fundamentals, and the major criticism of it is that it's too technical. As a record of a storm pattern that often afflicts the U.S. West Coast (and historically has been catastrophic at times) and is only now coming to be fully appreciated, it's still relevant, even though it's out of print, but Amazon offers it used.

"Isaac's Storm" is a national bestseller about the greatest natural disaster in U.S. history, the 1900 Galveston hurricane, which killed 6,000 people. It talks a lot about the weather that created it and how meteorologists of the time failed to anticipate it (and why). It's a gripping, well-written account of a storm that shocked the nation and devastated a city that might have otherwise become Texas' largest. It's written by Erik Larson, who is one of the great nonfiction writers of our time.

You are probably familiar with the movie "The Perfect Storm" but maybe not with the book that inspired it, also a national bestseller, titled "The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea" which dwells a lot more than the movie on the weather science behind the storm. In fact, the phrase "a perfect storm of" didn't exist before the book. If I recall correctly, it talks about how three separate weather events converged over the NW Atlantic to create a truly wicked storm that caught a number of mariners off guard with deadly consequences for some of them. The movie is pretty good (certainly better than that joke "Twister" that someone recommended), but it's a little short on weather geekery.

Sorry, no colorful pictures in any of these books, but the stories in them are plenty colorful. Congrats on your awesome study choice.

u/parkedr · 2 pointsr/houston

Not really Houston, but since you mentioned the 1900 hurricane, Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson is pretty damn interesting.


u/Marty_McFrat · 2 pointsr/rpg

Now this is something I'm into. We did a Western campaign with vampires, mythological creatures, magic, and all that a couple years ago. What system are you using? We used Edge of the Frontier, an Edge of the Empire reskin, for ours. Then we homebrewed the setting.

Also, have you read Issac's Storm? It is a non-fiction account of the Galveston Hurricane as framed around the U.S. Weather Bureau chief in town and his brother. It also dives into the history of the U.S. Weather Bureau and their relationship with other countries and organizations. Absolutely amazing read.

u/craig_hoxton · 1 pointr/malelifestyle

Ernest Shackleton's South - the early 20th century polar explorer's account of the ill-fated Endurance voyage that was trapped in Antarctic ice.

Yamamoto Tsunetomo's Hagakure: The Way of the Warrior - the 18th century Japanese book on the samurai code that gets quoted a lot in the 1999 Jim Jarmusch movie "Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai".

Erik Larson's Devil in the White City and Isaac's Storm - two excellent non-fiction accounts of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and the gruesome murders that surrounded it and the 1900 storm that destroyed Galveston, Texas.

Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire - it may be fiction, but it doesn't get any manlier than 300 Spartans facing off against thousands of invading Persians at Thermopylae.

u/doofus62 · 1 pointr/booksuggestions

Isaac's Storm. Read the first few sample pages and see what you think.

u/ChlorinatedMegafauna · 1 pointr/politics

Up front: I believe Climate Change is happening and it's 100% been accelerated by Humanity.

BUT - This article reeks of my favorite climate change denier argument against climate change. One I hear every winter in Minnesota.

"It is cold, where I live, therefore climate change doesn't real."

Until we have a LARGE dataset demonstrating a trend in increasingly severe hurricane seasons we cannot point at a single event and say "SEE CLIMATE CHANGE!" Texas has been hit by severe hurricanes before.

Climate change is proven by the trends, not the single data points.

You can't ask people to believe good science with one sentence and the very next use the same garbage arguments they are using against your points.

u/Spartacus_the_troll · 1 pointr/badhistory

How 'bout this onethis one?

u/Beelzabub · 1 pointr/todayilearned

Read Issac's Storm. A great story, even if you know how it ends...

u/dontspamjay · 1 pointr/houston

Galveston used to be the larger city, but after the Hurricane of 1900, Houston took over while Galveston tried to rebuild. Source: Issac's Storm. The book also mentions the streetcar.

u/NightMgr · 1 pointr/galveston

Good book. Interesting how the Cuban weather people predicted the storm would hit Galveston but the US Weather Bureau didn't believe them and prevented their predictions from being reported.

http://www.amazon.com/Isaacs-Storm-Deadliest-Hurricane-History/dp/0375708278

u/HouseAtomic · 0 pointsr/galveston

I second this, The Historic Pleasure Pier is fun for kids but no more historic than just standing on the Seawall.

You can't swing a dead cat without hitting something old or historic in Galveston. Most of which don't have websites, so until you go you just won't know. But when you get there you will have no shortage of things to do.

Read this, not super happy pregnancy material, but the best book about Galveston by far. This one is supposedly pretty good to, bit I haven't read it yet.

u/EIGHTHOLE · -4 pointsr/worldnews

Not a denier, but not a hypocrite either. I am sure Vice President Gore has flown many times around world to educated us all on the climate. He probably lies awake in his mansion ringing his hands about the damage I am doing to the environment.

A great book on the formation of U.S. Weather Bureau...
https://www.amazon.com/Isaacs-Storm-Deadliest-Hurricane-History/dp/0375708278