"Isaac's Storm" is about the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, which killed over 6,000 people and remains the worst natural disaster in US history in terms of loss of human lives.
I was hoping for a book like "The Perfect Storm." Unlike the very mediocre move of the same name, the book The Perfect Storm clearly and engagingly explains a truly awesome and rare natural event. It uses stories from people caught up in the event to illustrate what was going on at different times and places and to give you a sense of what it must have been like to be there. After reading The Perfect Storm, you not only have an intellectual understanding of why this was a "perfect storm" (shorthand form: a 1-in-a-million three-way merging of two major storms and a hurricane) and why it was so extraordinary, but you also have a visceral sense of the scales and forces involved.
The Perfect Storm as was an accurate name for the book, which was about the storm. The people in the book act as your, the reader's, eyes and ears and bodies; to let you experience what few have ever seen and lived through. The book is very, very well done; it's multidimensional, being both informative and humanly moving.
Alas, the movie version of The Perfect Storm kind of sucked--- or I guess "blew" would be a better term for a storm movie. It was one-dimensional and focused on the characters to the exclusion of letting you understand what was really going on. Why was this thing called "The Perfect Storm?" The movie never really tells you. OK, it's a really big storm. So what? There are lots of big storms. And (let me speak bluntly) cold-water fisheries like those in the North Atlantic and Bering Straits claim lives in big storms every year. Why was this one special? If you just see the movie you'll learn about a charismatic skipper (it's George Clooney after all!) who died at the helm of his swordfish boat during a really, really bad storm. It's a human interest story, and that's fine as far as it goes. But if you just see the movie, you'll never learn why The Perfect Storm was so important it's covered in meteorology textbooks today.
The book covers the human side in rich detail. But it also gives you a broader understanding: For example, one of the three storms that merged into "The Perfect Storm" was Hurricane Grace; and it wasn't even the largest part of the final storm. Think about that for a moment: This wasn't just "a big storm at sea." The Perfect Storm was so gigantic and powerful, it actually ate an entire Category 2 hurricane as a freaking hors d'oeuvre!
That puts the fate of the swordboat Andrea Gail in a somewhat different light, doesn't it? We're not talking about a big storm here; or some colorful seafarers. We're talking about a rare, truly extraordinary storm that was practically Biblical in power and scope; a storm so awesome that a full-blown hurricane was just a warm-up act. That's the sense that the book The Perfect Storm gives you.
I bought Isaac's Storm with hopes of a reading experience like that of The Perfect Storm. Alas, Isaac's Storm was much more like the movie The Perfect Storm than the book. The author of Isaac's Storm, Erik Larson, seemed to write the book with the idea of a screenplay in mind. The book is scholarly enough with footnotes and sources cited everywhere; but almost all of the scholarship is devoted to illuminating the personalities of Galveston meteorologist Isaac Cline and others involved in the nascent US Weather Service. It's not a story about weather systems as much as about egos and rivalries and reputations, with a little science tossed in. And, frankly, I just didn't find the people involved all that interesting.
There are some nice tidbits about the tug-of-war between the emerging science of meteorology and the then-current, old-timer's, my-bunions-are-hurting type of weather forecast then still in use even in newspaper forecasts. And it was interesting to learn how some of the "Manifest destiny/White-Man's burden" BS meant that the early Weather Service ignored the good information coming from the Cuban weather service, which actually knew what it was talking about when it came to hurricanes.
On balance, I'm glad I read the book--- it wasn't a waste of time. But I can't especially recommend that anyone run out and buy it. It's not a "great read," and I wish it had been.
If you want some of the science behind The Perfect Storm, see this:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/satellite/satelliteseye/cyclones/pfctstorm91/pfctstorm.html
That's too bad that it wasn't a better book. Erik Larson's "The Devil in the White City" is a great read, about the Chicago World's Fair and a serial killer who took advantage of its draw, with lots of the background information that seems to be missing from Isaac's Storm. "Devil..." has a great sense of place and time and lots of historical research behind it (which was probably much easier to do, given the topic).
ReplyDeleteI am delighted I READ The Perfect Storm before I saw the movies. Movie was blah--book was awesome. But, then, I figured our tatstes would be similar. *I* Genie
ReplyDeleteFred, Two things come to mind as I read your article. First, I'm a little surprised, frankly, that you would think Isaac's Storm would be more of a science-based account than it is. I would imagine the title alone would indicate that this was more about the people within the Weather Service (and the Enlightenment world in general) whose attitude-of-the-era arrogance deceived them into thinking no such mass devastation could befall them. Second, which part of the book did you actually read? The whole first section of the book discusses in great depth the formation of the weather system, over Africa and the Atlantic, that gave birth to the storm. Then there is a very broad mid section that discusses the storm's intensification over the Gulf. Finally, in the closing section is a discussion (albeit a bit lighter) of the storm's movement of the continent and into Europe. Perhaps you didn't read it at all and just picked up a copy of Cliff's Notes. Maybe a second, more thorough read-through is in order?
ReplyDeleteOf course I read the whole book.
ReplyDeleteThere was very, very little meteorological information in the book. Yes, there was information on attitudes, and competence, and the founding of the weather service, and Americans' reluctance to rely on weather data collected in Cuba or other non-white places.
But: What conditions led to the storm? We don't know. What conditions led to the storm taking the path it did? Why was the storm so unusually strong? We don't know.
Etc.
There was very, very little information about "Issac's Storm" itself, and that was the title of the book, after all.
The book is more about society than meteorology; hence my disappointment.