This is a nonfiction book, written by a popular nonfiction author, Erik Larson about the deadliest hurricane to hit the United States that hit Galveston, Texas in the fall of 1900. Larson is a master storyteller who did a lot of research and collected information from multiple sources, including the writings of Isaac Cline, the weatherman based in Galveston at the time, as well as the writings of survivors, which, if I remember correctly, he found at a museum in Galveston.

You may have figured it out already, but the Isaac in the book title, is in fact referring to the weatherman I just mentioned- Isaac Cline. Back then, they did not have the modern weather system that we do today. What they had was a National Weather Bureau that was headquartered in DC (or maybe New York- but I’m pretty sure it was DC) And they had substations around the country, even in Cuba. And weather men at those posts around the country would gather weather data in real time, and report it back to headquarters, and headquarters would in turn analyze the data, and then go back to these weather people and tell them what to tell the locals. These local weather people were not allowed to share data with local people without the approval of headquarters. And once they had the approval, they would reach out to the local newspaper offices and feed them the data to report in the newspapers.

I don’t want to give out too much of the book, in case any of you want to read it, but as I’m sure you can guess- it wasn’t a great weather system they had, and they incorrectly predicted the path of a hurricane- and it ended up slamming into Galveston without warning, and caused mass casualties in the thousands, and a whole lot of damage. It is a truly tragic story that is told in great detail, and in the order that a lot of the events happened.

Due to the tragic nature of this book, some of you may not be interested in reading it- but I am a big history person, and I found it very interesting to learn about how weather worked back in the 1900s as it is much different than it is today. It even gives you a look into how the politics of the time steered the way in how some things were developed or done for and with the weather system. So, I would say maybe an interesting book for history buffs.