Isaac's Storm

If you liked...Suggestions for further reading

Isaac’s Storm

• Bob Sheets and Jack Williams, Hurricane Watch: Forecasting the deadliest storms on Earth (2001) Sheets and Williams offer a straightforward history of how meteorologists have learned to understand and predict the course of hurricanes. They use vivid accounts of epic storms and showcase the people who created new techniques to improve the process of forecasting.
• Douglas Brinkley, The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast (2006) Brinkley, a New Orleans resident, covers August 27 through September 3, 2005 in this unsettling work. He uses multiple narrative threads, disorienting but appropriate for a chronicle of the chaotic environment of much of New Orleans once the storm had passed, the levees had been breached, and the city was underwater.
• John Barnes, Mother of Storms (1994) In the year 2028 a preemptive missile strike releases billions of tons of methane trapped in the ocean floor. The methane clouds spawn massive supernatural hurricanes that ravage the world's coastlands and claim millions of lives. Astronaut Louie Tynan unveils a plan to shield the earth from the sun until it can cool, saving the lives of millions.
• John J. Nance, Saving Cascadia (2005) Wealthy developer Mick Walker has invested a hundred million dollars into a world-class resort on tiny Cascadia Island but refuses to believe is that his island is situated directly over a massive fault line. Dr. Doug Lam, a leading seismologist, warns of possible earthquakes and a tsunami if Walker continues with his building project, but the warning is not heeded. As Walker completes his resort and invites everyone for the grand opening, the earthquakes begin.
• Randy Cerveny, Freaks of the Storm: From Flying Cows to Stealing Thunder, the World’s Strangest True Weather Stories (2006) This compilation of the strange drawn from climatologist Cerveny's database describes over 500 incidents, from lightning strikes to hurricanes, blizzards to dust devils. Cerveny groups the incidents by type of weather and then by type of occurrence. It really gets fun when he jumps from the past (lightning burning the rings of six gold coins into the skin of a 19th-century victim) to the present (a young woman temporarily blinded when lightning struck her tongue stud), but does not explain to the reader how weather really works.
• Ron Rozelle, Windows of Heaven: a novel of Galveston’s great storm of 1900 (2000) Rozelle uses many actual people and events from the Storm of 1900. (Many readers will notice the names of several characters from Isaac’s Storm). He writes sketches of the lives of several characters in a flash-back format and then switches to the current time, describing the coming of the storm and the unconcerned manner in which the people approached it.
• Sebastian Junger, The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea (1997) Junger begins the book with a look at the town of Gloucester, Mass., which has been sliding downhill ever since the North Atlantic fishing industry declined, then focuses his attention on the captain and the five-man crew of the Andrea Gail, a swordfishing vessel. Then he tracks The Perfect Storm—a nor'easter created by so rare a combination of factors that it could not possibly have been worse—and the Andrea Gail’s tragic battle against such an overwhelming force.

Major Character List

Isaac’s Storm

• Adolphus W. Greely – Chief of the Signal Corps in 1887, which later became the Weather Bureau; sent Isaac Cline to the Galveston station
• Allie May Cline – eldest daughter of Isaac Cline; survived the hurricane
• August Rollfing – German immigrant; housepainter; entire family survived hurricane
• Cora Cline – pregnant wife of Isaac Cline; would meet a tragic fate
• Esther Bellew Cline – youngest daughter of Isaac Cline who considered Esther “his” baby; survived the hurricane
• H.H.C. Dunwoody – Weather Bureau’s chief liaison in Cuba; worked with Moore to have the US War Department ban weather cables from Cuba’s government-owned telegraph lines except those from Weather Bureau officials.
• Isaac Cline – Weather Bureau scientist assigned to Galveston; believed that a hurricane hitting Galveston was an “absurd delusion”
• Joseph Cline – younger brother of Isaac Cline; forecaster in Weather Bureau; Joseph would never again speak to Isaac in the years after the storm
• Judson Palmer – Secretary of the Galveston YMCA; important society member; lost his wife in the hurricane
• Louisa Rollfing – German immigrant; wife of August Rollfing; her adversity-filled passage to America gave her the strength to get her family through the hurricane
• Rosemary Cline – middle daughter of Isaac Cline; survived the hurricane
• Samuel Young – Secretary of the Galveston Cotton Exchange and an amateur meteorologist who was friendly with Isaac Cline; he and his family survived the hurricane
• William Stockman – Weather Bureau’s local forecast official for the Havana office; ran the station’s daily operations; stodgy bureaucrat who was suspicious of the Cubans
• Willis Moore – arrogant, brash Chief of the Weather bureau in 1900; dismissed any information from Cuba regarding the deadly storm.

Discussion Questions

Isaac’s Storm

1. Were you familiar with the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 before reading this book? If so, where did you learn about it?
2. How does the destruction of the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 compare with the more recent Hurricane Katrina in 2005? Did we learn anything from the Galveston hurricane?
3. What did you think of Isaac Cline? Was he as great a meteorologist as he thought he was? Why or why not?
4. Both Isaac Cline and his brother Joseph were employed in the Weather Bureau. How did this impact the relationship between them?
5. Several minor characters were mentioned in the book. Did you feel a connection with any of them? If so, which characters did you like? Which characters could be described as villains? Why?
6. Why was there “bad blood” (p.102) between the Cubans and the US Weather Bureau? Why did the US look down upon the Cubans even though the Cubans could more accurately predict hurricanes?
7. What material were the roofs of nearly all the city of Galveston’s buildings made of in 1900? Why were they made this way? What happened to this roofing material during the storm?
8. Houston and Galveston “were traditional rivals,” (p.170). What were both cities competing for in 1900? Was Galveston able to recover that rivalry?
9. What happened to Isaac and Joseph Cline after the hurricane? Where did they go? How did these actions further impact their relationship?
10. Willis Moore was punished for politicking within the Bureau. What was his punishment? Did you think it was justified?
11. How many hurricanes did Galveston suffer through in the 20th century (p.272)? Is Galveston still a major target in the age of 21st century meteorological technology? How?