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

It's been 15 years since I read this chilling account of the event that annihilated more than 6,000 American souls in one fell swoop, but it still haunts me.

As Galveston and Corpus Christie brace themselves for Hurricane Harvey, this fantastic book is fresh on my mind.

Today, satellite imagery and long term storm forecasts are standard fare. We've all had televisions since our parents or even grandparents were kids. Before that, radios kept people in the know. This outstanding author waltzes us back 100 years to a time when gas lights reigned. We imagine hurricanes exploding onto coastal communities like massive days-long tsunamis with mountainous, unending surges over 25 feet high. Unprepared families were scrubbed away like leaf litter in a gutter while others in stronger structures could only gape in horror.

Larsen explains in detail that there actually were meteorologists back in the day, but the basic and scant information they received left them deciding on their own whether to raise the flag for panic or to appease public concerns. Trains washed away with passengers still aboard, and the bloated dead were left unburied for weeks, months, stuck in the shambles of splintered buildings and shattered woodlands.

This is the first Larsen book I ever read, and because of the quality of his research and the beauty in his writing, Ive purchased everything he has penned since. Don't miss out on this one!