Isaac's Storm Chapter Summary

john banks
US History 1302
Mr. Owens 1. A. The title of the book I chose is Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
B. The author of this novel is Erik Larson
C. This book was first published in 1945 by The Pelican Publishing Company
D. This book is about the horrible hurricane of September 8, 1900 on Galveston Texas that destroyed the entire city. The story is written through the eyes of a local meteorologist named Isaac Cline who studies everything about weather and knows just about everything. The storm wipes out the entire city of Galveston Texas, but Isaac would save thousands of people in his actions before the storm. He is faced with multiple challenges throughout the story and many mysteries
that he tries to solve about the weather that would hit the coast of Texas. 2. The Introduction in this novel is a foreshadow to the night of September 7, 1900 when Isaac can’t sleep all night because he knows something bad is coming. On a regular night Isaac Cline would sleep like a baby and not make a peep, but on the night of the 7th Isaac is stuck wandering all night. He can’t stop thinking about all the research and data he has taken that makes him realize a huge storm is coming. He is stuck in a bind and it turns out his arrogance would hurt a lot of people. He doesn’t sleep the whole night and the next day his life is turned upside down. 3. In this story the author try’s to show that people’s arrogance can lead to very bad things. Isaac Cline works for the U.S. Weather Bureau in Galveston, Texas. Isaac believes he knows everything about the weather and tends to be a little cocky through his work. This arrogance will later be a huge mistake in not only his life, but thousands of others. His arrogance makes him not listen to many people and not take in to consideration what was actually happening out on the sea. When he finally realizes it it’s too late and the city of Galveston pays the ultimate price. 4. A. Part 1: The law of storms: “An Absurd Delusion”
B. This chapter is about how people believe Galveston needs to put up a wall around Galveston to protect is from future hurricanes. Everyone is scared that if a hurricane came it would wipe out the entire city. It turns out that Isaac wrote a New York Times article in 1891 in which he said “Galveston would be completely unharmed with no wall because all the water would go around and into the lower sea level lands around Galveston and not actually effect the city.”
C. In this chapter the author is trying to show the reader that Isaac’s book would soon be a big part in the making of the wall in Galveston, Texas. In Isaac’s article he stated that everything would be fine do to his calculations and he had no doubt that he wasn’t right. The author proves that Isaac is too arrogant in this chapter because all the people of Galveston believed they needed a wall, but Isaac’s article in the New York Times resolved that issue and no wall was ever built.
D. The author convinces me that his main idea is right because he uses the people of Galveston, who wanted to put up a wall, to show how those people really felt. Then just as people believed they would be fine because of what Isaac said the whole town is then attacked by an enormous hurricane. This shows me that if it wasn’t for Isaac being really cocky about his knowing’s then maybe they would have built a wall and a lot more people would have lived.
E. One way the Author could have made his main idea more convincing was putting more evidence of Isaac’s letter in the book. This way you could really see how arrogant he really was and more of Isaac’s tone in his article.
F.”West India Hurricanes” Galveston News, July 16, 1891
G. Tropical Cyclones. New York: Macmillan, 1926.
A. Part 3: Spectacle: A Gathering of Toads
B.
This chapter is right at the beginning of the storm when the wings are starting to pick up and huge waves are beginning to crash down on the city. Waves are begin to flood the city and Isaac is stuck in shock. His brother joseph knows it’s going to get worse and wants to leave there house as soon as they can, but Isaac refuses to do so.
C. In this chapter I believe the author is trying to show the reader that it was too late for Isaac to do anything and I think Isaac was in shock at the end of the chapter because he truly believed that nothing of that magnitude was going to happen. He believed that he knew everything was going to be fine and that it would all turn out okay. All this makes be believe that if you are too arrogant and you never change your ways of not being so arrogant then you could be lead into some very bad things.
D. In this chapter the author writes about how shocked Isaac is and how he can’t believe what is happening. His main idea is to prove to you that if people continue to be arrogant and no one ever stops and really tells them there opinion then it’s not going to be pretty. At the end of the chapter when Isaac doesn’t want to leave you realize how positive he really thought he was and he never took any advice or ideas from anyone else to make him think
differently.
E. I believe to make this main idea more convincing the author should have put more of the emotions and thoughts of Isaac during the beginning of the storm. I also feel like it would have been better if the author had put more details about his brother and how his brother would try to tell him things about the weather too and Isaac wouldn’t pay much attention. This would show more of the “I know everything” aspect of Isaac.
F. City Directory, Galveston. 1899-1900. Rosenberg Library.
G.
Hughes, Patrick. American Weather Stories. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1976
A. Part 5: Strange News: A Letter from Moore
B. This chapter is after the storm when Isaac notices an angry letter written in the Houston Post newspaper by Willis Moore, the head of the Weather Bureau, defending the Weather Bureau of actually sending out a weather warning for the city of Galveston. Isaac knows this is not true, that the bureau never actually sent out warnings for the disaster that was to come. Isaac is very distraught and wanders why Moore has changed his output of this and is saying all these things that are lies.
C. The Main Idea of this chapter that the author is trying to get across is that when people change because of big disasters like this they no longer want to be how they once were. Isaac realizes after the storm that he had been very arrogant and should have listened to the people he had around him. He had lost his wife in the storm and I think that really made him realize what could have happened if he had known about this great storm. If Isaac would have more respect for Natural disasters and what they could do he could have saved not only his wife, but all the other people who died
too.
D. The reason I believe the author is right on this main idea is because he writes about how Isaac is so confused on why Moore would make up all these lies about the weather company. The author also rights about how Isaac can’t believe Moore said he was a hero because he never did anything at all, it was all lies.
E. The way the author could have made this main idea easier to understand would be if he put more of the emotion of Isaac and how he felt about Moore’s lies. He could have also used an article or something about how the weather channel never actually did send out any reports to prove Moore was lying.
F. Coulter, John, ed. The complete story of the Galveston Horror. United Publishers of America, 1900.
G. Eisenhour, Virginia. The Strand of Galveston. 1973. Rosenberg Library, Galveston, Texas. 5. Galveston Tribune
Galveston in Nineteen Hundred
The Weather Companion
Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics McClure’s Magazine 6. Paul Lester: The True Story of the Galveston Flood: Brookhaven Press, 2000 from The University of Wisconsin Kristine Brennan: The Galveston Flood: Infobase Publishing, 2002 Nathan C. Green: The Story of the Galveston Flood: Cosimo, Inc., 2006 7. Rogers L. Galveston, Texas 1900. Great Storm: The Hurricane Diary of J. T. King, Galveston, Texas, 1900 [e-book]. Texas Tech University Press; 2002:5. Available from: Texas Reference Center, Ipswich, MA. Accessed April 15, 2013. Barnes, Jay. "Galveston and the 1900 Storm. (books)." Southern Cultures 7.4 (2001): 104+. Literature Resource Center. Lessoff, Alan. "Galveston flood." In Campell, Ballard C., Ph.D., gen. ed. Disasters, Accidents, and Crises in American History. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. American History Online 8. A. I definitely agree with my books main points and opinions. The author does a great job throughout the chapters showing how arrogance is such a huge part of the book and a good job of detail as well. The author has great formatting through the book and it does a good job through each chapter alone writing about Isaac’s life. He also does a good job of showing how Isaac is so arrogant by writing about how he handles things and how he believed he was so smart. B. The thing I like best about the book is how each chapter the author does a great job at showing different parts of Isaac’s life and how he continued to be arrogant through the book. It was very easy to read and it had very good details whenever the storm was in town and the floods were coming in. The one thing I do wish the author would have out more into the book is Isaac’s thoughts and emotions. I know it was written in 3rd person, but I feel like all of Isaac’s telegrams and reports could have been used better to show the reader more about him. C. I don’t think the author is very biased in the story. He never shows his opinions in any of the story or anything. The author only writes what he knows about Isaac from his letters and other sources. I feel like the author just tells the story how it is and there was no bias towards anything in particular. D. “over six thousand people died during the hurricane of 1900 in Galveston, Texas” “There was never a warning signal for anyone who lived in Galveston before the storm hit Galveston” “Throughout the month of September after the storm bodies were emerging at a rate of over a hundred every day” E. The first similarity in the textbook and the book about the storm of Galveston is they both said over six thousand people died during the storm. Another similarity was that the textbook talked about how the people of Galveston were not warned about this great storm and had no idea of it coming. Both the textbook and book talk about how it was such a crazy time because no one was prepared at all. Lastly they both agree on the fact that the weather bureau should have taken more responsibility and action for the storm. The textbook mentions that after it Cuba they should have been more aware of the storm. There are not many differences between the two books but some include the textbook not having anything about Moore’s letter and it didn’t have any details about Isaac when he was in the storm as it rolled through Galveston. The textbook didn’t say a single thing about Moore’s letter in the newspaper which I thought was a big part in the story. Lastly the textbook had said that bodies were being recovered by the hundreds after the storm, unlike the book which stated it was only about one hundred a day that were being recovered. F. Yes I definitely would recommend this book to someone else. I would recommend this book to someone else because it is a big part of history and living in Texas it would be good for someone to know about this disaster. It was also a very well written book that was easy to keep up with and stay along with. I do wish the book would have had more details in it and imagery to help the reader visualize certain parts more, but overall yes I would certainly recommend this book. G. If I had to write a book on a historical topic I would choose the Battle of the Alamo. I would choose this because I want to learn more about the battle of the Alamo as I’m writing it but also to inform more Texans about this huge part in history for Texas. I feel like there’s a lot of information missing about the Alamo, so I would like to write my own book to go more into detail about the battle.