So as a forecaster when you have to cover for that cover storms into the 5 00 a. M. Forecast, you have to get up really early. It is really challenging. Sometime some time ago, i read erik ons storm larsons book. It is a remarkable account of the worst National Disaster in history, the galveston hurricane of 1900. The book brings to life america at the turnofthecentury and the destruction of the city, at the time the jewel of the south, the new york city to be of the gulf coast. Author joins us here today and brings to life human drama, survival from a massive hurricane that slammed galveston almost 100 years ago, coming up on september 8. Given that it is the 100th anniversary, this is the great time for us to look back on the tragedy in the nonfiction andunt of erik larson the nonfiction account of erik larson. Before i introduce him, i want to discuss the anatomy of hurricanes, how we go about cutting it forecasting, and i want to step back in time to show footage taken after the damage of the galveston hurricane. It was taken by Thomas Edison with one of his first cameras. He captured the devastation that occurred in galveston. For those who live in the boston area, there are lots of meteorologists here who would be qualified to give this talk on hurricanes, but i was selected for an important reason. Atwas because, here wordsworth, i think i isaacsndedly made storm a bestseller. I depleted the shelves. I bought the book for meteorologist friends, gifts to my colleagues as well as friends for birthdays. And last but not least, i belong to a book club, a group of women i mostly went to college with. They are all nonmeteorologists, nonscientist. Isaacsm to read storm and they are here today, ladies and gentlemen. [applause] and they loved the book. Beenn this room has impacted in some way by a hurricane . Anyone . Pastanybody know, this decade we have four tropical systems that made landfall in southern new england . Bob in 1991. Past september, lloyd was a Tropical Storm and made landfall in southern new england. It came we had bertha, up the coast, dumped rain, did wind damage. Rd, in hurricane eduoa september of 1996. Cod,u were visiting cape you probably got stuck in the traffic because it took five hours to evacuate the islands. It did some wind damage and dumped rainfall. But hurricane bob in recent memory was the major hurricane that made landfall, category two but the time. It did 1. 5 billion dollars in damage and killed 17 people. Looking at hurricane records fromdate back to 1886, 19951999, that is the most active hurricane period on records. Hurricanes. Finding now, Hurricane Researchers, im not a specialist but i do read the studies, but Hurricane Researchers who focus their lives on analyzing storms found this largescale circulation in the ocean that is probably driving the frequency and intensity of hurricanes. That means that every 30 years or so, we go into about a decade where we get a lot of hurricanes and a lot of them can be intense. For those who are older in the crowd, in the 1950s, it was also a very active hurricane. It hurricane period. Does anybody remember the names . Diane. It was very active. Four major hurricanes came through the area. Timee now in that decadal of frequency. We have a hurricane we will talk about in a moment that has remarkable similarity to the galveston hurricane. Hurricanes are the largest and most powerful forms on earth. They often stretch across 300 miles. Warm,storms are born over equatorial waters. Alonganes also about up the pacific rim and in the bay of bengal. The storms usually begin as a cluster of thunderstorms that take on a rotation at low latitude, and the rotation produces sustained winds of 30 Miles Per Hour or greater as they begin to organize around a central circulation. It is classified as a Tropical Storm. Sustained winds have to be 39 Miles Per Hour or greater, classified as a Tropical Storm and then given a name. Once sustained winds code 74 miles brower or greater, it is classified as a hurricane. Names were first used in 1963 to help us keep track of each system. But at that time, only female names were used. Petitionedalous and the National Weather service and in 1970, the National WeatherService Included male names as well. Now we have boy, girl, boy, girl cycled through each year. When there is a major hurricane, just like when a big athlete retires, the name is retired. A major hurricane like bob or andrew, the name is retired. Then they go about the Selection Process to come up with a new name. I had lots of schoolkids email me and say, could you put my name on the list. . [laughter] anyone want a hurricane named after you . [laughter] a dubious honor. Collected by the World Meteorological organization and reflect the different ethnic backgrounds impacted by hurricanes of the atlantic. So if you want your name they are and know some small kid who does, tell them to write to the worldmedia logical meteorological organization. The galveston hurricane was named for the city devastated. The atlantic Hurricane Season began june 1 and will land at the end of september and we are coming upon our most active climatological season, usually around september 13, so right now we are in a very active period. Attensity of hurricanes, cap cat2, names are based on a scale of one to 5, 5 being catastrophic. The categories determined by central pressure of the crooked, maximum sustained winds central pressure of the hurricane, maximum sustained winds. I have a snippet from a piece i did in 1996, when bertha was curling up the coast, a review of what i just said. Very typical for tv news, nothing lasts more than a minute. So this is about a minute long. And the introduction is done by one of our anchors. These hurricanes are rated one to 5, 5 being the most powerful. A one. Ne bob in 1991 was explained. Ls and september are considered our most active times, but this time it has come a bit early. With all eyes trained on bertha, we look into the heart of a hurricane. [strong wind blowing] 10 billion tonk 40 billion in one day. The power of two hurricanes could supply the United States with all its energy needs for six months. Hurricanes feed off warm, tropical ocean waters until they swirl up to 74 Miles Per Hour and are classified as a hurricane. They can be up to 300 miles wide. Rated on a scale from one to five, one being the weakest. [no audio] [inaudible] can simply be termed catastrophic. 19 38, the1, forecast called for showers, by nightfall, over 600 people in southern new england had lost their lives. August 1991, hurricane bob, costlyy two, secondmost storm in history. 1992, category. Four storm strikes florida. Hurricaness when first began to be tracked, they were identified by latitude and longitude by 1963, they began using feel name female names. It wasnt until the 1970s when male names were included. Im mish michaels. Stay with seven news for continued coverage. I wanted to show you the track of the galveston hurricane. I have my handy, laminated tracker. 27 as aed august tropical wave off the coast of africa, which is a typical breeding ground. It passed the Leeward Islands south of the Virgin Islands, south coast of puerto rico, across Dominican Republic and haiti, through cuba, and much of the time it was just a Tropical Storm, not a major system. But what we often see, having to do with warm waters of the gulf of mexico, it can move into this region and undergo rapid intensification. It became a category four createne, which can damage that is almost catastrophic at that is what we saw what happened. At that time, the science wasnt so sophisticated, and there was a high degree of your rocker see an scandal that existed in the u. S. Weather bureau which today is our National Weather service. It prevented people from acting on the initial warning signs. The cubans knew this was coming. Was theine meteorologist in charge of the weather euro and galveston that had documented the wind and rain Weather Bureau in galveston and had documented the wind and rain but did not want to alarm the people. Because we have sophisticated instrumentation, we can anticipate at least the track of a hurricane, not necessarily the intensity. Satellite imagery is taken from 22,000 miles above and we can minute,ges minute by move them together and assess the track of the storm. We have brave people called hurricane hunters, they actually fly into the heart of a storm and drop instrumentation into the storm to collect data. They fix it center of circulation, very important, and the minimal central pressure. The data they collect feeds back to the Tropical Prediction Center and also a model that helps us assess what the track may be. There is a pretty good degree of skill in the forecast track, especially in the first 24 hours, but there are still a lot of gaps in determining the intensity of a hurricane. And it is because the ocean is modeled properly or isnt model that all and some of these models look at the ocean up sphere ocean atmosphere under the hurricane. And we dont have buoy data from many locations in the ocean, so we dont know whether there is a warm section of water that the courier that the hurricane goes over and it intensifies, so when you see that occur, you scramble to react to that. Models showsrecast 8 00 a. M. Saturday morning, and you can see this knot in the golf of mexico. That is what that bullseye is. A Tropical Storm, potentially a hurricane to let me show you what it looked right now looks like right now. Has anybody heard of hurricane debbie . It passed the Virgin Islands this morning is a very weak category one storm, poised to move into very warm water along the bahama island chain and then into the gulf of mexico or the southern tip of florida, according to models. What is remarkable and ironic is that this is an almost identical track to the galveston hurricane. How bizarre is that . We have a storm that the valves got that develops in a similar location off the african coast paths now taking a that is well within reason it would move into the gulf of mexico this weekend. The models habit around the southern tip of florida and curbing it around the coast of the United States but now it looks like the models are now taking it back into the gulf of mexico. Ironic,rtainly quite even the anniversary coming up. I will be working for the Weather Channel soon and was able to come and do some video from the tape library. This is from Thomas Edison, used his camera to capture some images of galveston. And you can see what a category four hurricane can do. [video presentation begins] people would have seen the water level rising rather waves would have been extremely large and flooding would have started and they probably were panicking. Most of this occurred after dark, at night. In the pitch black darkness of the storm, those roughing it were trying desperately to stay above the surface. Office short, waves reached a height of 40 feet. Buildings groaned under the force of 135 mile per hour wins winds and shattering waves. It was the middle of the night and there was no light. It wouldve been dark. People clinging to trees. They woke up to complete devastation. Deadere were a lot of people there. They were underneath buildings. Bodies had been washed out to sea and washed back in with each incoming tide. Lossoflifeal of was attributed to access roads cut off by the storm surge. They were trapped on bailey are islands with no place to go. Houses were coming down around them and many people drowned as a result of the fact they couldnt get off the islands. There was extreme devastation there. You would think forecasters might have learned a powerful lesson from 1900. 1938, a similar circumstance happened in new england. There were ship reports of a hurricane offshore but it had been 100 years since a hurricane made landfall here in new england. It was thought that hurricanes arent around the bermuda high offshore and they would follow a favorable track that kept it out to sea when in fact, the storm accelerated directly into new england and people went up to see the big waves and were amazed by how awesome the sea looked. 600 people were washed up with that storm. It is still the greatest National Natural disaster in new england history. You would think that 38 years later, lessons would have been learned. But they were not. We know more about the atmosphere today, but the same shortcomings that existed in 1900 and galveston are still brought to bear on forecasters of today. Meteorologist of and the ethical dilemma of sending the alarm, i have been there and it is difficult to face. They are much less announced and bureaucracystence, and the government at the National Weather service certainly has issues forecasting storms. You can edit that out of the cspan thing. And we have so many people flocking to the coasts, and even if you build this dirtiest buildings, we will get a cat five and those buildings will be washed away. Onto the business of the night. I have done my meteorological spiel. Rik larson is a weather nut he adores thunderstorms, high winds, excessive rain, deep fog and cold. My kind of man. [laughter] he is an editor and contributor magazine, harpers and other magazines. His book was named that best Nonfiction Book of 1999 by entertainment weekly. And i am proud to say that his science is well reasoned and his crackling prose captures the integrity. The most compelling part of this remarkable tale is that it is all through. I have heard nothing but praise and share that praise and lets welcome erik larson. [applause] after all that, i think she said everything i was going to say. Im just going to go home. [laughter] thank you. The check will be in the mail shortly. Can everybody hear me ok . Thanks, everybody, for coming out. This is great. Sometimes you come to a bookstore and there is nobody there and sometimes you come, and it is a full room. Book tour that one author came to came to a bookstore and there were 25 to set up at his talk was set for 8 00. He is waiting. He is waiting. 8 00 rolls around, nobodys there. He is up your with a glass of a glass of here with water. Finally, one woman comes in and sits in the farthest corner. And he says, why dont you come to the front row and have a private conversation . And she says, i might want to leave early. [laughter] if that isnt the nightmare, i dont know what is. [laughter] [indiscernible] mean . What do you i thought i would talk tonight about doing a book like this and coming up with an idea like this to begin with. I am not a meteorologist. I am a weather junkie, i but thankay nut, you for that. I watch the Weather Channel , but i want to talk about this process. Wherever i go, people want to know how is it that i live in seattle and wound up writing a book about a storm in galveston 100 years ago. The answer is, i really dont know. It sort of happened. The serendipity effect is what i call it. I set out to do a book about a theicane, about that era, 1900s. I find that a very compelling period in American History. Do a originally set out to book about a murder in new york, ight. Am marsh wr William Marsh wright. There is a hurricane connection. Into his life came and unscrupulous attorney from houston. He was planning to kill mr. Rice and steal his money, taking his will and his money. I onlyame hurricane, knew it as a hurricane at this point, not the mother of all hurricanes. I started reading a little about the hurricane. The hurting damaged a lot of William Marsh rices interests in the houston area. And because of that, he planned to put all his resources back in texas to rebuild his plant, which would mean there would be nothing left to steal by the plotters. He was given a lethal dose of arsenic, probably the first time a hurricane has been directly implicated in a first degree homicide. I started reading more about the hurricane. The murder story, you look for certain things when doing a book and one is a compelling narrative arc, and as much as i really like the story of the murder, it wasnt particularly mysterious. I was having a bedtime. But you i was having a bad time. But i was reading about this hurricane. Im a weather junkie. I grew up on long island. I remember playing in the eye of a hurricane. Disposed to enjoy hurricanes or at least the thought of hurricanes. So here was this hurricane. I was looking through microfiche at the library of congress and the first thing i saw was 6000 dead from this hurricane. Kind, nothing of the never heard of a storm of this magnitude striking the United States. I thought, it has got to be yellow journalism. It turned out to be in underestimate. The most conservative death toll in galveston was 6000 dead. 8000 to 10,000 was probably more accurate. So i was drawn into this storm and began reading more about and said to myself, why am i wrestling with this murder . It was compelling is when you think about a hurricane, a dark, summer thunderstorm, it has natural narrative arc and i found that compelling. It begins in a far off place with a subtle gathering of out in the sea off africa, thunderstorms, all these subtle forces building, and a intensitycrease in intensity. You even have thunder and lightning and dark clouds and gathering wind. I found that compelling. The murder faded to the background. I resolved that is Something Else about hurricanes i found , being ag, and that is up oneather nut, i grew cold war Science Fiction films, the behemoth, ye, i lovedg e them. There was always some giant, irradiated creature walking through arizona eating people. But what i loved about those movies was the first third was the best part. The first third was when all these strange things began to happen. And that could be kind of explained by human things, but not really. Go down that basement stairway, you know . I loved that sense of mystery and hurricanes and body that embody that. N there is a wonderful sense of strangeness with hurricanes. And all those old Science Fiction movies and the first third in the same way, driving up in the same car, a 19 54 ford the same guyalaxy, getting out of the car looking or farmercerated goat or what have you, it is always eviscerated, looking down at this goat, moving the toothpick from one side to the other end, i cant tell you what, nothing human done this. [applause] [laughter] it is a sciencefiction fiction element, the mystery. So i resolved that if i was going to do this, i was not going to do it as a disaster book. I dont see it as a disaster book or a hurricane book necessarily, i see it as a portrait of a time to the lens of a storm. I thought it was going to do a book with this hurricane as part of the narrative framework, i was going to do it in a way that would provide what i call emotional traction. Have read walter lords a night to remember about the titanic sinking . How many have read about the johnstown flood . Excellent books, but they lack this quality of emotional traction, because they are firsthand accounts, but no one character or trio of characters rome through the book where you can hold hands, get to know, and then when they become at risk, you care. So i was going to build emotional traction if i could and i wasnt going to do it if i couldnt find the right narratives. Was the chief weatherman in galveston and in texas. Storm my book isaacs because people didnt again naming storms until the 1950s. There was an informal practice throughout the 19th century of naming storms after their primary victims. Was the primary victim of this storm. I had known about isaac cline from the beginning, the legend fairlyc cline, which he certainly helped endorse. By his the storm own later estimates, 12,000 people. If i were coming to boston to write about something that happened in paul riveras time, i wouldnt write about paul revere because he was too well known. Like,aac cline it seemed Everybody Knows this and im not interested and i want characters with nuance and depth. I went looking elsewhere. Two things happen when you are a happens, butdipity a giant mortgage moves you along. More librarieso and pleading about information pleading for information about storms and hurricanes. Was before i moved to seattle, i was living in baltimore. I went up at this wonderful theary outside washington, National Oceanic atmospheric and administration library, one of the terrific pocket libraries everyone in america should treasure, a singlefocus library. How many people here watch the Weather Channel . Come on. How many people watch the Weather Channel when there are no storms . [laughter] good. My kind of people. This is the kind of place you guys should go. Because it is fantastic. It is like a museum. It is so unused by outsiders that things stand on these shelves that should be in museums, like written records from old polar expeditions, early records from the point reyes observatory dating from the 1890s. Im a weather nut and i walked in there. Things the logor indicated would be about hurricanes. Library10 hours in this being pulled by things i was lucky. Ted in, which was because suddenly on one shelf, it was not in the catalog, there was a letter binder, one of these things that can only hold one document. Inside,ime, i will look and there is an article from the galveston news. Look who wrote it, isaac cline. It is one of those moments in research where the hair on your neck stands up. [laughter] i read this thing and was transfixed. Isaac cline talks about how no saidcal cycle, he hurricane was too unscientific a word, Tropical Cyclone. No Tropical Cyclone could ever galveston,damage to and he went into an elaborate explanation which to this day i dont understand. He finished the article saying that not only was it impossible for any Tropical Cyclone to damage galveston, but anybody who believes otherwise was a victim of delusion. How many have seen high . Xiety there is that scene where mel brooks is being driven to the institute of the very, very nervous, there is music and they andlooking around the car, they hear the philharmonic seriously playing their instruments. That is what was happening in the middle of the library to me, because suddenly the legend could be wrong. Maybe this guy blew it great cost to calvinist and great cost to galveston and to his family. Show me a hero, and i will show you a tragedy. There was a fundamental problem. , his everyuy who written possession was lost on september 8, 1900. Everything he ever wrote. How do you reconstruct the life of a guy like this . Everything is going. I dont have an answer. Im going home. There was ad was, mortgage, i knew there was a kids futurer my College Educations and stuck, i started going to more libraries today, places like the National Archives, looking for stuff on isaac cline. I finally reached the National Archives attic in silver springs, another incredible find, this modern glass thing containing world war ii records, administration records, weather to do a cavitye search and stripsearched practically to get in there. And a wonderful place i sat in these documents, down and started in 1880 and went day by day through these daily documents, and isaac cline began to emerge in a way i did not expect. He was everywhere. Every fifth document was isaac cline. I didnt realize he was such a big player in the weather center. Central coree the of what i knew about isaac cline. Then there was a memoir i found brother, very dry reading, but nonetheless, it was there. Then there were other people talking about isaac cline, inspectors who visited his bureau, people who knew him, so forth, so he began to come alive. But there was one moment when i knew beyond up the aunt doubt isaac was going to be my central character. There were still other candidates at that point. But it came across in the National Archives isaac clines official report to the Weather Bureau written in a way only dry, cline could do it, i a dry, clinical story, even though he himself suffered an unbearable loss. He described september 8, 1900. I will walk through it. Picture this and think about your own house. There isne says nothing he can do at 1 00, finally realizing the true magnitude of what the storm is bringing to galveston. I argue he didnt recognize it until that point. Off, telegraph down down, telephone lines , three railroad bridges not out and one wagon bridge knocked, and one wagon bridge knocked out, all by an ocean liner that had been driven 20 miles inland by high winds. The city was cut off and nobody had left galveston. Everybody was there. People thought this was something to celebrate. There were no warnings, no hurricane flags. Isaac cline is going home at this point, the afternoon, his house is five blocks from the beach. It is on 15foot stilts. He built this house to withstand what he believed was anything could deliver. He gets home. The water is up to his waist, seawater. Inhouse is hes pregnant what in the house is his pregnant wife, three doctors and 60 people from the neighborhood who gathered in the weathermans house. If any house stands, it is going to be isaac clines. Hours later, this ease at the 15foot level, just below his first floor. He opens the front door to monitor the storm. Shut your eyes and imagine your neighborhood, looking at the back door, instead of the house next door with shrubs and a playset, you see open sea punctuated by an occasional rooftop, plus all the other debris, aind, horrendous night. Then something happened, this was the moment bad things happened. As he is standing at the door rises four the sea feet in four seconds, storm surge coming now in earnest, four feet in four seconds c rise searise. When i read this i was on a train to washington and i , myized my own daughters own three doctors, each was under four feet tall. Think about what that meant throughout galveston. Families were big then, five kids, eight kids. , the womenes were home alone with the kids ause the husbands werent it was a moment of life and death for some members of your family. Is luckily able to climb to the next floor, in a panic, but the water continued to rise. The storm surge exceeded 25 feet. The highest ground in galveston at that time was 8. 7 feet. The math do the math. For an unknown time, all of the city of galveston was under the seat during that storm. What happened to isaac and his family, i am not going to tell you, i will let you read the book. In the interest of brevity, i will stop and take questions, that is my favorite part anyway. If nobody has questions, i have a question for you. How much time did you spend in galveston researching . And it seems to be the major tourist attraction in galveston everybody talks about the hurricane still. The chamber of commerce, you learn a lot spending a day there and taking the tours. You see all the remnants which remain. I wonder if you spent a lot of the time on the ground and learned much from being there, and if galveston is unique in the impact that remained a century later, unlike san francisco, where you dont see evidence of the earthquake. It was a defining event for galveston in many ways. Their otherwise littering future was depressed by the fact the storm destroyed so much of the city and so much confidence in the city, thereby giving houston to the north and edge in the competition. I went down there at least six times, did a lot of research in the rosenberg library. I went to galveston expecting Something Like charleston, a weatherworn, old place, and i was surprised that when you go there, and the heart of the city today, you cant get a sense of what it was like that day on september 8. Because there was a fundamental change. Builtthe storm, the city in 18foot seawall and then elevated the entire city, from eight feet to 18 feet. They raised entire cathedrals with 2000 hand jackson then filled them in with soil. Something was fundamental that was missing and i didnt realize it until somebody clued me in. Fundamental element of a writers perception was missing, that is perspective. You couldnt get a sense of what isaac had seen went he walked out of his office. Because of the elevation in 1900. Able to seee been the top of the highest swells coming in, even from his office. That surprised me. But it was also liberating, because forced me to really try to imagine, not makeup, imagine using historical documents, what that would have been like and what it would have felt like to be in the city at that elevation Something Like this coming ashore. Thats the long answer to your question. Are their memoirs or other written materials from survivors . Erik the only reason i was able to do the book is because the Galveston Rosenberg Library has storm archives. People didnt necessarily talk about the storm afterwards, but they did want to write about it, wonderful, vivid detailed reports on four peoples memories faded. There are hundreds of them. So it was a triangulation to find out what was right and what was wrong. Permeated these people in terms of looking up what was written. You said you wanted to get yourself into isaacs mind, looking out that backdoor. Was there some indication as to what other people felt . Erik one of the most striking things about the account is how how we think, they all were thinking and how they all viewed this, the panic, fear for their appearance, fear for their children, their husbands a sense of creeping and terror based on what happened after the storm. Some veryg accounts, fragmentary, but also valuable. Most of this was in the middle of the night in the dark . Erik yeah, all in the dark. No light. Although there was an effort after the storm had begun to for the comfort of light began putting candles in the windows if they had candles, if those windows had survived the power of the wind. Almost as if it was Christmas Eve with a single light in the window and it was a chilling thing to see these lights in an occasional house, people trying to say, we are still here, come and get us, but also saying we need the kinship now because everything has been destroyed. The account in the archives is terrific. Interesting, the library has very little on isaac cline, actually almost nothing. Was there much photographic records to look at . Erik are you asking why there are no photos in my book . [laughter] ofre is a terrific archive grass, 4000 blackandwhite, some very striking. I actually used those as a resource and spent hours at the library with a magnifying glass, using the photos not so much as something to constantly look at, but as a way of using reminding artifacts about how life was. Find thatnished to the ship that had survived the storm at sea and had come into the harbor and was stopped docked, and they began putting corpses by the hundreds into barges and dumping them, and this was one of those barges with 900 corpses. Its another one of those moments with the hair on the back of your neck, where i was looking at this through a magnifying glass very closely, and hadnt made the connection that the ship in the photograph was the same ship that survived the storm at sea, until suddenly i saw the name of the ship through the magnifying glass to read i didnt even know that was the ship. And they were the guys whose accounts were embedded in the story i tell about that ship. It was one of those moments, here they are, these are the guys, and here they are at dock standing on the bow, looking down into this barge piled with courses. It was bizarre. But anyway, theres tons of photographic evidence. I dont have any photographs in the book, because my main goal wasnt necessarily to write about the hurricane or write a disaster book or write a weather to allow people to time and a period of at the end of the book to emerge from that period. I didnt want this voyeuristic look at photographs. And after the corpses were after thesea, and bodies came back, a decision was made to burn the bodies in place. Photograph shall photographs show a pile of wood with smoke coming off the top, which was not the experience of the people of galveston. The experience of the people of galveston was walking out the back door, seeing in this pile there neighbors, and there were pyreseds of these that sprang up overnight so the bodies could be burned. You go out the back door, there are the joneses in this peyre. This pyre. You have 95 t10 95 humidity in the smell of pewter for case and like a blanket is 15 feet in the sky. Photographs dont make it. Coffee, tea, cheesecake . [laughter] were you the model for your book cover . Erik no. This is actually isaac cline. But im impressed that you ask. [laughter] seattle because they dont have hurricanes here . Have exploding mountains. Thats a start. [laughter] its the first place ive lived where there are signs saying tsunami warning zone. I actually love it, the climate is perfect for me. But im dark skinned anyway. Governmentfederal put into place any new concepts or ideas as a consequence . The isaac cline was with federal government and up to the storm became a foremost hurricane expert in the country. He became one of the nations hurricane experts. And it is really because of isaac cline that the thing that kills in a hurricane is storm surge, and that hurricanes are a danger to those on land. This wasnt acknowledged by the Weather Bureau in the 19th century. Hurricanes were a seaborne threat to shipping. Shipping was the men concern. An interesting thing came main concern. An interesting thing came to light as i was looking through the archives. After the storm left galveston, it lost power and regain power and by the time it reached michigan, it has 75 mileperhour winds again and was a category one hurricane. This was a gigantic system. Poor guy had a beekeeping company in the middle of the country at asked and asked the Weather Bureau in a polite way, couldnt you have warned us that the storm was coming . My company was destroyed. Itgot a snotty reply saying, is not the practice of the Weather Bureau to send high Wind Warnings inland. [laughter] that was the end of it. Hurricanes were not a land threat, they were a shipping threat. And now, you watch the Weather Channel and they tell you that storm surge is what you have to worry the most about. I argue in the book that it was a category five, which is a contentious thing. But the category for designation is based on category four designation is based on pretty conservative criteria and also they were extrapolating lowend i am extrapolating hi. Low and i andng extrapolating high. Did animals survive . Erik there were snakes found in trees that escaped death, thats true, snake seeking shelter in trees where people had sought shelter already was a very serious problem. Somebody could see a snake ,oming up, getting bitten falling from the tree and getting drowned. People didnt spend a lot of time writing about animals that survived. There was a lot of other stuff to think about. All the hurricanes that have come ashore in central america, i find it hard to believe they didnt know that hurricanes did cross the gulf. Erik they know it now. They didnt know it then . Erik part of the book is a biography of an attitude that existed in the 1900s. We as a nation and as a fastgrowing city in texas, proud and prideful country, we had the attitude we could do anything. Were thinkinge about taking on the panama canal, which the french had decades ando had failed, new york was starting the first subway soul hadome wise written that there was no longer a need for a patent office, because everything that because everything that has ever been invented had been invented. It was this attitude. If anything i think that conflict is even more acutely felt today. I wanted to write a book about the millennium without using the word millennium. But anyway. I have a question for you guys. Here is my question. In the course of my research i talked to the six top ists in theg country, asking, is it true this could not happen again . Hurricane causing hundreds of thousands of deaths is over, right . Instantly, they all, as if i had all in the same room, they all had the same response, that is untrue. They are deeply concerned that people are way too complacent now. Idden, i askedunb them, which storm was the one that came close . They all came up with the same storm. Lastthe last within the 20 years. Those who read the book are not allowed to as the question. Question. Er the which storm was the one that most scared the nations top hurricanologists . Audible] [laughter] no. Say . E me, what did you [laughter] thank you for mentioning his book. Nt there some monster storm that was 800 miles wide that went up the entire eastern seaboard. I will take two more guesses. Andrew . No. Not andrew. Ok. Before that. Carlos was a bad one. It would pale in comparison to the threat posed by this one. It was opal. Within the last five years. You never heard about it. The reason opal is so significant, and the reason all of these guys, i was astonished at how consistently they said opal. , as the head of the Hurricane Research division tells me, a hurricane that canaves productively be predicted. Computer models are pretty good. The thing they were about as a hurricane that behaves pathologically. Great term. Any storm has the power to behave pathologically. Something they wanted to drive home. Opal was one of those storms. Opal headed towards pensacola. The florida coast. Initially as a category one storm moving at 10 miles an hour. You know, it is a hurricane, take it seriously but they officials figured they had some time. Couple other interesting elements there. For some strange reason, the 0 quarter around pensacola was under heavy construction, which is not something you want to have an Hurricane Season. Also, the night when things began to get hairy was the night of the o. J. Simpson verdict. So a lot of things came into play. Evacuation officials figured we had time. We do not want to have a night, evacuation. People could get hurt or killed. We will do this tomorrow in an orderly way. Suddenly in the matter of hours, aal one from category one to high category four, at times a category 5. Not only that, it went from 10 miles an hour to 20 miles an hour. Suddenly you have half the town to evacuate. A storm of monumental magnitude, catastrophic hurricane. Out toannouncement goes evacuate tonight people stayed. They wanted to see the oj verdict. They will leave the next day. Morning comes, everybody leaves at the same time. The roads are so jammed that literally nothing is moving. Meteorologists and everybody, the Warning Systems are activated. People are sitting in their cars, hearing the most dire news, hearing this category five hurricane is coming in they are not going anywhere. They got so bad that people began fleeing their cars. For high ground. Running from their cars for high ground. N opal did something very lost most of its power and took an interesting term. Brought the weakest link of the storm over the i10 quarter and i do not believe a Single Person got killed. The experts think it couldve been the one that killed thousands. There by the grace of god, i guess. I guess that is about it. Thank you all for coming. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] history bookshelf features the countries that less known American History writers of the past decade talk about their books. Thecan watch our with series every saturday at 4 p. M. Eastern on American History tv. On cspan 3. David bryce acheson was a twoterm u. S. Senator from missouri in the mid18th century. This included six years as Senate President placing him third in the line of succession. It was his service in this position that some content elevated him to the presidency for 24 hours in march 1849. Next, the director of the Atchison County historical andety discusses his life explores the question of whether he should be recognized as the nations 12 president. The Kansas City Public Library hosted this event and 2014 and provided the video. Chris taylor passed away in 2019. Mr. Taylor thank you. That was a grand introduction. If you just want the major a cop was means of david rice atchison, thank you, it has been a lovely evening. If you want his major accomplishments. Needless to say his administration is a little less impressive than maybe truman or anyone else who was ever president. Atchison isid rice someone you should know about. Inwas a significant player the