Greetings everyone we have the distinct pleasure to welcome our to guest today author of the furious sky of the hurricanes in america. Louisiana was blasted this week and our thoughts and goes out to the whole area speaking earlier to say many weeks or months to have trouble with the water system and with shreveport and monroe is still without power. So with jack davis today in conversation with our author who is a professor of history specializing in sustainability studies. The New York Times book review calls it a beautiful homage and with the Pulitzer Prize the notable book for 2017 and several other best of list including washington post, npr and forbes. Welcome. Its a pleasure to have you here with us today. We will turn the floor over to jack and lets start the conversation. If people have questions they can bring into the chat room and also to encourage people to have signed copies here at the bookshop they can go to the website we will be happy to ship books for you anywhere in the country and anywhere in the world. Welcome. Thank you. Introduced seeing eric he is a prolific author and is a nonfiction writer who specializes in writing history that is for the intellectually curious audience and the outstanding narrative writer the moments of more notable books and among the more notable ones is leviathan on which is a New York Times bestseller and where i read a couple of years ago and then to talk about the history of pirates and then to tackle hurricane history and the book that i have known for a long time we have been due for a good book on hurricanes. This is a huge topic despite being so huge that you can actually hold in your hand. So i am looking forward to having this conversation today. So i want to say why did for some level to bring it into that is something manageable . I thought about writing a book about hurricanes but i wanted to write about a particular hurricane was the galveston hurricane of 1900 which hit long island and new england where i happen to live. Will there is a problem they are both of those hurricanes had quite a few really good books written about them so i went on to write black lives in blue waters then came the summer and fall of 2017, the Hurricane Season from hell with Hurricane Harvey and irma and maria to destroy different parts of the United States. Right after that season was over my editor and your editor got to gather with those at the time and on the history because those that spans centuries and came to have a particular talent to pull together huge amounts of information into a narrative so they reached out to the literary agent and asked him if i would be interested in writing a book and then they reached out to me. I did not immediately say yes because before a sign on to do a book i have to have a vision of what the book would look like. I didnt know a lot about hurricanes. So for a month and a half i read articles and primary accounts of hurricanes and to say i will write the book and put together a proposal and the rest is history. You said you have the vision of writing the book but as you were writing the book and came to completing it did that vision remain the same or did you find yourself staring off in Different Directions to make the book into what you wanted for your reading audience . Thats the same from the outset because before i start a book although i outlined the book the way i wanted it to go there were some stories that didnt make it that i discovered along the way but believe it or not the general outline and the rough chapter outline stayed fairly constant because my book had to be chronological but most often they march through history and a chronological fashion so once you know the lay of the land and those bigticket stories and the themes then it is a matter but there are always surprises when you write a book at least for me because virtually every one of my books except for one was on a topic i know a huge amount about but i did that on purpose because i have to spend almost two years working on these books. I get bored easily so if i pick a topic that will excite me every couple weeks or every day that will be a problem in one of the best ways to do that is to pick a topic im not an expert in because then i am guaranteed to be surprised along the way and that surprise and excitement that only fuels my work on the book but i hope it translates to some extent to the written page. Talk about chapter outlines and then to complete that research. And that is very different. So the archive is our study with the computer in front of us. You are absolutely right. My first book for norton was the wailing book writing six or seven books before that and the proposal very detailed outline of the chapters they trust me more so my proposal over time has gotten shorter and shorter. With those 17 doublespaced pages its more like an essay of what i thought it would be about i had a rough idea for my purposes. So you have to have a map to get someplace and i like to think because i had gotten better at this process and we know more quickly the thing i want to talk about in the book and what direction. So it has changed tremendously when i started writing books in the late 19 nineties, what is almost always at a Specialized Library to get the information that i needed. Was taking a lot of notes which was a problem for me because i flunked handwriting in Elementary School with very poor handwriting and i dont write fast using a typewriter was good back then for what has happened in the last ten or 15 years is the entire seachange. Allowing you to access any book written before 1923 on almost any topic but one of the Major Research institutions around the country has spent a lot of money digitizing the key documents. s with a few keystrokes i can quickly be overwhelmed with data so just today im working on a new book of privateering in the American Revolution and i was reading a book from 1850 and mentioned the certain privateer so i got on google put in the privateers name and his vessel now i have six or seven other documents from the 18 hundreds that talk about the privateer. It is the same with hurricanes the big problem with this book is not a lack of information but deciding the huge amount of data that was available to me. So i had to make hundreds of decisions what to leave out and what not to read. What we looking for for the book was there a particular criteria that you wanted to include . Im sure there are criteria but i write books in the manner i would like to read them. And i love Human Interest stories that leave the deepest impression with me when its a story of people dealing with adversity or just planning in the face of what is likely to come i like the stories of the individuals that survive or did not survive the hurricane or the meteorologist or the politician and those that got swept up into the story both good and bad. People gravitate most easily to stories of other human beings in unique situations and hurricanes that the bill. I spend as much time talking about his ministry it is stuff and regulations. Wanted to focus on the human side of the story. Thats what i like about your book. And with climatology to leave out the Human Interest story. So it was the bridge and a Human Interest story. The hurricanes is right up there with the rest of them. And what they have clearly done so. One of the big surprises how hurricanes have affected the course of American History and in your state alone i was fascinated to read in the 15 fifties and 15 sixties when the spanish were trying to settle florida and the first settlement was wiped out by a hurricane and how that could have changed and also on the east coast of florida there was a Battle Royale between the french and the spanish interested in colonizing florida and the french had a formidable fleet was about ready to attack the spanish a little further to the south which is now Saint Augustine but at the moment when the french were getting ready to launch the attack hurricane comes along wiping out half of the french fleet than the spanish kill those stragglers that made it out of the water after the hurricane crashed their ships. I love those kind of stories it is a great what if. What her friends settle florida and not spain . How could the history of the country been different cracks maybe not the United States. So since i know a lot about hurricanes i certainly didnt know about meteorology, almost everything was a big surprise. The battle of the 18 hundreds with amateur and professional all meteorology involved and to understand hurricanes was fascinating to me and the rule of cuba early hurricane science that was fascinating to hear president mckinley said during the spanishamerican war when it started he was more afraid of what hurricanes would do to American Forces than any military attack that might occur. Every single story in the book i was excited to read about the what the new aspects of history with the Hurricane Hunter on how the first person decided to fly into a hurricane when nobody had done it before and how sputnik led to the creation of satellites and then weather satellites and still today with all technology and ability to watch a hurricane from inception to dissolution to see how much uncertainty there still is the computer model can only take you so far. With hurricane laura that devastated parts of louisiana last week. Just look at what happened in the last few hours before it came ashore 15 miles in either direction the story could have been different the storm surge may have reached 20 feet settle that last moment with landfall occurred there were still questions about where it would occur in the ultimate impact so thats an ocean how hurricanes affect American History it is meteorological happenstance so to go 20 or 30 miles this direction or that direction think how different it would be Hurricane Katrina had a major impact on new orleans. But just imagine instead of making landfall 30 miles to the east it had given new orleans a direct hit. That mightve been a very different story or an even worse story than what come out of it. So the hurricane forecast when did that become decent . And it was incompetent those that were forecasting and tracking hurricanes . With the Us Government and the meteorologist become reliable . It has the ability to keep their eyes on the storm there is the opportunity to send reports to the meteorologist on land and that that was sent over to be telegraphed back in the early years you started to change fundamentally in the forties and fifties when the hurricane came online so when it got a tank full of gas in the atlantic or the caribbean to see what it was doing sending instruments into the hurricane and related information back to the meteorologist on land but with the satellites it was a whole different ballgame now literally you can watch a hurricane dissolve across the atlantic and never lose sight of it and then adding to that to gather data with sophisticated computerized weather prediction models starting to come online in the 19 fifties and has greatly improved since then. That we have the added peace for meteorologist to take that data they are collecting in real time with the historical understanding of hurricanes and hurricane tracks to give a much better idea of what the hurricane is going and how powerful it is likely to be in there for what kinds of protections and steps we need to take to deal with this before it arrives. So the arc of understanding of hurricanes that meteorology go understanding and the ability to track them as they move across the globe is night and day compared to just 50 years ago were 100 years ago. We are fortunate it doesnt reduce the impact of the hurricane because that there is nothing we can do is human beings to cover the strike. We can do is better plan and prepare to deal with the aftermath. So dealing with these Human Interest stories those figures that stand out and the long time weatherman and interest in the Us Weather Service and with those squeaky markers on the whiteboard so look at these particular hurricanes to save lives. One that has residents today her camera came through and did a number on the parish. But not too long ago in 1957 a hurricane came ashore at the end of june and basically leveled there for one individual doctor cecil clark and his wife at a clinic in cameron and during the height of the hurricane, he left his house and left behind his wife, three youngest childre children, and then made it to go into the clinic to help patients who were there and anybody who might be coming in after the hurricane. He didnt make it to the clinic. His car was thrown off the road by water. He sheltered with the family not too far from his home. He survived. He came out of the house the next morning and people crowded around him. They all knew him because he was the local doctor and bade him to go to the courthouse those that were injured needed to be tended to. He was torn because he had no idea what happened to his wife and three children and his made. He had no idea but yet he decided to go with his professional responsibility to his patients that he would go to the courthouse and tend to them and he did. And not until many hours later to turn on his wife survived but the three youngest children and the made were killed. And then call the hero but he said i was just doing what was asked of me being responsible. And expect others to do the same but he is certainly one of the heroes who put the needs of others oppose the needs of himself. Another similar the place hero was clara barton with the hurricane of 1893 killed as many as 3000 people. We didnt have the mechanism or the machinery but those of the American Red Cross and volunteers swept off a georgia and helped those people during their time of greatest need to start planning for the future. Theres one other story coming out of the hurricane of 1893 of dunbar davis that was a lifesaver and North Carolina it is a lifesaving station and after the hurricane he went without sleep for almost 35 hours and in that span he saved nearly 20 mariners whose ships had foundered offshore and brought them back to a lifesaving station and then finally he could take a nap at the end of the ordeal. There are many heroes you remember in new orleans with Hurricane Katrina many people came to help out. One of the most interesting was the cajun natives around louisiana come down to new orleans and how to save 10000 people over the span of a week or two and in my eyes they are true as well. I dont know what philosopher or writer wrote this first but it goes back hundreds if not thousands of years but if it introduces a man or woman to themselves but just like a hurricane people who do work deeds because they have been called upon. A lot of people step up. A lot of people dont. One thing about the hurricane in 1957, some 500 people lost their lives. And those in louisiana still remember but that is something of what i call hurricane amnesia. Those are not in agreement with me there are important lessons from hurricanes now and what that might be quick. To say up front to see the four legs of a hurricane striking of the hurricane, the immediate aftermath and what do people do it for years and decades to hear with the destruction . And with that element that i dont talk about in the book that much is what we can learn from hurricanes and mentioning in the epilogue. Inevitably because of the coverage with the vast amount of money involved, and 2017 generating 265 billion of damage and irma alone destroyed 50 percent so with massive dislocation what is on the economic Richter Scale for the entire country it forces people to focus there is a lot of good writing where people can do and i do believe today compared to years ago certainly people are much more familiar with the anatomy of a hurricane, how meteorologist give us information, they know where to go with it is headed for their area, i believe many communities have good evacuation plans in place for the Emergency Responder system. Has been governe extent not completely but by the amount of funding that they get at the federal level and also by the expertise of people. Are they expert in an emergencyy preparedness and response or are they political appointees who are there for other reasons, so i think theres plenty we can do to improve the situation whether we actually do that or take the steps necessary we have to win to see because it costs money to hurricane proof your house. It has to be made one of the most difficult with the fact people still want to live on the coast. People are still moving to the coast and people are building right on the oceans edge often times in floodplains or areas unless we have better planning, thats going to be a continuing refrain well into the future. So we are in the area we are starting to see Climate Change refugees [inaudible] in the center of this thing and weve become somewhat of a climate refugee city. More and more are leaving the coast and coming to gainesville because they feel safer there with less congestion. They feel more so out of harms way. Are we going to start seeing more refugees or is that happening already. Look at hurricane andrew. A 30mile swath of destruction through Miamidade County almost 200,000 homes were destroyed. Many people about 100,000 lost their job because the place of business was demolished and coincidentally thats the same number about 100,000 people in Miamidade County in the months after the hurricane and i think it is inevitable theres going to be people who will decide they have to leave to get out of the way before the next one comes along but when it comes to coastal living there is such a strong drawl and magnet for it that there is going to be outflow, people whove been impacted and then in the subsequent years will come back. Weve seen that time and time again. Where i live on the coast we dont get too many hurricanes but we get pretty severe noreas