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.