ISAAC'S STORM by Erik Larson, 1999.
After reading this nonfiction work, I realized why I had put off reading it for so long: I'm just not that interested in the history of weather forecasting. The National Weather Service was still relatively new in 1900 and they weren't taken very seriously, which created all kinds of issues with the government. But there was too much of it for my taste, especially the politcal infighting, plus I just didn't find Isaac Cline a very sympathetic character overall. There are those readers who would get into that sort of detail. For myself, I felt the pace didn't pick up until the narrative became more about the storm itself. The hurricane hit Galveston, Texas, on Sept. 8, 1900--Larson provides wonderfully vivid descriptions of what the hurricane did, the almost total devastation of the city, the number of deaths, the interwoven vignettes of various people and what happened to them, and then the whole aftermath of the storm. Some enthralling reading here: Clara Barton arrived with the Red Cross, people came looking for loved ones gone missing, gawkers came in on trains to see the spectacle of ruin, workers going through enormously high mounds of wreckage, the wholesale burials and burnings of over 6,000 bodies, unusual discoveries, etc. Was it worth my time and effort? Yes, I'm not sorry I read it, I found it enjoyable as a whole, but I was much more interested in the storm itself and the effects of it as opposed to the political maneuverings and intrigues and feuds within the bureau before the monster storm struck Galveston.