The Storm of the Century: Tragedy, Heroism, Survival, and the Epic True Story of America's Deadliest Natural Disaster: The Great Gulf Hurricane of 1900
The Storm of the Century: Tragedy, Heroism, Survival, and the Epic True Story of America's Deadliest Natural Disaster: The Great Gulf Hurricane of 1900
In this gripping narrative history, Al Roker from NBC's Today and the Weather Channel vividly examines the deadliest natural disaster in American history—a haunting and inspiring tale of tragedy, heroism, and resilience that is full of lessons for today's new age of extreme weather.
On the afternoon of September 8, 1900, two-hundred-mile-per-hour winds and fifteen-foot waves slammed into Galveston, the booming port city on Texas's Gulf Coast. By dawn the next day, the city that hours earlier had stood as a symbol of America's growth and expansion, was gone. Shattered, grief-stricken survivors emerged to witness a level of destruction never before seen. Rushing water from the storm, which caused 8,000 deaths, had lifted buildings from their foundations, smashing them into pieces, while wind gusts had upended steel girders and trestles, driving them through house walls and into sidewalks. No race or class was spared its wrath. In less than twenty-four hours, a single storm had destroyed a major American metropolis—and awakened a nation to the terrifying power of nature.
Al Roker is known to more than thirty million TV viewers and has won thirteen Emmy Awards, ten for his work on NBC's Today. He also hosts Wake Up with Al, a weekday morning program on the Weather Channel. A New York Times bestselling author, Roker lives in Manhattan with his wife, ABC News and 20/20 correspondent Deborah Roberts, and has two daughters and a son.
Table of Contents
Underwater 1
Part I They All Had Plans
1 Looking Forward 7
2 The Storm: Africa 22
3 A Reasonable Argument 30
4 Storm Watcher 54
5 The Storm: From Cuba to Texas 82
Part II Maelstrom
6 Galveston: Thursday, September 6 111
7 Friday: The Waves 120
8 Saturday Morning: Storm Tide 132
9 Saturday Afternoon: "Half the City Underwater" 147