As extreme weather events grow in intensity and frequency in the U.S. and around the world, America’s most trusted weatherman, Al Roker, delivers a story to match them all in power, magnitude, and tragic drama with THE STORM OF THE CENTURY (William Morrow; 8/11/15; ISBN 978-0-06-236465-4; $27.99). A fascinating account of a hurricane more deadly than Katrina and Sandy combined: The Great Gulf Hurricane of 1900 is the most devastating natural disaster in American history.
On the afternoon of September 8, 1900, 200-mile-per-hour winds and fifteen-foot waves slammed into Galveston, a prosperous and growing port city on Texas’s Gulf Coast. By dawn the next day, when the storm had passed, the city that existed just hours before, was gone. Shattered, grief-stricken survivors emerged to witness a level of destruction never before seen: more than 8,000 corpses littered the streets and were buried under the massive wreckage. Buildings were lifted from their foundations and pounded into scrap. In less than 24 hours, one storm destroyed a major American metropolis—and awakened a nation to the terrifying power of nature. With a deft narrative touch, Roker adds depth and detail to a story that gripped the country, bringing events to life through vivid moment-by-moment accounts of people who survived it—grocer Arnold Wolfram, newlywed Annie McCullough, schoolteacher Daisy Thorne, police chief Edwin Ketchum, first-grader Louise Bristol, and resident weatherman Isaac Cline, who tracked the storm as he lived it—while shedding light on the environmental factors that shaped the hurricane and the pivotal historic events surrounding it on the cusp of the American Century. Readers will learn of:
• The refusal of the U.S. Weather Bureau to heed the warnings of Cuban weather forecasters who predicted the severity of the storm; a political snub that, combined with their edict to Isaac Cline not to engender panic by warning citizens of the scope of the storm, would prove fatal.
• The desperate measures of people struggling to survive once the storm was in full gale—huddled in attics or clinging to swirling wreckage in the advancing darkness as wind and water howled around them—witnessing neighbors and loved ones succumb to the deadly chaos.
• The grotesque scene the morning after as survivors crept out to find thousands of dead bodies—their clothes ripped off by water—littered over the wreckage, creating a ghastly stench. And the early efforts by city leaders to restore civic life: banning alcohol, ensuring distribution of scare commodities, and instituting “dead gangs” to gather corpses.
• The media frenzy caused by the storm—the first national news story of the century—with Pulitzer and Hearst competing for scoops while funneling vast sums of money and volunteers into clean-up and recovery efforts, and rallying the country to send aid.
• The overwhelming national response to the crisis by groups across the country raising funds and supplies—and the legendary Clara Barton, at age 78, leading a monumental effort as her final mission for the Red Cross.
In THE STORM OF THE CENTURY, Roker tells the fascinating tale of this vastly influential event that not only compelled advances in how weather is understood and predicted, but altered an optimistic nation’s view of its own invincibility, and affirmed the resolve of its people to recover from immense devastation. Exploring the impact of the disaster on a rising nation’s confidence—the pain and trauma of the loss and the determination of the response—Al Roker illuminates both the energy and the limitations of the American Century, and of nature itself.
ABOUT AL ROKER
Al Roker is the co-host and weather anchor of NBC’s The Today Show, and the co-host of The Weather Channel’s Wake Up with Al. Throughout the years, Roker has reported live for Today from some of history’s worst storms and natural disasters. He is a member of the American Meteorological Society and the recipient of numerous awards. He lives in New York with his wife and three children.