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
By: Al Roker, William Hogeland / Narrated By: Byron Wagner
Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
A vivid account of the storm, the destruction, the people caught in its wake
Full disclosure? I’ve not listened to Isaac’s Storm by Erik Larson, even tho’ I do indeed have it in my Library (So sue me, I kinda have a curiosity about tragedy, natural disasters), and I chose this, The Storm of the Century as it seemed to be a more human, less scientific, less removed account of the Great Gulf Hurricane of 1900. I dunno, maybe it’s just that Al Roker seems to be such a sweet and avuncular kinda guy; it just seeeemed that I’d find more stories of the PEOPLE who lived through it. But I could be wrong…
What I DID find was indeed that: Stories from a few, varied, people and how they made it through. This is a story of Galveston, a story of people, and it does also have Isaac Cline’s story, his tragedy within it, so I don’t feel as though I’ve missed toooo much by not listening to Larson’s version. We get to hear about Cline’s mistakes (No need to build a seawall; No, this storm won’t be much), and we get to hear about his Uh-Oh Moment, where he sends his brother off to send a cable forecasting devastation and extreme loss of life.
But mostly, we hear stories about say, Daisy the schoolteacher and her life before the storm, her life during and after. We hear about the woman living in near poverty, running a boarding house who stays in her home, providing food and shelter as others flee their homes, seeking refuge. We hear of the young man, using his brand new shoes, tied together, as a sort of helmet against the flying objects, the shards of broken glass.
And we hear of the Sisters who tried to keep the children at their orphanage safe; we hear of the tragedy that befell all of them as the orphanage was utterly destroyed by the sweeping and raging tides that enveloped it.
I liked the audiobook as it was quite people-oriented, even tho’ there is a fair amount of information given regarding the technology of the day, the forecasting methods used (Actually, Cline was pretty much an original there), what happens when wind hits, what happens when tides meet a home. Later, when all is said and done, there’s also how a seawall is built.
But there’s also how people met tragedy with care and with hard work. The country seemed to come together, doctors (many, many different types of doctors, so many that they got in each others’ way) eventually found ways, with guidance, to work together; individuals assented to being brought into work gangs (Although black men were forced into crews, on pain of gunshot, to carry the bodies of the dead to boats for burial at sea, which the sea did not acquiesce to, or to massive funeral pyres).
I s’pose, no, I KNOW, that was a disturbing part: The gross racism, that basest of human attributes, that came to the fore. Black men and women were accused of being horrific looters of the dead, and only every now and then was it mentioned that: Oh yeah, and there were a couple of whites who descended to that also, but they were OBVIOUSLY inspired by the malicious blacks. Black men and women were also accused of becoming drunks even tho’ a plethora of individuals handled the stress by drinking.
Still, The Storm of the Century comes off as a sort of feel-good book with people helping people, the resilience of the human spirit, and all that. Its main flaw is the narration by Byron Wagner, who is most certainly NOT a native of Texas, as he butchers quite a bit of the way we manage our pronunciations down here. But if you’re not from Texas, you probably won’t mind that much. You probably WILL mind that it takes a LOT for him to break down and express excitement. It takes the absolutely catastrophic for him to up the tempo of his delivery…!
All in all, a very decent account of devastation from long, long ago, made new, made urgent. While I can’t give it five stars (Okay, the writing’s not THAT stellar), it does merit four (The very human stories makes it).
Go Al Roker, you go!!!
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