On Friday evening, September 7, 1900, many of the 37,000 residents of Galveston, Texas, were settling down to dinner, few if any of them concerned about the steady 15 mph northerly wind rattling their windows. Within 48 hours, at least 8,000 of the townspeople would be dead, victims of the single worst natural disaster in U.S. history. Relatively few people are aware that the deadliest natural disaster in the United States was the hurricane that struck Galveston Island on September 8, 1900. One of the best resources that can be found to help fully understand the significance of this storm is Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson. Dr. Isaac M. Cline was the chief of the U.S. weather Bureau’s Galveston station located on the 3rd floor of the Levy Building which can still be found on the corner of Market and 23rd. Cline had begun tracking the storm from the Cape Verde Basin off the western coast of Africa. On August 31, this storm entered the Caribbean and began to increase in size. The hurricane passed just north of Cuba, and on Thursday September 6 entered the Gulf of Mexico. The projected course would have the storm make landfall well east of Galveston, but on Friday Dr. Cline became worried.Cline noticed a continually rising tide in spite of a 15 mph wind from out of the north as well as decreasing pressure. At 12 o’clock midnight Saturday September 8, 1900 it began to rain in Galveston. By nine in the morning water was running calf deep Roberts 2a few blocks from the beach. The rising tide, driving wind, rain and storm surge broke apart the bathhouses on the beach. Citizens of Galveston began to comprehend the importance of the situation and started moving toward the middle of the island along Broadway, only 8.7 feet above sea level at the time. Cline sent the final message from the island by telephone at 3:30 P.M. to the Western Union office in Houston. A...
