Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History

by Erik Larson

Many years later he would write, “If we had known then what we know now of these swells, and the tides they create, we would have known earlier the terrors of the storm which these swells … told us in unerring language was coming.”

AS GALVESTON STEAMED, the world seethed. The Boxer Rebellion intensified. The British public grew weary of the Boer War. When Boer snipers fired on a British troop train, a British general ordered every house within ten miles burned to the ground. The order shocked London. A madman assassinated Italy’s King Humbert. In Paris, another assassin tried to kill the shah of Persia. Bubonic plague turned up in London and Glasgow. William Jennings Bryan stumped for the presidency and railed at America’s new imperialist bent,

Where the Americans saw numbers, the Cubans saw poetry. Dark poetry, perhaps—the works of Poe and Baudelaire—but poetry all the same.

The dog raced to the edge of the raft and peered into the water. Joseph called him back. The dog stood scrabbling at the edge, obviously torn by conflicting needs. But it was clear where his passion lay. The dog ignored Joseph and prepared to jump. Joseph lunged for him, but the dog entered the sea, and soon he too was gone.