Galveston 1900 and the dismissed Cuban warnings
The deadliest natural disaster in US history, and the Weather Bureau's refusal to listen to Havana.
The storm
On September 8, 1900, a hurricane struck Galveston, Texas, a booming port city on a low barrier island, its highest point under 9 feet above sea level. A storm surge of about 15 feet swept over the island. Somewhere between 6,000 and 12,000 people died, most often cited as about 8,000. It remains the deadliest natural disaster in US history.
The people
- Willis Moore, chief of the US Weather Bureau in Washington. He distrusted the Cuban forecasters and wanted the Bureau to be the only authority. The Bureau had already moved to stop Cuban storm warnings from going out over the telegraph lines it controlled, and in 1900 it dismissed, and effectively banned, the Cuban warnings about this storm.
- Isaac Cline, the Weather Bureau's meteorologist in charge at Galveston. In 1891 he had written in the Galveston News that the idea of a hurricane seriously damaging Galveston was "an absurd delusion." The city's confidence helped ensure no seawall was built.
- Joseph Cline, Isaac's younger brother, also a Weather Bureau man at the Galveston office.
What the Cubans said, and what Washington said
The storm crossed Cuba first. Forecasters there, working in Viñes's tradition, judged that it would carry on into the Gulf of Mexico toward Texas. The Weather Bureau in Washington decided instead that it would curve northeast toward Florida and the Atlantic coast. Washington was wrong.
The day
Isaac Cline later said he drove along the beach warning people to move to higher ground; Joseph said that he himself raised the hurricane warning flags. Historians debate how much warning was actually given and who did what. Either way, by the time the danger was plain, the water was rising, the bridges to the mainland were going under, and there was nowhere to go.
The Clines' own house, built to be strong, collapsed in the surge. Isaac's wife, Cora, died. Isaac, Joseph and Isaac's daughters survived by clinging to wreckage through the night.
Why didn't people act when they saw the sky?
They had the signs, the long swells, the strange high clouds, the falling barometer, but without a forecast they trusted, those signs weren't read as "leave now." Many people even went down to the beach to watch the big waves. Viñes-style reading of the sky needed training and a network; Galveston had neither listening to Havana. And there were no evacuation plans or routes off the island.
Afterward
Galveston built a 17-foot seawall and then did something astonishing: it raised the entire city, jacking up more than 2,000 buildings and pumping sand underneath. Houston, inland and safer, took over as Texas's great port.
The book on this is Erik Larson's Isaac's Storm (1999).
Key facts
- Father Benito Viñes warned of hurricanes; Galveston 1900 dismissed the Cuban warnings
- Galveston, Sept 8, 1900: about 6,000 to 12,000 dead, the deadliest US natural disaster
- Willis Moore, Weather Bureau chief, dismissed and blocked the Cuban warnings
- Isaac Cline, Galveston meteorologist, had called a destructive hurricane "an absurd delusion" (1891); brother Joseph Cline worked with him
- Washington forecast the storm would curve toward Florida; Cuba said Texas
- Galveston built a seawall and raised the whole city