Isaac’s Storm

Isaac’s Storm Isaac Cline dealt with perils that no one should have ever had to endure. Erik Larson was very good at describing what he thought and saw, but a little too much. His descriptions were too lengthy and the subject didn’t catch my attention until much later in the book. The book was written very well it excluded the too familiar he said she saids. The language flows with clarity and precision. His recount of the storm’s destruction sucks you into the dramatic effects as the storm takes over the town. Some of my favorite parts of the book are in the beginning I love the metaphors and similes. The beginning catches you by taking you across the world to Africa, â€Å"It began as all things must, with an awakening of molecules. The sun rose over the African highlands east of Cameroon and warm grasslands, forests, lakes, and rivers, and the men and creatures that moved and breathed among them; it warmed their exhalations and caused these to rise upward as a great plume of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen, the earth’s soul. † That creates such a beautiful picture of all elements working together I love it. I also think that the fact that it’s true is amazing. Over 10, 000 people dead from one hurricane. Technology has advanced so much even since then. I can’t imagine what Hurricane Katrina would have done if no one had been warned. It’s so important for education to progress and expand. Isaac took on a tremendous responsibility when he didn’t realize what was coming; I don’t think it was his fault though. He thought he was prepared and nothing could have prepared him, or anyone for the tragedy that the hurricane brought. It’s very interesting learning about the politics of the weather bureaus and how everything works. I never knew how much the weatherman did. The things that they measure and predict are really incredible. The most interesting part of the book was when the storm actually hit. The way Erik Larson describes the events happening to Isaac makes you feel like you’re watching them through Isaac’s eyes. It makes me really appreciate living in the mountains where tropical storms and tornados don’t destruct our beautiful valley. Another one of my favorite paragraph’s was, â€Å"the air cooled rapidly as it pierced colder and colder layers of atmosphere and encountered lower and lower pressure. The lower the pressure, the more the air expanded. As it expanded it cooled. It continued to rise but less than a mile above the earth crossed a threshold, and a phase change occurred. The air got so cold, it could no longer retain the water it carried. The vapor condensed en masse, as if at the tap of a conductor’s baton. The resulting droplets were so tiny they remained suspended in the rising air. † It’s fun reading about the facts when he relates them to familiar things. It lightens the book and catches your attention again. I definitely leaned a lot in this book. Before I didn’t really know anything about weather, especially all of the tools to measure the wind pressure and how to watch the tides and so on. I enjoyed learning about all of these things even though I learned more than I care for about how precise the weather is. I also learned much more about Texas and Galveston. It would be nice if Erikson would have included a dictionary like Ella Minnow Pea, so that you didn’t have to go back and forth throughout the book to double check. Overall the book wasn’t too bad. I liked how he makes the whole story come to life, but in doing so he seems to drag on in details.