Outline for Informative Speech on Galveston Hurricane of 1900

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.

The 1900 Hurricane in Galveston destroyed a majority of the towns infrastructure and killed a significant amount of the population. One of the main reasons behind the level of devastation was do to the fact that the city was not at all prepared to face a storm as large as the one that hit in 1900, the city had a very low elevation with its highest point being only 9 feet above the sea level, and had very little if any means of protection from Hurricanes(1.). By 1900 Galveston had already been hit with several destructive storms in the past but they were not severe enough for the citizens of Galveston to start making more efforts to curb the potential damage a larger storm could have in the future and thus do to something on a

With the floodwaters lapping at the walls, he remained in denial. Isaac Cline along with a few of the people who worked with him, convinced themselves that the storms out of the Caribbean would move the opposite way. Cline agreed with Matthew Fontaine Maury an oceanographer, that the region would not get the storm surges. To ignore the signs of the storm’s size and intensity was the ultimate sign of arrogance. The National Weather Service didn’t want to create fear, but they should have been scared or a little more concerned, since other parts of the United States experienced major disasters before. Not as major as this time obviously, thus the reaction nonchalant

“Human bodies bobbed facedown in the water, bumping against the boat” (“Anderson vii”). By September 7, 1900, Galveston was the 4th largest city in Texas (“Galveston”). It was a growing and flourishing port city of 37,000 (resources); and one of the wealthiest cities in the country (“Galveston”). On September 8, 1900 a powerful hurricane slammed into Galveston (“Galveston”). Its’ highest wind speed recorded before the anemometer blew away was 100 mph, but the speeds were estimated as high as 135 mph (“Galveston”). Over 3,600 buildings were destroyed in the hurricane causing 30,000 people to be homeless (“Galveston”). A 15-foot storm surge engulfed the entire island leaving the highest point of the island just over 8 feet above sea level (“Galveston”). Evacuation was almost impossible (“Galveston”). At first their estimation of

In many ways people’s overconfidence was very costly for Galvestonians due to the fact that lack of attention, over confidence and hypocrisy from their authorities as well as the narrator himself weren’t taking seriously the warnings from the Cuban authorities as the book Isaac’s Storm suggests in page 19-20 “The bureau’s men in Cuba said the storm was nothing to worry about; Cuba’s own weather observers, who had pioneered hurricane detection disagreed.” And also the narrator himself got warned by his brother on how the wind has been irregularly high as it points out in page 19-21”It was capable of measuring velocities as high as one hundred miles an hour, but conditions had never come close to testing capacity, nor did any rational soul believe

In the turn of the new century, the people of Galveston were faced with a grim reminder. The event that destroyed the small island of Galveston, the Galveston Hurricane, had many social, political, and economic impacts that made this storm life-changing. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 improved Texas for the better and helped Galveston grow stronger as a city.

Packing 145-mile-an-hour winds as it made landfall, the category 3 storm left more than a million people in three states without power and submerged highways even hundreds of miles from its center. The hurricane’s storm surge — a 29-foot wall of water pushed ashore when the hurricane struck the Gulf Coast — was the highest ever measured in the United States. Levees failed in New Orleans, resulting in political and social upheavals that continued a half decade later. (Laforet, New York Times)

Although the plan was outstanding, it didn’t last long due to all of the cites evolving into a council-manager form of government. A couple of actions they took to resolve their problems long term was building a sea wall and also raising the entire city. The commissioners assigned engineers to create a plan to protect Galveston from storms in the future. The engineers presented a two-part project: To break the forces of the waves, they recommended building a concrete seawall three miles long from the south jetty across the eastern edge of the city and down the beach. To protect the city from flooding, they proposed raising the level of the entire city by picking up most of the structures in the city and filling in beneath them with sand. Taking these actions have certainly help the people of Galveston survive through hurricanes.

Having lived in the southern coastal region of Texas I have seen many of the beauties that nature offers, but many of these beauties also bring complicated needs to those they effect. I've discovered the power and magnitude of lightning storms I've been entranced by the soft crashing of the waves on the coast but the most beautiful and perhaps the most devastating phenomena I have ever viewed are hurricanes. Hurricanes have swept through my home front on many occasions, these powerful giants drift through towns decimating all in their paths breaking trees, ripping roofs off houses, and bringing with them a flood like no other. The high water and gale force winds that comprise these natural wrecking balls can cripple families and in my community

Hurricanes are formed over tropical waters. These intense storms consist of winds over 74 miles per hour (Ahrens & Sampson, 2011). The storms addressed here are Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy. This paper will explore the contrasts and comparisons between these two horrific storms.

Human error played a major role in this disaster, because the people at the weather station were not very concerned about this storm. In fact, they didn’t even figure it was a hurricane. Until a young meteorologist did the math and found that the storm was a hurricane and it was coming to New England. But the further experienced meteorologists didn’t believe him and it never got out to the public, so no one evacuated the area or made any safety precautions. Once they found out it was actually a hurricane, they had no time to

Before the sky turned gray and the sea became wicked, business was booming for galveston. Trade with Europe had capitalized the marketing world and with cotton at the center of it all. The humidity from the gulf was just right for cotton to grow wonderfully. Back in the 1900s they did not have the technology we have today. The only way we knew a storm was coming was from ships that had gone through it and islands such as cuba reporting bad weather. A few days before the storm made landfall ships had reported going through some rough weather conditions as well as Cuba, Florida, and Louisiana had all reported storm related damage reports. One day before the storm hit galveston the U.S Weather Bureau sent out a storm warning ranging from Pensacola, Florida to Galveston, Texas. Very few people took this warning seriously because most meteorologist thought the storm would make landfall elsewhere on the contrary to what Cuban meteorologist were saying. This left 36,000 unevacuated people left

Thesis statement:We must take notice and learn about the hurricane process so that we are able to

The Great Hurricane of 1938, or known to many as the Long Island Express, was known as one of the most disastrous hurricanes to hit New England. It wasn’t the high winds, heavy rain, and high waves/storm surge that gave this hurricane its title in history. The Great Hurricane had a fourth deadly weapon; the element of surprise. It was the beginning of September, a time where many packed up their summer clothes, boarded up their houses, and left to return back to the real world leaving their summer homes behind. When symptoms of a storm approached New England, many locals convinced themselves and others that it was just the normal “line storm” which occasionally comes in September. It wasn’t until Sept 21 that people realized the so-called

Hurricanes are among the costliest and the most destructive of natural disasters. Since 1995, the United States has witnessed more intense activities by hurricanes with Mobile County in Alabama experiencing hurricane Ivan and hurricane Dennis in 2004 and 2005 (Link, 2010). In 2005, Hurricane Katrina was the costliest and one of the deadliest hurricanes to have hit the United States and was rated category three in Mobile County (Marchi, 2007). The response to the disaster was poor owing to the lack of proper disaster preparedness as