Specific Hurricanes and Typhoons
Category 5: The Story of Camille, Lessons Unlearned from America's Most Violent Hurricane
- Author: Judith A. Howard, Ernest Zebrowski, Jr., Ernest Zebrowski
- Publisher: University of Michigan Press. 2005.
- ISBN: 9780472115259
- Annotation: Camille, which swept through coastal Mississippi and Louisiana in August 1969, was the storm that inspired the five-level scale currently used to predict the damage inflicted by hurricanes. The authors tell the storm's story in personal narratives, opening with the tale of a couple who fear their son has been killed when the storm hits the Mississippi coast. They interview other survivors in the region and up to Virginia, where Camille collided with another storm system, tracking the destruction and the confused response of local authorities. Zebrowski, a physicist, and Howard, a political columnist for a northern Louisiana newspaper, also focus on the role of politics in shaping the civic response.
The Great Hurricane: 1938
- Author: Cherie Burns
- Publisher:Grove Press. 2006.
- ISBN: 9780802142542
- Annotation: Telling the stories of several survivors, Burns brings to life the hurricane that hit Long Island and Rhode Island in September 1938. With very little warning, the storm hit the coast, leaving no means of escape and killing 700 people. Data of the storm's force and the coastal topography that intensified the storm's devastation are given.
The Great Sea Island Storm of 1893
- Author: Bill Marscher, Fran Marscher
- Publisher: Choice Press (Mercer University Press). 2004.
- ISBN: 9780865548671
- Annotation: On a Sunday evening in August 1893, a massive hurricane slammed into South Carolina and Georgia at high tide. By the time the waters ebbed and the winds subsided, 2,000 or more had drowned and thousands more were left homeless, hungry and destitute. With little help from the U.S. Congress or the South Carolina legislature, Clara Barton, founder and president of the American Red Cross, took charge of the first Red Cross hurricane relief and recovery effort.
Halsey's Typhoon: The True Story of a Fighting Admiral, an Epic Storm, and an Untold Rescue
- Author: Robert Drury, Tom Clavin
- Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press. 2007.
- ISBN: 978802143372
- Annotation:Typhoon Cobra devastated Admiral William "Bull" Halsey's 170 ship Pacific Fleet in December 1944, sinking ships, smashing airplanes, and throwing sailors overboard. Presenting the story as if it were a TV documentary, Eric Conger allows the story to tell itself. He adopts a professorial style in passages explaining the physics of tropical storm development and relaxes into informality for first-person accounts retrieved from interviews and historical records.
Hurricane Audrey: The Deadly Storm of 1957
- Author: Cathy C. Post
- Publisher: Pelican Publishing. 2007.
- ISBN: 9781589804586
- Annotation: The first hurricane to be tracked by radar, hurricane Audrey took direct aim at the small towns along coastal Louisiana, moving due north for four days. The coastal communities of southwest Louisiana were poised to evacuate, but then mistakes were made, resulting in over 500 deaths. The author uses interviews with survivors to provide an account of the storm and its aftermath.
Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
- Author: Erik Larson
- Publisher: Vintage. 2000.
- ISBN: 9780375708275
- Annotation: Telling the story of the September, 1900, Galveston hurricane, Larson focuses on both the hurricane itself and Isaac Cline, the chief meteorologist in Galveston. Failure of the Weather Bureau to adequately warn people caused widespread destruction and loss of life when Galvestonians could not escape the island as the hurricane approached.
Storm of the Century: The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935
- Author: Willie Drye
- Publisher: National Geographic. 2003.
- ISBN: 9780792241034
- Annotation: The Labor Day hurricane of 1935, which ravaged the Florida Keys, killed hundreds of World War I veterans, sent to build bridges as part of Roosevelt's New Deal program, who were living in temporary work camps. Drye tells the stories of the victims and survivors, and also covers the politics involved in both the failure to evacuate the workers before the storm and the fallout after the disaster.
The Storm: What Went Wrong and Why During Hurricane Katrina-the Inside Story from One Louisiana Scientist
- Author: Ivor van Heerden, Mike Bryan
- Publisher: Penguin. 2007.
- ISBN: 9780143112136
- Annotation: This serious, scientific explanation of what exactly happened in the hours and years leading up to Hurricane Katrina's devastation of New Orleans brings a fresh perspective to the tragedy. Van Heerden, the Deputy Director of Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center, explains how scientific details, politics, and human nature all contributed to the disaster.