In 1900, the deadliest hurricanes in American history struck Galveston Island. As many as 12,000 people—nearly a third of the island’s population—may have died. The booming city on the Gulf Coast was flattened as storm surges as high as eight feet crashed onto the shore.
More than 100 years later, Samantha Montano—an emergency management expert and self-proclaimed disasterologist—came to Texas to study the impacts of Hurricane Harvey on Southeast Texas. It was one of Texas’ worst hurricanes this century. At least so far.
Much had changed since the 1900 storm: Technological advances in flood control, for one, as well as the creation of state and federal agencies which could prepare, respond, and lead recovery in the aftermath. But there was one striking similarity. Just as in the 1900 storm, residents in the path of the storm had very little warning of the looming crisis. Back then, storm tracking systems were in their infancy, and by the time the storm was on the horizon, it was too late to get people out of harm’s way. In 2017, thanks to factors like abnormally warm waters in the Gulf, Harvey grew faster and stronger than meteorologists expected. There were no mandatory evacuation calls before the storm, although thousands fled the coast anyway. One hundred people died in the storm, which brought 30 inches of rain to some parts of Houston. Harvey was a climate change-fueled hurricane, a glimpse into what the future holds if fossil fuel consumption continues unchecked.
