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Island in a Storm: A Rising Sea, a Vanishing Coast, and a Nineteenth-Century Disaster that Warns of a Warmer World ReviewAt first glance, you would wonder as to the timeliness of a book addressing a devastating storm which occurred in 1856 and slammed into the Gulf of Mexico and in particular, a small resort island; Isle Derniere. After reading just the first chapter of this rather unique and amazing work, the wonder will disappear as you, the reader will start recognizing quite familiar situations, granted, often stored in the back of the mind, but never the less there. The message of this work is timeless...in so many different ways.
This work offers so very much in so few pages. It is like reading two or three books simultaneously. Not only is the story absolutely captivating, but the facts, trivial and important, fly fast and furious. We receive a wonderful lesson in history as the author takes us to antebellum Louisiana, giving the reader glimpses in the lives of the rich sugarcane plantation owners, politicians, developers, Riverboat Captains, the poor working people, the horrid and unworkable institution of slavery, transportation of the time, attitudes, dress, diet and so much more. A history of New Orleans is served up which is a separate and fascinating study unto its own. Along with the history lesson, the reader receives lessons in river, ocean and weather dynamics along with a life and death story of an island. Behind this entire work though, the author has woven dire warnings; warnings that need to be heeded. Have we changed all that much since the mid 1800s?
Basically, this is the story of Isle Derniere, one of the various barrier islands off of the coast of Louisiana which on August 10, 1856 was hit and demolished and more or less completely whipped out by a hurricane. It is the story of the rich vacationers there and their slaves as they tried desperately to survive. Along with these unfortunate folk, we have a number of nearby ships which are suffering the same fate. Through the authors pen we are served a wonderful, vivid and delicious profile of many individuals; the good, the bad and the ugly. The reader must keep in mind that this is not in any sense of the word a novel. This is a true story which has been meticulously reconstructed by the author through detailed research. Fortunately for us, there were survivors of this disaster and much documentation and first hand accounts are available to which the author has had access. The author has perfectly captured the essence of the times.
Now we have here even extra bonuses! Abby Sallenger has a PhD in Marine Science from the University of Virginia and was the former chief scientist of the U.S. Geological Survey's Center for Coastal Geology. He is currently leading the USGS storm Impact research group. Sound pretty boring, huh? When I first open this book I must admit that my eyes did a bit of a roll and I let out a little moan of despair. Goodness was I wrong! No dry thesis here, no, no, no! No ramblings of a musty academic are to be found in these pages! This work is as much of a page turner as many a novel I have read! This guy, Sallenger, can write! He is also an obvious natural story teller. I can truthfully favorably compare his skills to that of David McCullough and Stephen Ambrose as a writer of popular history. It does not stop there though. While I am far from an expert in Marine Science, History of Louisiana or meteorology, I have, over the past 50 years, done a tremendous amount of reading in these areas and traveled through the geographical areas featured in this work, so when I say that this book is well researched, it is not an empty statement just to fill up space...this writer knows his stuff!
This work is a fascinating read and will give the reader much food for thought on many levels. The earth has been changing for millions of years and our coast lines change at a comparatively fast page. Will we learn from our past? Will we heed the warnings we are receiving via a rising sea level and shrinking ice cap? Personally, I am quite pessimistic in this area, but you need to read this one yourself and make your own mind up.
Bottom Line: A wonderful mixture of history, science and the human condition told by a very skillful writer and story teller.
I enthusiastically recommend that you put this book at the top of your "to read" list. The time you spend reading it will be well worth it!
Don Blankenship
The Ozarks
Island in a Storm: A Rising Sea, a Vanishing Coast, and a Nineteenth-Century Disaster that Warns of a Warmer World OverviewIn the mid-nineteenth century, the Isle Derniere was emerging as an exclusive summer resort on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. About one hundred miles from New Orleans, it attracted the most prominent members of antebellum Louisiana society. Hundreds of affluent planters and merchants retreated to the island, not just for its pleasures, but also to escape the scourge of yellow fever epidemics that ravaged cities like New Orleans each summer. Then, without warning, on August 10, 1856, a ferocious hurricane swept across the island, killing half of its four hundred inhabitants. The Isle Derniere was left barren, except for a strange forest standing in the surf.Drawing from a rich trove of newspaper articles, letters, diaries, and interviews, Abby Sallenger re-creates the chain of events that led a group of people to seek refuge on an exposed strip of land in the sea. He chronicles the dramatic course of the hurricane itself, as seen through the eyes of a diverse cast of real-life characters, including eighteen-year-old Emma Mille, her French father, a steamboat captain, a pastor, and a slave. Island in a Storm is the story of their bravery and cowardice, luck and misfortune, life and death.At the heart of this narrative lies another, equally compelling, story. Sallenger, an oceanographer, traces the insidious link between the environmental deaths across the Mississippi delta and the human deaths that occurred when the storm swept ashore. The result is a fascinating portrait of a coast in perpetual motion and a rising sea that made the Isle Derniere particularly vulnerable to a great hurricane.Ultimately, Island in a Storm is a cautionary environmental tale. Global warming is spreading the unique hazards of river deltas to coasts around the world, and the signs of what happened to Isle Derniere may soon be appearing on other islands. The account of this nineteenth-century disaster and its aftermath offers a vital historical lesson as we continue to develop precarious coastal locations whose vulnerability will only grow as sea levels rise across the globe.
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