tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3407624264627208128.post2485530299511317641..comments2024-01-26T21:38:25.924-08:00Comments on Duane's PoeTree: J. Stephen Howard writesDuanesPoeTreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17053093400086634552noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3407624264627208128.post-60559485579180913472015-06-18T08:01:44.007-07:002015-06-18T08:01:44.007-07:00In 1900 Galveston was the largest city in Texas, t...In 1900 Galveston was the largest city in Texas, the Wall Street of the Southwest. The nearby city of Indianola had been the second largest of the Texan port cities, but its destruction by hurricane in 1886 led to its evacuation. Nevertheless, in 1891 Isaac Cline, the Galveston Weather Bureau section director had publicly declared that a seawall was not only unneccessary, even though the city was situated on a low, flat island, basically a large sandbar, but that it would not even be possible for a large hurricane to strike there. The city continued to grow and proper, and the sand dunes along the shoreline, the last thin defense against a storm, were removed in order fill low areas. and thus the Galveston hurricane of 1900, often referred to as the Galveston Flood or the Great Storm, became the second costliest in inflation-adjusted dollars in US history. And the deadliest -- somewhere between 6,000 and 12,000 people, more than all the fatalities in all the other American tropical storm combined -- in comparison, Katrina cost some 1,800 lives Over 3,600 homes were destroyed, and 30,00 people were homeless. Since burials on such a huge scale were impossible, corpses were weighted down on barges and dumped at sea, only to be washed back ashore; so funeral pyres were erected throughout the ruined city, and they burded day and night for many weeks until all the corpses were disposed of. The city never recovered, and development shifted north to Houston.<br />Climate-change deniers, take heed.<br /><br />DuanesPoeTreehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17053093400086634552noreply@blogger.com