posted by admin on Oct 15
1. Refer to the grid map of Galveston at the beginning of the book. Name the
building closest to the shoreline that sustained the least amount of damage.
2. After reading the chapter titled “The Beach,” write two adjectives that best
characterize Isaac Cline’s personality.
3. Explain what was unusual about the weather in Galveston the summer of the
hurricane.
4. Name two weather-related phenomena that were unsettling to Isaac in the time
leading up to the storm.
5. What controversy concerning the U.S. Weather Bureau existed at that time,
according to Larson?
6. What method of communication did the weather bureau use in its beginnings?
7. Explain the “butterfly effect.’
8. Who/what was Mark Twain criticizing in this statement, and why is the
statement humorous? “Probable northeast to southwest winds, varying to the
southward and westward and eastward and points between, high and low
barometer swapping around from place to place probably areas of rain, snow, hail,
and drought, succeeded or preceded by earthquakes, with thunder and lightning.”
9. How did Columbus and his ships manage to weather the hurricane of 1502?
Explain.
10. To what does the “Law of Storms” refer? Have we mastered it today? Explain.
11. Isaac gave a “cruelly detailed” explanation of the Coriolis effect in a presentation
to the 1891 Galveston YMCA. “The crowd listened with iron concentration.” A
twenty-first century audience would have killed him (not literally). Why?
12. Explain how the Horse Latitudes got its name.
13. What is the main reason the U.S. Weather Bureau had a bad reputation?
14. What connection did Isaac see between weather and the study of medicine?
Explain.
15. What unusual weather phenomenon occurred in Abilene, Texas, not long after
Isaac arrived?
16. What first rivalry between brothers Isaac and Joseph is discussed?
17. What did Willis Moore have banned from all U.S. Weather Bureaus? (This
product was believed to make one stupid.)
18. “Against the hubris of the age, what was a mere hurricane?” Explain this quote
and its context.
19. Explain why the citizens of Galveston abandoned the idea of building a sea wall.
20. Give two reasons Larson cites as to why Moore discounted the Cuban
meteorologists’ predictions.
21. Characterize Willis Moore. Support characterization with support examples.
22. Abbreviations on weather maps were as follows: R=rain S=snow M =_______?
23. Explain what the Devil’s Voice is according to sailors.
24. Explain to what the following metaphor refers in Larson’s account: “Where the
Americans saw numbers, the Cubans saw poetry, dark poetry, perhaps- the works
of Poe and Baudelarie- but poetry all the same.
25. Until September 1900, any barometric pressure reading under __________inches
was considered in error.
26. Why did the Weather Bureau at that time prefer to call the “eye of the storm” the
“focus” or “center” ?
27. Explain what it means for a ship to be in the “troughs.”
28. What were Isaac’s actions the morning of the storm, according to Larson.
29. Quote the lines from the newspaper article that Larson says should have gotten
the Pulitzer Prize for bleak irony. Explain why.
30. What did you consider to be unusual about the behavior of the townspeople the
morning of the storm?
31. Why was Louisa Rolfing so angry with her husband, August?
32. Why did Rabbi Cohen instruct his wife to play the piano that day?
33. Describe the tragedy at Ritter’s Café and Saloon on Mechanic Street, the first
tragedy of the storm. Be very specific.
34. These people saw hurricanes in their sleep. What people?
35. Describe what happened to Isaac, his family, and Joseph’s dog immediately after
the storm hit.
36. Explain how Isaac was able to identify his dead wife?
37. What did Willis Moore instruct Isaac to do in the days following the storm?
38. Specifically what was the miracle of Anna Diez?
39. The Galveston Wal-Mart sits on the site of what former building?
40. Describe 3 examples of situational irony that occur in the last section of the book.
Explain what makes each an example of irony.
41. Explain why Isaac and his brother Joseph never reconciled. (inference question)
42. Describe an incident that occurred during the storm that you found to be most
poignant. Explain what makes it so; support. What writing strategies of Larson’s
make the account particularly moving?
16. What first rivalry between brothers Isaac and Joseph is discussed?
They both write a weather article for a contest, isaac gets excepted an jospeh dosent.
17. What did Willis Moore have banned from all U.S. Weather Bureaus? (This
product was believed to make one stupid.)
Cigerrets
38. Specifically what was the miracle of Anna Diez?
"there were miracles still, like Anaa Diez, sixteen years old, who had been washed to the mainland untill a week later she finally made her way back to galveston."
pg.225
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