Isaac’s Legacy

The cautionary tale of a legendary hurricane and flood forecaster.

Whenever you ask yourself why federal, state and local officials weren't better prepared for the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina, remember Isaac Cline. He played an integral, if little-noticed, role in the saga of hurricane forecasting, response and recovery that has played out for more than a century in the United States.

In the first week of September 1900, Cline was chief of the U.S. Weather Bureau station in Galveston, Texas. His great pride in his work was matched by his confidence in the then-emerging science of meteorology. He also thought his city could weather virtually any storm. Indeed, in 1891, he declared that the threat of serious storm damage to the burgeoning metropolis was an "absurd delusion," Erik Larson noted in his 1999 book, Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time and the Deadliest Hurricane in History (Crown). And Cline was well aware that it was not his place to issue alarmist predictions. Just days earlier, Weather Bureau chief Willis Moore had reminded him that storm warnings were to be issued only by the bureau's headquarters in Washington.

What Cline did not know was that a monster hurricane was bearing down on his city. By the time he understood what was happening-and notified officials in Washington that Galveston was experiencing a storm of unprecedented proportions-it was too late. After the hurricane, Cline wrote, "Those who lived in large strong buildings, a few blocks from the beach, one of whom was the writer of this report, thought they could weather the wind and tide." They were wrong. A massive storm surge covered the city, killing 6,000 to 10,000 people-including Cline's pregnant wife.

That might have been the tragic end to Isaac Cline's story. But after the Galveston hurricane, he was transferred to the newly created Gulf Forecast District, covering Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. It was headquartered in New Orleans.

For the rest of his career, he studied hurricanes and the flooding they spawned. He was, in fact, the first to show that the deadliest aspect of hurricanes was not wind damage-as had long been believed-but the brutal effects of flood tides driven by the winds. In 1903, he applied his study of flooding to the Mississippi River, warning after heavy rains in February that the river would crest at a record flood stage of 21 feet. Weather Bureau higher-ups sent him a message telling him to temper his warnings, but this time Cline refused.

"Is it not better to warn people of approaching disaster sufficiently in advance to enable them to prepare to meet it than to let them be caught unprepared?" he responded. New Orleans officials heeded Cline's warnings and temporarily heightened the city's levees before flood waters crested at 20.7 feet.

In 1915, Cline accurately forecast a massive hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico that caused storm tides of 10 feet on Lake Pontchartrain. "Never before, perhaps in the history of the Weather Bureau, have such general warnings been disseminated as were sent out by the local bureau in reference to the disturbance that passed over New Orleans Wednesday evening," the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported, according to a biography of Cline written by meteorologist Keith Heidorn.

The capstone on Cline's career came in 1927, when two weeks in advance, he forecast record Mississippi floods. "Too much credit cannot be given Dr. Cline for the work he has done," said then-Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, whose coordination of relief and recovery efforts after the devastating floods propelled him to the presidency. "His flood forecasts have been absolutely uncanny in their accuracy. He has without a doubt saved the lives of thousands of people with these bulletins."

Isaac Cline's legacy lives on in the form of the employees at the National Weather Service's New Orleans office. On Sunday, Aug. 28, the day before Katrina made landfall, they issued a warning that dramatically departed from the measured scientific language that usually characterizes such reports. "Devastating damage expected," they wrote. "Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks-perhaps longer. At least one-half of well-constructed homes will have roof and wall failure. . . . Power outages will last for weeks . . . .Water shortages will make human suffering incredible by modern standards."

Of all the things government officials at all levels could say in Katrina's wake, the one thing they couldn't was that they weren't warned.