Media advisory: Background on Galveston 1900 Hurricane

Reporters following Hurricane Rita are advised that a report on the 1900 hurricane that devastated Galveston, Texas--still the worst natural disaster in American history--is now available on the AGU Web site. It is a chapter from the book, Hurricane!: Coping with Disaster (AGU, 2003), covering the event itself and lessons learned from it.

Hurricane! was edited by Robert Simpson, who has studied severe weather and its impact for more than 60 years. He is a former director of the National Hurricane Center. With Herbert Saffir, he devised the Saffir/Simpson scale for classifying potential damage from hurricanes in both the Atlantic and Pacific areas.

The chapter may be seen at http://www.agu.org/pubs/booksales/hurricane/Chapter_05galveston.pdf

For further information on Hurricane!: Coping with Disaster, see http://www.agu.org/pubs/booksales/hurricane/hurricane_bkoffer.html

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