The Weatherman Who Got It Wrong in Galveston and Got It Right in New Orleans
Isaac Cline's career is a story told in two acts. In the first act, he's the confident young meteorologist who declared that a major hurricane devastating Galveston was "a crazy idea"—and then watched the deadliest natural disaster in American history prove him catastrophically wrong. In the second act, he's the chastened forecaster who moved to New Orleans and spent three decades getting it right, predicting floods and storms with an accuracy that saved thousands of lives.
Cline was born in Tennessee in 1861 and joined the U.S. Weather Bureau as a young man. In 1889, he was assigned to Galveston, Texas, as chief meteorologist, and he threw himself into the work with the overconfidence of a man who believed science had conquered nature. In 1891, he wrote that the idea of a devastating hurricane hitting Galveston was absurd, effectively helping to kill any momentum for building a seawall that might have protected the city.
On September 8, 1900, the hurricane hit. It was a Category 4 monster that pushed a storm surge across the flat island and killed somewhere between six thousand and twelve thousand people. It remains the deadliest natural disaster in American history. Cline's wife Cora was among the dead. He survived, pulling his youngest daughter from the wreckage.
To his credit, Cline had issued an unauthorized hurricane warning as the storm approached, going against the official forecast and likely saving lives in the process. But the damage—to Galveston and to Cline's earlier certainty—was beyond measure. The man who had said a hurricane couldn't destroy Galveston had to live with the knowledge that it had, and that his earlier dismissal may have contributed to the death toll.
In 1901, the regional forecasting center was moved from Galveston to New Orleans, and Cline went with it. He spent the next thirty-four years as chief forecaster in the city, and his second act was remarkable. The man who had gotten it so wrong in Galveston became one of the most accurate and respected forecasters in the country. He successfully predicted major floods in 1912, 1915, and 1927—the Great Mississippi Flood that reshaped the relationship between the river and the people who lived along it.
Tulane University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1934, recognizing his contributions to meteorology. He retired in 1935 and died in 1955 at ninety-three. The National Weather Service's highest honor, the Isaac M. Cline Award, bears his name—a tribute to the forecaster who learned from the worst mistake imaginable and spent the rest of his career making sure it never happened again.
Cline's New Orleans years are a story about redemption through work. The Gulf Coast will always be at the mercy of the weather, and the people who try to predict that weather carry an enormous burden. Cline bore his—the guilt of Galveston, the weight of what his overconfidence may have cost—and channeled it into decades of service that protected the city he adopted after losing the one he'd failed.
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