Focusing Events in the Early Twentieth Century: A Hurricane, Two Earthquakes, and a Pandemic

Abstract

This chapter examines the 1900 Galveston Hurricane, the 1906 San Francisco and 1933 Long Beach earthquakes, and the 1918–1919 flu pandemic. The San Francisco Earthquake became the Great San Francisco Fire. Native Americans in the area shared stories of earthquakes with early European explorers. The 1900 Galveston Hurricane, which made landfall on September 8, remains the deadliest disaster in US history. The US Weather Bureau in Washington, D.C., began sending to its Galveston office warnings of an approaching storm as early as September 4. Although the precise evolution of the storm is unknown, apparently the less severe tropical storm that swept over Cuba on September 4 and 5 exploded into a major hurricane as it passed over the warm water of the Gulf of Mexico. Erik Larson points out that in 1875 and 1886, through wind and storm surge, hurricanes destroyed the thriving port of Indianola on Matagorda Bay, approximately 120 miles southwest of Galveston.