Century of Galveston Weather: 1900-1999 People and the Elements on a Barrier Island by Stan Blazyk

Synopsis

Galveston is the site of the greatest natural disaster in the Uinited States, and a densely populated barrier island whose very topography has been reconfigured in response to natural threats. This is a comprehensive chronology of the weather events that have shaped the city and the island over the past one hundred years. The author provides a narrative history, detailing how Galvestonians have been affected by and have responded to these climatic events, and examines the continuing challenges faced by those who choose to live along the vulnerable Texas Gulf Coast. While the disastrous hurricane of 1900 is treated in full, the author details the weather year by year with more than two hundred photographs, many never published. A retired social worker living in Galveston, Blazyk has been a life-long weather enthusiast. After two years at the Texas State Archives, he spent twenty-four years at the University of Texas Medical Branch, where he was interim director of the Department of Social Work and an instructor at the School of Allied Health Sciences.