Introduction: The Beach Summary and Analysis

September 8, 1900

On the night of September 7, 1900, Isaac Monroe Cline had an explicable feeling of foreboding. Isaac had been assigned in 1891 to open the Texas Section of the new US Weather Bureau. He was lauded by the government for his service for making his station one of the best in the country. Isaac saw himself more than a weatherman, he was a scientist. He did his homework and studied the works of celebrated meteorologists and geographers.

That summer, the temperature had been oppressive and the humidity unbearable. The entire country was experiencing higher than normal temperatures. Texas was painted as a paradise with perfect temperature to lure immigrants with no mention of the hurricanes that assaulted its Gulf of Mexico coast. Isaac was also a physician and was a pioneer in medical climatology, the study of how weather...