Hurricanes

Hurricane Dorian is bearing down on Florida, I hope everyone stays safe down there! Here are ten nonfiction works on hurricanes.

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink - Fink provides a landmark investigation of patient deaths at a New Orleans hospital ravaged by Hurricane Katrina-- and a suspenseful portrayal of the quest for truth and justice. After Katrina struck and the floodwaters rose, the power failed, and the heat climbed, exhausted caregivers chose to designate certain patients last for rescue. Months later, several health professionals faced criminal allegations that they deliberately injected numerous patients with drugs to hasten their deaths. Fink unspools the mystery of what happened in those days, bringing the reader into a hospital fighting for its life and into a conversation about the most terrifying form of health care rationing.

The Gathering Wind: Hurricane Sandy, The Sailing Ship Bounty, and a Courageous Rescue at Sea by Gregory Freeman - In October 2012, a replica of the famous HMS Bounty, an eighteenth-century tall sailing ship, was on a collision course with a storm that would become the largest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic—a clash that would prove dramatic, tragic, perplexing, and ultimately one of the most unforgettable stories of Superstorm Sandy.
 Crewed by an eclectic team of seafarers, the Bounty was led by Robin Walbridge, their highly respected captain with decades at the helm, whose decisions—sometimes questionable—decided the fate of his ship and crew.
 Departing from Connecticut as the storm raced north from the Caribbean, Walbridge attempted to outmaneuver Sandy, heading the Bounty southeast. As violent gusts tossed the wooden ship, the crew fought to save their beloved Bounty—and finally to save themselves. When waves, wind, and encroaching water finally overtook the ship in an area known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, the crew was suddenly tossed into the churning sea. The Bounty was gone, but their fate was still to be determined.
 The men and women of a Coast Guard station in North Carolina summoned the courage to fly into hundred-mile-per-hour winds while the residents of the Eastern Seaboard were fleeing or bracing for the hurricane’s impact. Through hours of white-knuckle flying, with crew members thrown about their aircraft and rescue swimmers jumping into thirty-foot seas, the Coast Guard accomplished one of its most memorable rescues ever.
 Based on interviews with Bounty survivors and unfettered access to Coast Guard rescue team members, The Gathering Wind offers not only the first but the most complete account of this heartbreaking, thrilling, and inspirational story.

Into the Storm: Two Ships, a Deadly Hurricane, and an Epic Battle for Survival by Tristram Korten - In late September 2015, Hurricane Joaquin swept past the Bahamas and swallowed a pair of cargo vessels in its destructive path: El Faro, a 790-foot American behemoth with a crew of thirty-three, and the Minouche, a 230-foot freighter with a dozen sailors aboard. From the parallel stories of these ships and their final journeys, Tristram Korten weaves a remarkable tale of two veteran sea captains from very different worlds, the harrowing ordeals of their desperate crews, and the Coast Guard's extraordinary battle against a storm that defied prediction. When the Coast Guard received word from Captain Renelo Gelera that the Minouche was taking on water on the night of October 1, the servicemen on duty helicoptered through Joaquin to the sinking ship. Rescue swimmer Ben Cournia dropped into the sea--in the middle of a raging tropical cyclone, in the dark--and churned through the monstrous swells, loading survivors into a rescue basket dangling from the helicopter as its pilot struggled against the tempest. With pulsating narrative skill in the tradition of Sebastian Junger and Jon Krakauer, Korten recounts the heroic efforts by Cournia and his fellow guardsmen to haul the Minouche's crew to safety. Tragically, things would not go as well for Captain Michael Davidson and El Faro. Despite exhaustive searching by her would-be rescuers, the loss of the vessel became the largest U.S. maritime disaster in decades. As Korten narrates the ships' fates, with insights drawn from insider access to crew members, Coast Guard teams, and their families, he delivers a moving and propulsive story of men in peril, the international brotherhood of mariners, and the breathtaking power of nature.

Katrina: After the Flood by Gary Rivlin - Ten years after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisiana--on August 29, 2005--journalist Gary Rivlin traces the storm's immediate damage, the city of New Orleans's efforts to rebuild itself, and the storm's lasting effects not just on the city's geography and infrastructure--but on the psychic, racial, and social fabric of one of this nation's great cities.  This book traces the stories of New Orleanians of all stripes--politicians and business owners, teachers and bus drivers, poor and wealthy, black and white--as they confront the aftermath of one of the great tragedies of our age and reconstruct, change, and in some cases abandon a city that's the soul of this nation.

Rescue of the Bounty: Disaster and Survival in Superstorm Sandy by Mike Tougias & Douglas Campbell - An all-new harrowing maritime tale of the sinking and rescue efforts surrounding the HMS Bounty--the actual replica used in the 1962 remake of the 1935 classic Mutiny on the Bounty--which sank during Hurricane Sandy with sixteen aboard. On Tuesday, October 24, 2012, Captain Robin Walbridge made the fateful decision to sail the HMS Bounty from New London, Connecticut, to St. Petersburg, Florida. Walbridge was well aware that a hurricane was forecast to come up the Eastern seaboard. He explained to his crew of fifteen that the ship would fare better at sea than at port, and that he thought he could sail "around the hurricane." He told the crew that anyone who did not want to come on the voyage could leave the ship and there would be no hard feelings. No one took the captain up on his offer. Four days into the voyage, superstorm Sandy made an almost direct hit on the Bounty. The vessel's pumps could not keep up with the incoming water and a few hours later, in the dark of night, the ship overturned, sending the crew tumbling into the ocean filled with crashing thirty-foot waves. The Coast Guard launched one of most complex and massive rescues in its history, flying two Jayhawk helicopter crews into the hurricane and lowering rescue swimmers into the raging ocean again and again despite the dangers. Ultimately fourteen crew members were rescued; tragically, two members did not survive. Dripping with suspense and vivid high-stakes drama, Rescue of the Bounty is an unforgettable tale about the brutality of nature and the human will to survive.

The Storm of the Century: Tragedy, Heroism, Survival, and the Epic True Story of America's Deadliest Natural Disaster: The Great Gulf Hurricane of 1900 by Al Roker - On the afternoon of September 8, 1900, two-hundred-mile-per-hour winds and fifteen-foot waves slammed into Galveston, the booming port city on Texas's Gulf Coast. By dawn the next day, the city that hours earlier had stood as a symbol of America's growth and expansion was now gone. Shattered, grief-stricken survivors emerged to witness a level of destruction never before seen: Eight thousand corpses littered the streets and were buried under the massive wreckage. Rushing water had lifted buildings from their foundations, smashing them into pieces, while wind gusts had upended steel girders and trestles, driving them through house walls and into sidewalks. No race or class was spared its wrath. In less than twenty-four hours, a single storm had destroyed a major American metropolis--and awakened a nation to the terrifying power of nature.

Storm Surge: Hurricane Sandy, Our Changing Climate, and Extreme Weather of the Past and Future by Adam Sobel - Was Hurricane Sandy a freak event--or a harbinger of things to come?  Was climate change responsible?  What connects the spiraling clouds our satellites saw from space, the brackish water that rose up over the city's seawalls, and the slow simmer of greenhouse gases? Why weren't we better prepared?
In this fascinating and accessible work of popular science, atmospheric scientist and Columbia University professor Adam Sobel addresses these questions, combining scientific explanation with first-hand experience of the event itself.
He explains the remarkable atmospheric conditions that gave birth to Sandy and determined its path. He gives us insight into the sophisticated science that led to the forecasts of the storm before it hit, as well as an understanding of why our meteorological vocabulary failed our leaders in warning us about this unprecedented storm--part hurricane, part winter-type nor'easter, fully deserving of the title "Superstorm."
Storm Surge brings together the melting glaciers, the shifting jet streams, and the warming oceans to make clear how our changing climate will make New York and other cities more vulnerable than ever to huge storms--and how we need to think differently about these long-term risks if we hope to mitigate the damage. Engaging, informative, and timely, Sobel's book provokes us to rethink the future of our climate and how we can better prepare for the storms to come.

Superstorm: Nine Days Inside Hurricane Sandy by Kathryn Miles - The first complete moment-by-moment account of the largest Atlantic storm system ever recorded-a hurricane like no other. The sky was lit by a full moon on October 29, 2012, but nobody on the eastern seaboard of the United States could see it. Everything had been consumed by cloud. The storm's immensity caught the attention of scientists on the International Space Station. Even from there, it seemed almost limitless: 1.8 million square feet of tightly coiled bands so huge they filled the windows of the Station. It was the largest storm anyone had ever seen. Initially a tropical storm, Sandy had grown into a hybrid monster. It charged across open ocean, picking up strength with every step, baffling meteorologists and scientists, officials and emergency managers, even the traditional maritime wisdom of sailors and seamen: What exactly was this thing? By the time anyone decided, it was too late. And then the storm made landfall. Sandy was not just enormous, it was also unprecedented. As a result, the entire nation was left flat-footed. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration couldn't issue reliable warnings; the Coast Guard didn't know what to do. In Superstorm, journalist Kathryn Miles takes readers inside the maelstrom, detailing the stories of dedicated professionals at the National Hurricane Center and National Weather Service. The characters include a forecaster who risked his job to sound the alarm in New Jersey, the crew of the ill-fated tall ship Bounty, Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Christie, and countless coastal residents whose homes--and lives--were torn apart and then left to wonder. When is the next superstorm coming?

We Fed An Island: The True Story of Rebuilding Puerto Rico, One Meal at a Time by José Andrés with Richard Wolffe - Chef José Andrés arrived in Puerto Rico four days after Hurricane Maria ripped through the island. The economy was destroyed and for most people there was no clean water, no food, no power, no gas, and no way to communicate with the outside world. Andrés addressed the humanitarian crisis the only way he knew how: by feeding people, one hot meal at a time. From serving sancocho with his friend José Enrique at Enrique's ravaged restaurant in San Juan to eventually cooking 100,000 meals a day at more than a dozen kitchens across the island, Andrés and his team fed hundreds of thousands of people, including with massive paellas made to serve thousands of people alone. At the same time, they also confronted a crisis with deep roots, as well as the broken and wasteful system that helps keep some of the biggest charities and NGOs in business. Based on Andrés's insider's take as well as on meetings, messages, and conversations he had while in Puerto Rico, We Fed an Island movingly describes how a network of community kitchens activated real change and tells an extraordinary story of hope in the face of disasters both natural and man-made, offering suggestions for how to address a crisis like this in the future. Beyond that, a portion of the proceeds from the book will be donated to the Chef Relief Network of World Central Kitchen for efforts in Puerto Rico and beyond.

We Shall Not Be Moved: Rebuilding Home in the Wake of Katrina by Tom Wooten - As floodwaters drained in the weeks following Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans residents came to a difficult realization. Their city was about to undertake the largest disaster recovery in American history, yet they faced a profound leadership vacuum- members of every tier of government, from the municipal to the federal level, had fallen down on the job. We Shall Not Be Moved tells the absorbing story of the community leaders who stepped into this void to rebuild the city they loved.