http://www.1900storm.com/isaaccline/index.lasso
By HEIDI LUTZ
The Daily News
It is hard to understand what changes would happen to a man who watched as his pregnant wife disappeared beneath raging flood waters.
Or a man who watched as his children struggled to stay afloat during a dark, treacherous night in September.
A man who so loved climatology - the study of weather and climate - but had to watch as weather tore his family apart.
Isaac Cline was the chief of the U.S. Weather Service bureau in Galveston during the 1900 Storm.
As a young meteorologist, Cline was eager to spend his years learning how weather can influence a person's health.
But after the night of Sept. 8, 1900, Cline's focus would change. Much of his professional career would be spent studying the science of tropical cyclones. He would go on to write textbooks and papers that experts in the field used until the technology of air reconnaissance became commonplace after World War II.
But in the story of his life, hurricanes tell only one chapter.
There is no doubt that his life forever changed on Sept. 8, 1900, as did the lives of thousands of people who survived that great hurricane. And it would be hard to imagine a day Cline did not think about that dreadful night.
For those closest to Cline, those memories were revealed in brief stories, and often no more than what was written in his autobiography. The man spoke little of that evening, despite spending a lifelong career studying tropical cyclones.
He spent more time talking about weather, his research and his work with the U.S. Weather Service. He also enjoyed art and shared his knowledge of art and glassware with anyone who would listen at his Art House in New Orleans' French Quarter.
(more at the link above)