Glenn Wilson

A well respected man in his time, Cline was the first meteorologist to provide reliable forecasts of freezing weather. He also provided some of the first available flood warnings on the Colorado and Brazos rivers. However, in 1891, he wrote an article in the Galveston Daily News in which he gave his official meteorological opinion that the thought of a hurricane ever doing any serious harm to Galveston was "An absurd delusion". Many residents had called for a seawall to protect the city, but Cline's statement helped to prevent its construction.

He was proven tragically wrong on September 8, 1900 when the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 hit the island killing thousands in what remains the biggest natural disaster in US history. Cline's wife, Cora, who was pregnant with their fourth child at the time, was one of those who perished in the storm. Cline himself was nearly drowned, but he managed to survive, as well as to save his youngest daughter, six-year old Esther. Joseph Cline saved Isaac's other two daughters, 12-year old Allie May and 11-year old Rosemary.

In his autobiography, Cline claimed that he took it upon himself to travel along the beach and other low-lying areas warning people personally of the storm's approach. However, no eyewitnesses reported seeing Cline warning people along the beach. It is known that at around noon on September 8, Cline issued a hurricane warning without authorization from the Bureau's central office in Washington, D.C.. However, writer Erik Larson argued in his book Isaac's Storm that Cline did not warn anyone in Galveston prior to that.

The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 is to date the deadliest natural disaster ever to strike the United States.

In Isaac's Storm, Erik Larson blends science and history to tell the story of Galveston, its people, and the hurricane that devastated them. Drawing on hundreds of personal reminiscences of the storm, Larson follows individuals through the fateful day and the storm's aftermath. There's Louisa Rollfing, who begged her husband, August, not to go into town the morning of the storm; the Ursuline Sisters at St. Mary's orphanage who tied their charges to lengths of clothesline to keep them together; Judson Palmer, who huddled in his bathroom with his family and neighbors, hoping to ride out the storm. At the center of it all is Isaac Cline, employee of the nascent Weather Bureau, and his younger brother--and rival weatherman--Joseph. Larson does an excellent job of piecing together Isaac's life and reveals that Isaac was not the quick-thinking hero he claimed to be after the storm ended. The storm itself, however, is the book's true protagonist--and Larson describes its nuances in horrific detail.