Dr. Patricia Bixel

There have been lots of books written about the storm.

So the storm is sort of like ever with you.

There are monuments all over.

And there have been storms since.

I mean, if you go down to Post Office Street, which is one of the downtown streets, there's a building there that has different levels, that has gashes, has marks on the side, on the corner, about this was the 1900 storm level, this was the level of Hurricane Ike.

So, you know, hurricanes are very much part of the fabric of the island.

But this one still stands out.

And a lot of it is because of what came after it.

The government change, the seawall, and the grade raising.

Because that, in many ways, just both physically and culturally changed the island and created the island the way it is today.

Galveston did okay.

Actually, that's where we end the book because the 1915 storm was a comparable storm.

Looking back on it, this was before they had developed the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricanes.

We think the 1900 storm was probably a Category 4 storm.

The one in 1915 was comparable, and the island did quite well.

By 1915, the seawall is in place.

The grade-raising has finished.

There's damage.

I believe one of the bridges is lost between Galveston and the mainland, but there's nothing like the devastation that happened with 1900.

Nothing at all.