Texas Disasters

Mike Cox
Morris Book Publishing, LLC (2006)
ISBN 0762736755
Reviewed by Richard R. Blake for Reader Views (10/06)

Mike Cox has written a gripping definitive account of twenty of the most devastating disasters in the history of the state of Texas.  Cox, an acute observer, recounts theses stories of tragedy through the eyes of a news reporter. His accounts are readable, compelling and engaging. 

Cox covers a period of over four hundred years of Texas history in the book.  The account begins with the wreck of three Spanish ships off the coast of South Padre Island in 1554, and concludes with hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2006.  Although Katrina came ashore in Louisiana the impact of Texas hospitality and the supreme effort to aid the 400,000 evacuees demonstrate that in adversity Americans unite in the effort to save lives and restore property.

The author provides an amazing number of prints and photographs that reflect the disasters, debris, and destruction of flash floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, and explosions. Twisted houses, buildings leveled, smoke and fire damage are only a few of the results shown in these illustrations.

Dislocated families, lives lost, and mass graves of unidentified bodies, are among the horrors related in these true stories of tragedy.  Fires subsequent to the initial disaster were often more devastating then the original cause.

The stories come from people who lived through those dreadful experiences.  Mike has captured the essence of how the man of the street pitched in to reach out on a human level of compassion.

Cox gives specific examples of this in many of the stories. Men and women became heroes during the aftermath of the ravage, devastation, and destruction of nature’s fury.

The following is typical of the action of civic leaders and hero’s of the day: Following the Galveston hurricane in 1900, “Help began pouring in as fast as rescue and aid workers could reach Houston.”

Mike Cox uses these accounts of disaster as a wake up call to civic leaders and citizens alike to focus on preparedness in the event of future similar catastrophes. The historical account and commentary in “Texas Disasters” is well researched and documented. The bibliography is comprehensive and impressive.

This is a collection of uplifting, heroic stories of survival in the face of overwhelming adversity. 

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