Cities that bear the full front of a hurricane may not be able to recover. Maybe they shouldn’t try?
GALVESTON will sigh with relief at the official end of the Atlantic hurricane season on 30 November, but it may never fully recover from September’s hurricane Ike. Perhaps it shouldn’t try.
This wasn’t the first time that the city, sited on a low-lying barrier island off the Texas coast, has been devastated by a hurricane. In 1900, Galveston was the US’s third busiest port, with a population of 38,000, when a category 4 hurricane hit on 8 September. Winds reached 215 kilometres per hour, a massive…
