NEW YORK (AP) – Al Roker’s new book, “The Storm of the Century,” reads like a blockbuster movie script, but the “Today” show weatherman said the drama, heartache and strife of the Great Hurricane of 1900 that hit Galveston, Texas, is all too real.
“This is still the greatest natural disaster to hit the United States, even after all this time,” Roker told The Associated Press in a recent interview.
Out Tuesday, the book comes a few weeks before the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29. Roker said natural disasters have become stronger and stronger and the book is a reminder of the damage that can come.
“I think human nature is that we can handle whatever comes our way,” Roker said. “But I think, as our environment is changing, I think we have to rethink that, and that certain ways of life and certain places we live may not be feasibly habitable for much longer and hard choices are going to have to be made.”
To create the narrative, Roker uses newspaper clippings, oral histories and archival records to piece together the devastation of the island city once called the “Paris of the Gulf Coast.”