Goodbye to a River

Goodbye to a River

Author: John Graves

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2010-11-10

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 0307773353

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In the 1950s, a series of dams was proposed along the Brazos River in north-central Texas. For John Graves, this project meant that if the stream’s regimen was thus changed, the beautiful and sometimes brutal surrounding countryside would also change, as would the lives of the people whose rugged ancestors had eked out an existence there. Graves therefore decided to visit that stretch of the river, which he had known intimately as a youth. Goodbye to a River is his account of that farewell canoe voyage. As he braves rapids and fatigue and the fickle autumn weather, he muses upon old blood feuds of the region and violent skirmishes with native tribes, and retells wild stories of courage and cowardice and deceit that shaped both the river’s people and the land during frontier times and later. Nearly half a century after its initial publication, Goodbye to a River is a true American classic, a vivid narrative about an exciting journey and a powerful tribute to a vanishing way of life and its ever-changing natural environment.


Flash Floods in Texas

Flash Floods in Texas

Author: Jonathan Burnett

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 2008-04-02

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 9781585445905

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How many times have you heard the television or radio alert, “We are now under a flash flood watch”? While the destructive force of flash flooding is a regular occurrence in the state and has caused a tremendous amount of damage and heartache over the years, no one until now has recorded in a single book the history of flash floods in Texas. After combing libraries and archives, grilling county historians, trekking to flood sites, and collecting scores of graphic photographs, Jonathan Burnett chose twenty-eight floods from around the state to create this narrative of a century of disastrous events. Beginning with the famous Austin dam break of 1900 and ending with the historic 2002 flooding in the Hill Country, Burnett chronicles the causes and courses of these catastrophic floods as well as their costs in material damage and human lives. Dramatic photographs of each event enhance the harrowing accounts of danger spawned by nature on a rampage. Together, the stories and the pictures give readers a vivid and lasting image of the power and unpredictability of flash floods in Texas. To learn more about The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, sponsors of this book's series, please click here.


Springs of Texas

Springs of Texas

Author: Gunnar M. Brune

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 616

ISBN-13: 9781585441969

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This text explores the natural history of Texas and more than 2900 springs in 183 Texas counties. It also includes an in-depth discussion of the general characteristics of springs - their physical and prehistoric settings, their historical significance, and their associated flora and fauna.


Flood on the Tracks

Flood on the Tracks

Author: Todd M. Kerstetter

Publisher: Plains Histories

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781682830161

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"Examines the Elkhorn River Basin in Nebraska, the floods it has endured, and the impact on the community over time by exploring the effects on the Plains Indians to current day inhabitants"--


Isaac's Storm

Isaac's Storm

Author: Erik Larson

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2000-07-11

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 0375708278

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From the bestselling author of The Devil in the White City, here is the true story of the deadliest hurricane in history. National Bestseller September 8, 1900, began innocently in the seaside town of Galveston, Texas. Even Isaac Cline, resident meteorologist for the U.S. Weather Bureau failed to grasp the true meaning of the strange deep-sea swells and peculiar winds that greeted the city that morning. Mere hours later, Galveston found itself submerged in a monster hurricane that completely destroyed the town and killed over six thousand people in what remains the greatest natural disaster in American history--and Isaac Cline found himself the victim of a devastating personal tragedy. Using Cline's own telegrams, letters, and reports, the testimony of scores of survivors, and our latest understanding of the science of hurricanes, Erik Larson builds a chronicle of one man's heroic struggle and fatal miscalculation in the face of a storm of unimaginable magnitude. Riveting, powerful, and unbearably suspenseful, Isaac's Storm is the story of what can happen when human arrogance meets the great uncontrollable force of nature.