On the afternoon of September 8, 1900, 200-mile-per-hour winds and fifteen-foot waves slammed into Galveston, the prosperous and growing port city on Texas's Gulf Coast. By dawn the next day, when the storm had passed, the city that existed just hours before was gone. Over 8,000 corpses littered the streets or were buried under the massive wreckage. Roker brings this legendary disaster and its aftermath into brilliant focus. Exploring the impact of the disaster on a rising nation's confidence, he illuminates both the energy and the limitations of the American Century, and of nature itself.