[1] The book opens with a restless Isaac Cline on the night of September 7, 1900, the eve of the 1900 Galveston hurricane's landfall.

Larson, meanwhile, looks at the lives of multiple Galveston residents on the eve of the storm, specifically Isaac Cline.

Meanwhile, in Galveston, the storm literally uproots half the island and kills thousands, leaving utter destruction for the surviving.

Cline played an important role in influencing the storm's later destruction by authoring an article for the Galveston Daily News, in which he derided the idea of significant damage to Galveston from a hurricane as "a crazy idea".

During the hurricane, Isaac went home to his pregnant wife, three daughters, and younger brother.