The Great Storm: The Hurricane Diary of J. T. King, Galveston, Texas, 1900

More than a century later, the Galveston hurricane of 1900 is still the largest natural disaster in American history. Pounding most of the historic island city to rubble, and claiming perhaps as many as eight thousand lives, the storm stranded Galveston’s stunned survivors without a bridge to the mainland. When the bridge was rebuilt, amazingly in eleven days, only the most stalwart—like fictive young diarist J. T. King—would choose to stay. Before the storm, J. T. is a normal, active teena...