At the dawn of the twentieth century, a great confidence suffused America. Isaac Cline was a scientist who believed he knew all there was to know about the motion of clouds and the behavior of storms. The idea that a hurricane could damage his home city of Galveston, Texas, was to him an absurd delusion, so he ignored unusual weather patterns, ominous signs, and warnings from Cuban meteorologists about an approaching storm. Within hours, at least 6,000 people would lose their lives in what is still the nation's deadliest natural disaster -- and Isaac Cline would suffer his own unbearable loss.