The worst natural disaster in American history struck Galveston, Texas, on September 8, 1900, when a hurricane covered the whole seaside city with surging water, leveled a third of its area, and took an estimated 6,000 lives. The city had been ravaged by hurricanes before and would certainly be devastated again, but never had Galveston been so helpless and desperate.

Nevertheless, within a few months the city fathers responded with a grandly, confidently technological form of salvation. They would build a wall against the Gulf of Mexico and raise the entire city above harm by reshaping the island on which it sat. They would move 16.3 million cubic yards of sand and defeat the sea.

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