City of Dead: Galveston Hurricane of 1900 by T. Neill Anderson

This books shares fictional accounts of real people as they fought to survive a powerful hurricane that destroyed Galveston, Texas. A young woman struggles to help neighbors as their homes are swallowed by the Gulf of Mexico. A doctor plans to watch the storm from his porch until he realizes there are two feet of water in his home, and it's still rising. And an orphanage full of innocent boys and girls slowly crumbles in the waves.

The Galveston hurricane is still the deadliest natural disaster in United States history. It was hard to read about real people knowing that many of them wouldn't survive. The doctor was a great example of a man who had no idea that this hurricane was going to be worse than anything he had ever seen. The plot changed points of view, but the suspense grew as the water quickly rose. The homes didn't stand a chance against the rain, wind, and waves, and I kept wondering which characters might manage to live.