At first, the children of Galveston delighted in playing in the water that encroached, rose, puddled, and then pooled in their yards. Eight-year old Henry C. Cortes remembered seeing children dancing in the water, building rafts, and teasing their pets to leap off porches into it. He saw kids playing in washtubs suddenly transformed into pirate ships and strong fortresses of the sea. Years afterward Henry would still feel the wind that slapped his face that September day.

A few Galveston mothers were worried that eighth day of September 1900. Worry was a foreign feeling for most. The dawn of the new century had bred a hubris that would, twelve years later, birth the White Star Line's premier ship, the Titanic. Man was on top, in control. But some mothers were worried in Galveston. Louisa Rollfing sent her son downtown in a trolley with orders to find his father in the Trust Building and tell him to "come home, now." August Rollfing sent his son back home with the terse message, "Your mother's crazy. I'll be home for lunch." He did come home later, and was surprised to find it wasn't ready. Louisa had been too worried. Becoming furious at her husband, she stamped her feet. August went back downtown for lunch.

As the waters rose and the wind and rain flexed their meteorological muscles in Galveston, thirteen men met for lunch at Ritter's. The wind began to shake the front windows. Whenever a customer came through the front door, the wind tore its way in and threatened to strip the tablecloths from under every meal.

One diner shouted across the room, "You can't scare me," when someone pointed out to him that there were exactly thirteen in the room. A few minutes later, the wind tore off the building's roof. The sudden entry of wind caused the walls to bow and the beams slipped. Heavy printing presses, desks, and chairs crashed through from the second floor onto the diners. Steel shrieked. Wood pistol-cracked apart. Five men died, leaving eight. Five of the eight were hurt. Ritter sent a waiter out for a doctor. The waiter drowned.

Rabbi Cohen's wife and children sat at home with him and saw the plaster fly off the walls onto the floor. Rabbi Cohen walked to the front door; he saw water rising to the first step of his home that was elevated twelve feet. He closed the door, turned to his wife and asked her to play some music. She didn't want to-there were dishes to clear, plaster to sweep.

The rabbi whispered, "I don't want the children to see the water rising." He smiled, but only with his mouth. His eyes didn't. His wife began to play the piano. Her fingers began to shake.

Passengers on the train had waded their way into the station. No one was alarmed much. Not until the body of a child floated into the station.

What no one knew on that September day was that Galveston was about to be hit by a hurricane that would become the deadliest natural disaster in American history. As many as 10,000 men, women, and children would not see the sun rise the next day. No one knew that later the wind would pick up people like pieces of paper. No one knew that buildings would disappear. No one knew that waves moving toward Galveston at thirty miles an hour would generate a force of two million pounds.

Before the sun rose, the soldiers at Fort San Jacinto on Galveston Island would fire the fort's guns, crying for help. On that day, the bodies of thousands would float through the streets of Galveston in silent, innumerable hordes.

The unthinkable had happened. A hurricane, a meteorological monster, had hit Galveston without a single warning. In 1900, Galveston didn't know the monster was rampaging her way. It was born south of Cuba and sucked up power from the waters as it aimed itself for Texas.

There were a few who knew the monster was on the way toward Texas, and those few were Cuban weathermen. But they issued no bulletins warning the United States because the American weathermen in Cuba had blocked all transmissions of data from the Cubans whom they looked down on as incurable alarmists. In fact, the Cuban weathermen knew more about hurricanes than any group in the world. In grand hubris, the American weather experts in Cuba thought the monster would turn northeast, brush the U. S. coast, and spend itself in the Atlantic. There would be no transmissions allowed from the Cubans, those who saw a hurricane in every gust. The Cubans tried to tell them. The Americans wouldn't listen.

The Americans in Cuba knew it all. They had it all figured out. In this age, there were no forces beyond their knowledge. Man had hip-pocketed the weather. Hurricanes would always turn northeast from Cuba, never toward Texas. As far as America was concerned, this monster didn't exist. Yet, the next day, 10,000 corpses would be mute proof of American error and American pride.

There's another monster out there that few believe to be coming. There are warnings, but they go mostly unheeded, branded as obsolete, melodramatic, some relic of the old days. Jesus sent out bulletins: He said that there's a monster out there that burns day and night; that the monster was made by God for the devil and his angels. He said that some homo sapiens would wind up there, at their choice, if they reject what Jesus did for them on the cross.

But American theologians and some in pulpits block the bulletins, as they, in their hubris, assure us that the monster doesn't exist. They block the bulletins with phrases like, "a loving God," with sermons that swim on the shallow side of life, with books that concentrate on here and now health and wealth.

Jesus issued more bulletins about hell than anyone, and rightly so. He's the only one qualified to speak on the subject. He would know if it exists or not. He says it does. That's why God said, "This is My Son. Listen to Him."