Chap­ter 1: The Hur­ri­cane begins with a dra­mat­ic and unset­tling event in June 1972 when the dis­cov­ery of a skele­ton in an old well shakes the qui­et town of Pottstown, Penn­syl­va­nia. This well, locat­ed on Hayes Street, had been tar­get­ed for a new town­house devel­op­ment, prompt­ing the author­i­ties to inves­ti­gate fur­ther. Along with the skele­ton, items such as a belt buck­le, pen­dant, and rem­nants of a cos­tume were found in the well, prompt­ing police to search for con­nec­tions to the local com­mu­ni­ty. Their inves­ti­ga­tion leads them to an elder­ly Jew­ish man liv­ing near the old syn­a­gogue on Chick­en Hill. When they show him a piece of jew­el­ry, specif­i­cal­ly a mezuzah, the elder­ly man, iden­ti­fied as Malachi, imme­di­ate­ly rec­og­nizes it. He shares that his own mezuzah match­es the one found in the well, imply­ing a deep con­nec­tion to the long-lost Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty that had once thrived in the area. His recog­ni­tion of the mezuzah serves as a clue that ties the dis­cov­ery to the town’s Jew­ish his­to­ry, a com­mu­ni­ty that had since dwin­dled sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

As the con­ver­sa­tion with Malachi unfolds, more details about his past are revealed. Once a renowned dancer, Malachi now leads a qui­et, unre­mark­able life, far removed from his ear­li­er fame. He reflects on how the pres­ti­gious Tuck­er School had been try­ing to buy his prop­er­ty for years, high­light­ing the under­ly­ing ten­sion between the wealthy estab­lish­ment and the mar­gin­al­ized mem­bers of soci­ety. Despite the police’s sus­pi­cion, Malachi remains unruf­fled by the offi­cers’ ques­tion­ing. His phys­i­cal appear­ance, with his old clothes and most­ly tooth­less grin, con­veys the pas­sage of time, while his behavior—humorous and defiant—shows that he is unafraid of author­i­ty. When pressed fur­ther, instead of offer­ing incrim­i­nat­ing evi­dence, Malachi humor­ous­ly offers pens from his pock­et, pro­vid­ing a moment of lev­i­ty in an oth­er­wise tense sit­u­a­tion. This inter­ac­tion demon­strates Malachi’s resilience and abil­i­ty to main­tain con­trol in the face of prob­ing ques­tions, reflect­ing a com­plex char­ac­ter shaped by his past and his unwill­ing­ness to be intim­i­dat­ed.

The nar­ra­tive shifts dra­mat­i­cal­ly when Hur­ri­cane Agnes strikes, unleash­ing dev­as­tat­ing floods that rav­age the Chick­en Hill area and sur­round­ing coun­ties. The his­toric storm caus­es wide­spread destruc­tion, claim­ing lives, destroy­ing homes, and flood­ing com­mu­ni­ties that had already been strug­gling with sys­temic inequal­i­ty. For local Black res­i­dents, the storm sym­bol­izes more than just a nat­ur­al disaster—it becomes an expres­sion of divine jus­tice. They view the dev­as­tat­ing flood as a reck­on­ing, one that wash­es away the remain­ing traces of inequal­i­ty and hard­ship, as if nature itself is cleans­ing the land of past wrongs. In the midst of this destruc­tion, Malachi mys­te­ri­ous­ly dis­ap­pears, leav­ing behind only a few sun­flow­ers, a sym­bol of his fleet­ing pres­ence and con­nec­tion to the land. His dis­ap­pear­ance adds an ele­ment of mys­tery and loss, with his fate remain­ing unre­solved as the com­mu­ni­ty is left to grap­ple with both the after­math of the storm and the deep­er social impli­ca­tions of his absence. Malachi’s sud­den van­ish­ing, along­side the calami­ty of the hur­ri­cane, cre­ates a sense of eerie con­nec­tion between the two events, sug­gest­ing that some things are meant to be lost to time, leav­ing behind only traces of what once was.

In the wake of the hur­ri­cane, as inves­ti­ga­tors search for any trace of Malachi, they find noth­ing. His absence, how­ev­er, does not dimin­ish the impact he had on the com­mu­ni­ty, and his lega­cy con­tin­ues to linger in the col­lec­tive mem­o­ry of those who knew him. Malachi had been a sym­bol of resilience, rep­re­sent­ing the per­se­ver­ance of a com­mu­ni­ty that had weath­ered many hard­ships over the years. His lega­cy is inter­twined with the sto­ry of the Jew­ish pop­u­la­tion in the region, whose pres­ence in Pottstown had been shaped by years of strug­gle and sur­vival. As the flood­wa­ters recede and the town begins to rebuild, the loss of Malachi serves as a metaphor for the ongo­ing fight against his­tor­i­cal injus­tices. The storm that washed away phys­i­cal struc­tures also sym­bol­i­cal­ly erased the rem­nants of social inequal­i­ty, yet the com­mu­ni­ty remains faced with the task of con­fronting its own his­to­ry and the com­plex­i­ties of the rela­tion­ships that have shaped it. Malachi’s dis­ap­pear­ance, com­bined with the dev­as­ta­tion of Hur­ri­cane Agnes, serves as a pow­er­ful reminder of the fragili­ty of both peo­ple and com­mu­ni­ties and the last­ing impact of social and cul­tur­al strug­gles.

The chap­ter also serves to reflect on the ten­sion between sur­vival and loss, as both nat­ur­al dis­as­ters and soci­etal forces shape the lives of those in Chick­en Hill. The dev­as­ta­tion caused by the hur­ri­cane is felt not only in terms of the phys­i­cal dam­age but also in the emo­tion­al toll it takes on the com­mu­ni­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly those who have faced sys­temic oppres­sion for gen­er­a­tions. Through Malachi’s dis­ap­pear­ance, the chap­ter high­lights the com­plex­i­ties of mem­o­ry, lega­cy, and sur­vival. While the storm might have erased tan­gi­ble rem­nants of the past, it can­not erase the cul­tur­al and emo­tion­al con­nec­tions that con­tin­ue to define the com­mu­ni­ty. As the nar­ra­tive unfolds, it becomes clear that the strug­gle against injus­tice is ongo­ing, and the events of the past will con­tin­ue to shape the lives of the com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers in ways that may not always be vis­i­ble but are no less sig­nif­i­cant. The chap­ter encap­su­lates themes of loss, resilience, and the cycli­cal nature of both per­son­al and soci­etal his­to­ries, sug­gest­ing that even as one chap­ter ends, the sto­ries of the past are nev­er tru­ly gone.