1900 Galveston hurricane in the context of Santiago de Cuba Province

Houston is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and the Southern United States. It is the fourth-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 2.3 million at the 2020 census. The Greater Houston metropolitan area, at 7.8 million residents, is the fifth-most populous metropolitan area in the nation and second-most populous in Texas. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, Houston is the seat of Harris County. Covering a total area of 640.4 square miles (1,659 km), it is the ninth largest city in the country and the largest whose municipal government is not consolidated with a county, parish, or borough. Although primarily located within Harris County, portions of the city extend into Fort Bend and Montgomery counties. Houston also functions as the southeastern anchor of the Texas Triangle megaregion.

Houston was founded by land investors on August 30, 1836, at the confluence of Buffalo Bayou and White Oak Bayou (a point now known as Allen's Landing) and incorporated as a city on June 5, 1837. The city is named after former General Sam Houston, who was president of the Republic of Texas and had won Texas's independence from Mexico at the Battle of San Jacinto 25 miles (40 km) east of Allen's Landing. After briefly serving as the capital of the Texas Republic in the late 1830s, Houston grew steadily into a regional trading center for the remainder of the 19th century. The 20th century brought a convergence of economic factors that fueled rapid growth in Houston, including a burgeoning port and railroad industry, the decline of Galveston as Texas's primary port following a devastating 1900 hurricane, the subsequent construction of the Houston Ship Channel, and the Texas oil boom. In the mid-20th century, Houston's economy diversified, as it became home to the Texas Medical Center—the world's largest concentration of healthcare and research institutions—and NASA's Johnson Space Center, home to the Mission Control Center.

Galveston Bay (/ˈɡælvɪstən/ GAL-vis-tən) is a bay in the western Gulf of Mexico along the upper coast of Texas. It is the seventh-largest estuary in the United States, and the largest of seven major estuaries along the Texas Gulf Coast. It is connected to the Gulf of Mexico and is surrounded by subtropical marshes and prairies on the mainland. The water in the bay is a complex mixture of seawater and freshwater, which supports a wide variety of marine life. With a maximum depth of about 10 feet (3 m) and an average depth of only 6 feet (2 m), it is unusually shallow for its size.

The bay has played a significant role in the history of Texas. Galveston Island is home to the city of Galveston, the earliest major settlement in southeast Texas and the state's largest city toward the end of the nineteenth century. While a devastating hurricane in 1900 hastened Galveston's decline, the subsequent rise of Houston as a major trade center, facilitated by the dredging of the Houston Ship Channel across the western half of the bay, ensured the bay's continued economic importance.

Hurricane Ike (/aɪk/) was a long-lived, powerful and destructive tropical cyclone that swept through portions of the Greater Antilles and Northern America in September 2008, wreaking havoc on infrastructure and agriculture, particularly in Cuba and Texas. Ike took a similar track to the 1900 Galveston hurricane. The ninth tropical storm, fifth hurricane, and third major hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season, Ike developed from a tropical wave west of Cape Verde on September 1 and strengthened to peak intensity as a Category 4 hurricane over the open waters of the central Atlantic on September 4 as it tracked westward. Several fluctuations in strength occurred before Ike made landfall on eastern Cuba on September 8. The hurricane weakened prior to continuing into the Gulf of Mexico, but increased its intensity by the time of its final landfall in Galveston, Texas, on September 13 before becoming an extratropical storm on September 14. The remnants of Ike continued to track across the United States and into Canada, causing considerable damage inland, before dissipating on the next day.

Ike was blamed for at least 195 deaths. Of these deaths, 74 were in Haiti, which was already trying to recover from the impact of three storms (Fay, Gustav, and Hanna) that had made landfall the same year. Seven people were killed in Cuba. In the United States, 113 people were reported killed, directly or indirectly, and 16 were still missing as of August 2011. Due to its immense size, Ike caused devastation from the Louisiana coastline all the way to the Kenedy County region near Corpus Christi, Texas. In addition, Ike caused flooding and significant damage along the Mississippi coastline and the Florida Panhandle. Damages from Ike in U.S. coastal and inland areas are estimated at $30 billion (2008 USD), with additional damage of $7.3 billion in Cuba, $200 million in the Bahamas, and $500 million in the Turks and Caicos, amounting to a total of at least $38 billion in damage. At the time, the hurricane was the second-costliest in United States history. The search-and-rescue operation after Ike was the largest search-and-rescue operation in Texas history.

The 1900 Atlantic hurricane season was a below average hurricane season that featured the Galveston hurricane, the deadliest natural disaster in the history of the United States. A total of 10 tropical cyclones formed, seven of which intensified into a tropical storm. Three of those made landfall in the United States. The first system was initially observed over the central Atlantic Ocean on January 17, while the final storm transitioned into an extratropical cyclone on October 28. These dates fall within the period with the most tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic. Every storm of the season except the seventh system existed simultaneously with another tropical cyclone.

Of the season's seven tropical storms, three reached hurricane status. Furthermore, two of those three strengthened into major hurricanes, which are Category 3 or higher on the modern-day Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale. The strongest cyclone of the season, the first hurricane, peaked at Category 4 strength with maximum sustained winds of 145 mph (230 km/h). Upon striking Texas shortly after peak intensity, it produced a devastating storm surge in the Galveston area, with extensive damage and at least 8,000 fatalities. Nicknamed the "1900 Galveston hurricane", it remains the deadliest natural disaster in the history of the United States. The hurricane overall caused about $35.5 million (1.9 billion  USD) in damage. Impact from other tropical cyclones was generally minor, though the remnants of Tropical Storm Five resulted in one death and at least $100,000 in damage in Atlantic Canada.

The Galveston Seawall is a seawall in Galveston, Texas, that was built after the 1900 Galveston hurricane for protection from future hurricanes. Construction began in September 1902, and the initial segment was completed on July 29, 1904. From 1904 to 1963, the seawall was extended from 3.3 miles (5.3 km) to over 10 miles (16 km).