A devastating tornado rips through the town of Tupelo, Mississippi, at the height of the Great Depression. Dovey, a black laundress, searches for her family. At the McNabb house she find the daughter of the house, Jo, who suffered a head wound. When a baby is found in the wreckage is it Jo's baby brother, Tommy, or Dovey's light-skinned great-grandson, Promise? The two women-- one black, one white; one a great-grandmother, the other a teenager-- are fighting for their families' survival in the aftermath of the tornado.