What, if any, is the relationship between natural disaster and historical processes of identity formation? Drawing from the 20th century history of Mauritius, a multi-ethnic and linguistically plural island in Indian Ocean Africa, this presentation examines how tropical cyclones (hurricanes) compelled everyday Mauritians and their late-colonial British government to reckon with questions of identity and power. At the moment of their landfall and in the days, months, and years that followed, these storms generated critical questions: How quickly and how generously would the state respond to a cyclone’s damage? Who would receive aid for reconstruction? How and where would people live in a completely remade society? These were questions about the future; they were also ones, however, that triggered debates about the past. As such, these storms were moments when people from across Mauritius mobilized their own understandings of their varied histories in order make claims about their present need and to articulate their roles in an imagined national future.