Sky darkens, rain pours, wind blows and a hurricane roars, leaving in its wake mangled buildings, roofless grain bins, and uprooted foundation pillars. Barns, shops, equipment—gone. In 2020, Brandon Vail’s farm life was rolled by devastation on a grand scale. Pile on a truck accident from which he crawled from a crushed tin can to survive by a wafer-thin margin—and the pill of 2020 is all the more bitter.

Yet, mettle takes the day. Knocked to the mat in 2020, Vail found his feet, emblematic of the resilience of Louisiana farmers forced to reckon with another wrecking ball. Farming just 20 miles from the Gulf of Mexico in the teeth of hurricane country, battling saltwater creep and mosquito plagues, Vail is pushing back with grit against the elements. He will rebuild. “I belong here on this dirt,” he says. “I belong.”