Photographer Carson Paine is a man who lives in the pursuit of easy pleasures. His neglected wife, Darlene, looks for a better life in a bottomless bottle of booze. Neither can understand the mess they are making or how lost they are. Neither realizes, that in a world of liars, the most dangerous are those who lie to themselves.
When they take their young daughter, Grace, on vacation to North Carolina’s Outer Banks, Hurricane Therese comes roaring, straight up at them, out of the Caribbean. Both Carson and Darlene are too blind, too self-absorbed to appreciate the danger. When Therese slams into the island, it takes the help of the Outer Bankers for them to finally realize their blindness and their lies, but, by then, it might be too late to keep this little family from being torn apart.