4 The Flood

4 THE FLOOD The giant waves slammed over the pier. They completely destroyed the bathhouses. Their broken wooden planks crashed into the sea. The people on the beach screamed. They tried to flee from the incoming waves. Jack and Annie ran with the crowd of people across the Strand to the boardwalk. The surging waves rolled after them. Seawater swept over the beach and across the Strand. It covered the boardwalk and flooded the shops. Jack and Annie began wading with the crowd up 25th Street. The water was knee- deep and rising fast.

People rushed out of flooded stores and houses. They carried pets, children, and suitcases. They joined the others heading toward higher ground. Jack saw a toddler slip from a man's shoulders into the churning seawater. Jack grabbed the boy and pulled him out of the water. "Thank you!" the boy's father cried. "Are you alone? Do you need help?" "No thanks!" shouted Jack. "Buddy! Bailey!" a girl screamed. Her two small dogs had slipped out of a basket.

Jack and Annie scooped up the dogs before the water could sweep them away. They carried them back to the girl. "Thank you!" she cried as they handed her the trembling dogs. "Help!" someone yelled. An old man was clinging to a lamppost, fighting the wind. Jack and Annie each put an arm around him. He pointed to a young woman, and Jack and Annie helped him wade through the water to her. "Thank you!" the woman yelled. "Do you need help?" "We're fine!" said Annie. Jack and Annie forged on through the wind, rain, and rising seawater, helping anyone they could. Roof shingles and tiles flew off houses. Shutters flew off windows. A fierce gust of wind knocked Jack and Annie over. They fell into the floodwater. They struggled to get back on their feet. They fell again. They got up again.

They used all their strength to keep moving. The street was like a river now. The seawater was above their waists—and still rising! "Avenue L!" shouted Jack, pointing at a sign. "That's where the tree house is! It's a safe place to be for now." "Okay!" said Annie. "We can climb up and figure out how to be more helpful." As others kept moving up 25th Street, Jack and Annie turned onto Avenue L. The avenue was flooded now, too. They pushed past barrels, boards, and branches. Wreckage floated everywhere. "There's the fence!" said Annie. The top of the iron fence barely showed above the floodwater. The blue house was still standing. The tree house was still in the oak tree. Jack and Annie hauled themselves over the iron fence and swam toward the oak. They grabbed low branches and clung to

them. Jack looked around. The rope ladder was missing! "It's up there!" said Annie. The wind had blown the ladder over a branch. It was much too high to reach. As Jack and Annie clung to the tree, lightning flashed in the sky. Thunder boomed. More wreckage floated past—shingles, shutters, and fence posts. A big wooden door crashed into the tree trunk, barely missing Jack and Annie. "We've got to get away from here!" yelled Jack. "Before we get hit by lightning! Or something crushes us!" "Look! Someone's waving!" cried Annie. "From the porch of the blue house!" A tall, thin woman was calling to them from her dry porch. The woman held up a coil of rope. She beckoned to Jack and Annie and shouted. Jack couldn't understand her words.

"She wants to help us!" said Annie. She waved back at the woman. The woman threw the rope out to them. The end floated on the water near the oak tree. Annie plunged into the floodwaters. Jack followed. They both grabbed the rope. The water was up to their necks! They held the rope tightly to keep from being swept away by the current. The woman on the porch pulled them toward the house. Hanging on to the rope, Jack and Annie slowly plowed through the water.