Storm Surge

The wind, which had been blowing at gale force all morning, was beginning to fling water over the sea wall, but no one on Flatsea Island was seriously alarmed. They were used to January gales and, besides, everyone said those walls were impregnable. So even when the creek stayed full at what should have been low tide, the little community went about its business as though it were any other Sunday. And so no one was prepared when the water came surging through the walls that night, covering the bridge that joined Flatsea to the mainland and swamping the coastline too. Young Peter Brown was helplessly trapped in his family’s pub, where the flood had burst open the doors and was rising steadily up the stairs, and was worrying desperately about what had happened to his brother Aaron, due back on the last train home after a night out in Oozedam, or to Martin, who lived on the mainland and had left with his girlfriend only a short time ago, or to his parents, who had driven into town to see their first grandchild, or to his grandparents alone in their cottage a little way inland. David Rees tells his story of the flood and its aftermath with great power and clarity. You’ll find yourself getting involved with every member of the close-knit Brown family as they face this crisis, whose shocking effect is, for more than one of them, a turning-point in their lives. For older Puffin readers.