07/15/2025
HE CARRIED BOTH MY KIDS OUT OF THE FLOOD—BUT REFUSED TO TELL ME HIS NAME
I don’t even know where the water came from. One minute I was washing dishes, and the next, it was at my ankles—then my knees. The power cut out fast, and the front door swelled shut from the pressure.
I grabbed the kids and made it upstairs just as the living room vanished under brown water. My phone was already dead. I kept trying to calm them down, but truth is—I was the one who couldn’t stop shaking.
And then, through the rain and the shattered quiet, I heard pounding. On the window. A flashlight beam. A man in a bright yellow jacket standing waist-deep in the flood, shouting, “I’ve got you—just hand them to me!”
I didn’t even think. I passed them out one at a time—first Liam, then Nora—watching him balance both of them against his chest like it was nothing. They clung to him, crying, but he kept walking, steady, slow, like he’d done this a hundred times.
I waded after them, but by the time I got to the curb, a boat had pulled up. He passed the kids in carefully, waved off the captain, and turned back toward the rising water without saying a word.
“Wait,” I yelled. “What’s your name?”
He paused for half a second and said:
“Tell them someone was looking out for them today.”
And then he disappeared back toward the house next door.
(Story continues in the first 🗨️⬇️)