“The engine is flooded!” Pedro shouts. He hobbles, now waist-deep in water, toward the stranded family.

I’m no stranger to flooding—water pools quickly along the roads and trash-clogged gutters—but this... It’s a like a river overflowing into the tunnel, the current growing stronger and stronger against my legs, threatening to sweep me off the ground.

“Pedro!” I call out after him, but he won’t turn back.

“Help! My kids!” The woman’s cries pierce through the storm, ringing of terror that curdles my blood. Pedro reaches her window, and the woman clasps his hands. She seems too scared to leave her car. “My kids! Please, save my kids!”

She turns to the back seat and grabs one of her children—

I gasp. It’s Amandinha.

Her face is angry and swollen from crying, and her little pudgy hands cling to her mother for dear life, fiercely struggling against being handed over.

“Amandinha, it’s me!” Pedro says, and she looks up, recognizing him. “I volunteer at Vozes,” he tells her mother.

Even though Amandinha trusts Pedro, she still doesn’t want to let go of her mother. “Go with him, filha. Don’t worry.”

“No!” Amandinha shouts.

“I’ll be right behind you,” the woman says. “Go with him first. I promise I’ll be right behind you.”

The woman opens the door and Amandinha looks from her mother to Pedro in a split second of hesitation. Her grip loosens. It’s the opportunity he needs to pull her out in one swift motion. Startled and separated from her mother, Amandinha kicks and wails, but at least she’s no longer in the car.

Her mom then passes a little boy to Pedro. He’s older than Amandinha, eight or nine years old. He doesn’t fight Pedro, and I can see in his wide eyes that he understands the situation, that he’s old enough to know exactly how much danger they’re in.

Pedro has Amandinha perched on a hip, the boy on the other. “Come with me, senhora,” he says to Amandinha’s mother.

Her expression is frozen in terror. “My leg,” she says.

He’s stuck for a second, looking from her to the sidewalk, the kids in his arms. When he shifts a little to the side, I realize her predicament. Her left leg is up to her knee in a cast. There’s so much dread in her eyes when she reaches for her crutches in the passenger’s seat.

I rush to the car. “Lari!” Amandinha shouts in Pedro’s arms, giving in to her fear and crying again.

Pedro turns around with a start. “Why aren’t you on the sidewalk?”

“I’ll take the kids,” I say. “Help Amandinha’s mother out of the car.”

Pedro does a double take of the situation. Water is rising quickly.

“Hurry,” I tell Pedro. “I’ll cross with the kids. Help her.”

“Tia!” the little boy cries.