普通高中课程标准实验教科书 英语选修6 Unit 5 The power of nat

（单词翻译）

 Look at the title of the story and the picture below. Can you predict¹ what the story is about? Then read the story quickly and see if you were right.
                                              TRAPPED² BY THE FLOOD
      "It's not looking too good, darling. I think you'd better pack a few things and go to your mother's place. And you'd better take Rosie and Monty with you."
      Putting down the phone, Sara sighed. Tomorrow was her husband Tony's birthday. She had planned to cook him a nice meal and then surprise him with the new mountain bike she'd bought for him. If she went to her mother's house, Tony wouldn't get his present for days.
      However, her mother's house was the best place to be right now. Being on higher land, it would be safe from the floods. It had been raining heavily for almost two weeks and the river near Sara and Tony's house was rising higher and higher all the time. Tony and others from the
village had spent the last two days putting sandbags along the side of the river to stop it overflowing³. Now they feared that their hard work had been useless and soon the whole valley would be flooded.
      Sara dressed baby James in warm clothes and collected the things she would need for him over the next few days. She put the lead on the dog and went in search of Monty, the cat. It took her a long time, but eventually she found him safe and warm under the covers on her bed. She
placed him in his cat basket and took him into the kitchen where James and the dog, Rosie, waited.
       Just as she was reaching for the car keys, Sara heard a sound like the noise bath water makes when you pull out the plug⁴. She looked at the back door. Water was flowing in underneath⁵. Turning around she saw dirty brown water fountaining out of the drain⁶ and filling the sink. Quickly she put James into her backpack and pulled it onto her back. Calling to Rosie, she picked up the cat basket and ran to the front of the house and out into the front garden.
     The water was already up to her knees. Rosie was swimming beside her. Knowing the water would soon be much deeper, Sara ran to the car and opened the doors. She threw the cat basket onto the roof of the car and pushed Rosie up beside it. Using the car seat as a step she climbed first onto the front of the car and then onto the roof. James, sately attached⁷ to her back, made no sound at all. Sara stared down at the water which was rushing past the car. It was already half way up the doors, and still rising.