Nolan Hayes arrives at a New Orleans hospital with his pregnant wife, Abigail, who has gone into early labor. Things quickly spiral out of control when the birth goes tragically wrong and Hurricane Katrina hits, ravaging the hospital and forcing an evacuation. With his baby dependent on a ventilator and no one around to help, Nolan faces one life-and-death decision after another and must fight to keep his daughter alive.

"The Katrina disaster was not a weather event of summer 2005. It was a disaster a century in the making, a product of lessons learned from previous floods, corporate and government decision making, and the political economy of the United States at large. New Orleans's history is America's history, and Katrina represents America's possible future"--

Enduring a hardscrabble existence as the children of alcoholic and absent parents, four siblings from a coastal Mississippi town prepare their meager stores for the arrival of Hurricane Katrina while struggling with such challenges as a teen pregnancy and a dying litter of prize pups.