Leo had already rented his tuxedo. And of course, the corsage had been picked out. It was a beach pea flower, plucked from the shore of their beach. He had given her the same flowers when they got their acceptance letters to Duke earlier in the spring. Everything was set for the end of a perfect year. They would go to prom, graduate, and attend Duke in the fall. Their plans for the future were rock solid. Until they weren’t.
Hurricane Alex was a shock to the whole East Coast. The technology was supposed to tell them when a storm was arising, there was supposed to be a warning. But through some fluke in the atmosphere, the storm alert team missed it. Maybe it appeared as a small patch of red on the infrared camera, maybe they overlooked it. Or maybe it was so stealthy it creeped up on their “superior” computers.
Whatever the reason, it suddenly appered on a warm June day, merely a week before prom and less than a month until the end of school. At North Seaside High, prom was one of the last events of the year