In the heat of late summer, two New Orleans familiesone black and one whiteconfront a storm that will change the course of their lives.

SJ Williams, a carpenter and widower, lives and works in the Lower Ninth Ward community where he was born and raised. Across town, Craig Donaldson, a Midwestern transplant and the editor of the city’s alternative paper, faces deepening cracks in his family. When the news of the gathering hurricane spreadsand when the levees give way and the floodwaters comethe fate of each family changes forever.