Floods are one of the most common disasters in the US. Some floods develop slowly. But flash floods(暴洪)can develop quickly, sometimes in just a few minutes and without any signs of rain. 【小题1】 It carries rocks and can sweep away most things in its path.

Listen to the radio or television for information. If there is any possibility of a flash flood, move at once to higher ground. 【小题2】

Make your home safe by bringing in outdoor furniture.【小题3】Do not touch any electrical equipment if you are wet or standing in water.

·Do not walk through moving water. 【小题4】 If you have to walk in water, walk where the water is not moving. Use a stick to check the ground in front of you.

·【小题5】 If floodwaters rise around your car, give up the car and move to higher ground if you can do so safely. Otherwise you and the car can be quickly swept away.

This is a true story of a mother’s sacrifice (牺牲) in an earthquake.

When the rescuers reached the ruins of a young woman’s house, they saw her dead body through the cracks. Her pose was somehow strange---she knelt (跪) on the ground like a person who was worshiping (祷告)；her body was leaning forward, and her two hands were supported by an object. However, the cold and stiff body told them that she had passed away for sure.

The rescuers left this house and were going to search the next collapsed (倒塌的) building. For some reason, the team leader was driven by a strange force to go back to the ruined house. Again, he knelt down to search the little space under the dead body. Suddenly, he screamed with excitement, “ A child! There is a child!”

The whole team worked together; carefully they removed the piles of ruined objects around the dead woman. There was a 3-month-old little boy wrapped in a blanket under his mother’s dead body. Obviously, the woman had made great sacrifice in order to save her son. When her house was falling, she used her body to make a cover to protect her son. The little boy was still sleeping peacefully when the team leader picked him up.

A doctor came quickly to examine the little boy. After he opened the blanket, he saw a cellphone inside the blanket. There was a text message on the screen. It said, “ If you can survive, you must remember that I love you.” Everybody that read the message cried.

California burns every year. But among a record-breaking heatwave, 2020 is the worst burning year yet. As of the September 2020, more than 7,600 fires burned over 2.5 million acres of land. The season ran for more than several months.

That fits a long-term trend, for California’s wild fires are getting steadily worse. Large fires in the 2010s burned 6.8 million acres on average, up from 3.3 million acres in the 1990s. The fire season in 2020 lasted nearly three months longer than it did in the 1970s. Over the past decade, the state has spent an average of $3.7 billion a year fighting fires. Add the cost of rebuilding, treating victims and restoration, and that is perhaps a tenth of the total cost.

The reason is a double blow of climate change and development. More homes are being built next to forests, in what experts call the “wild-land-urban interface (接合处)” (WUI). A 2018 study estimated that roughly a third of American homes were in the WUI. The problem is acute in California. Pricey housing has pushed people in California onto cheaper land close to the wilderness. At the same time, climate change is lengthening the dry season, which stores up fuel for fires. In California, a “huge drought” — in which dry years become more common and wet ones scarcer (稀少) — is making matters even worse.

Since neither trend shows much sign of turning around, people on America’s west coast will have to learn to co-exist with more and more frequent fires. “It’s not that different to building on an earthquake active region,” says Max Moritz, a wildfire expert at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He suggests that houses should be built near water or open agricultural lands, which can offer a useful barrier.