For two days, the trapped bakers churned out hundreds of pieces of bread, filling the shelves again with bolillos (a Mexican sandwich bread), kolaches and their signature pan dulce. They watched as, at the peak of flooding, water approached the doors of the building; fortunately, it never seeped in, and the store never lost electricity, [Brian Alvarado, the manager of the bakery] said later.

At night, the bakers slept on the ground, on makeshift beds and a large sack of flour….

“They just couldn’t handle the stress and they needed to do something, so they just made bread,” Alvarado said. “They were just thinking of everybody else, and they just started making bread for the community.”