Around her, the one-story home she shares with her father, mother and older sister made the sound of a hundred popping blisters. Then came the water. “It bubbled up from the doors,” she said, “seeped in from the windows, everywhere you turned there would just be a new flowing puddle. It just kept filling. It passed the outlets. I was so scared, we didn’t know what would happen.”

Upstairs, her father slept. She tried towels. She thought they’d be ok. Then, at 4 a.m., a green light came from the street. It was the fire department, ready for rescue. She woke her father, Michael, 55, who stepped out of bed into a foot of water. Her mother Freda and her sister Ariel had gone to stay with a neighbor.

Mr. Wadler grabbed his tefillin, Jewish prayer boxes often used by religious men. Neither Wadler had a moment to grab shoes. They climbed into a boat, the rain lashed at their backs, and they floated to an emergency truck.

The truck bed was hard, damp and cold.

“I was sitting in the corner holding my dad really tight,” Maya said. “I usually just trust my parents that everything is going to be O.K. But I looked up and I saw that my dad was closing his eyes, the water was getting in his eyes. And I just thought: He has absolutely no idea where we are going to go.”

“I was powerless,” she said. “I’ll never forget that ride.”

The rescue team took Maya and Mr. Wadler to a fire station, where they are the only flood victims.

As the sun rose, Mr. Wadler heard from his wife. She was trapped at the neighbor’s home with little food and no plan. Friends began to send pictures of their neighborhood with water up to six feet.

“This is truly apocalyptic,” said Mr. Wadler, 55. The damage to their home is unclear. “We are at this fire station indefinitely,” said Maya. “We don’t know where we’re going to eat our next meal. We don’t know where we are going to sleep tonight. We don’t know anything.” — JULIE TURKEWITZ in Houston