Kirby dismisses Frida's pleas to evacuate and insists his hurricane preparations will keep the family safe.

Lucas convinces a reluctant Flip to sneak out and play in an abandoned trailer park during the storm.

Flip is carried off by hurricane winds and killed while the boys race home through the debris-filled streets.

Frida gives birth alone on the kitchen floor while the hurricane batters the house around her.

Frida names her newborn daughter Wanda after the hurricane and then dies from blood loss.

A bully holds Wanda's head underwater at the Edge, and her body begins to glow with spreading light.

Kirby arranges for Wanda to spend her afternoons at the home of Phyllis, a survivalist and retired biology teacher.

Wanda slips into a lagoon during a research visit with Phyllis and encounters the bioluminescent lights beneath the surface.

Rudder's municipality files for bankruptcy and the city hall permanently shuts down.

A dam break sends floodwaters surging onto the road and sweeps Kirby to his death.

Wanda chooses to remain with Phyllis in Rudder rather than move to California with her brother Lucas.

The federal government declares Florida will be closed in one year, and most remaining residents evacuate the state.

Corey and his father break into Phyllis's home at night, and Wanda shoots both intruders dead to protect them.

Wanda and Phyllis set the blue house on fire and retreat into a treetop shelter built deep in the swamp.

Bird Dog rescues Wanda from a hurricane, they kiss, and Wanda guides Bird Dog's small community home to the swamp.

Hurricane Wanda strikes Rudder, killing eight-year-old Flip and leaving Frida dead in childbirth, forcing Kirby to raise infant Wanda alone. As climate change accelerates, Kirby and Lucas fight to keep the town's power on while Wanda discovers her supernatural connection to bioluminescent water through a violent encounter at the Edge. The collapse of Rudder's municipal government and Kirby's death in a flood sever the family's last plan to leave Florida together, leaving Wanda in the care of survivalist Phyllis. A deadly break-in forces the two women to burn the blue house and retreat into the swamp, where Phyllis eventually dies and leaves Wanda entirely alone. Years of isolation end when a mysterious woman called Bird Dog pulls Wanda from a hurricane-tossed canoe and the two women share their first kiss. Wanda guides Bird Dog's small community home to the swamp, beginning decades of belonging, growth, and wonder.

The Lowe family's survival, loss, and rebirth through Florida's climate collapse.

Kirby first sees Frida standing among the wreckage left by a hurricane that struck San Juan and killed her mother.

Kirby's foreman calls him away from home before dawn as the approaching hurricane is upgraded to Category Four.

Kirby searches a makeshift emergency shelter for his sons and realizes he has been dismissing Frida's fears exactly as an official dismisses his.

A shell-shocked Lucas tells Phyllis in fragments that his brother was swept away by the storm.

Kirby collects a traumatized Lucas from Phyllis's house and makes repeated failed attempts to reach Frida by phone.

After being taken away by his mother following the storm, Lucas chooses to return to Rudder at age 15 and work as a lineman beside his father.

Lucas reconnects with his high school sweetheart Gillian, who is visiting Rudder only to sell her family's abandoned home.

A staffer at a senator's office tells Kirby that the government is focused on saving cities, not towns, and advises him to leave.

Wanda's birthday party is attended only by close family and Phyllis, who gives her a miniature field research kit.

Lucas accepts a place at Berkeley, and Kirby secures a job in Northern California so the family can leave Florida together.

Lucas departs Rudder on a military refugee truck as relief operations wind down and the nearby cell towers go dark.

Lucas returns to Wanda and Phyllis when Wanda is a teenager, tells Phyllis he now leads his own lineman crew, and leaves after a month.

Wanda spends several nights secretly observing Bird Dog and her close-knit community of six drifters before approaching them.

Bird Dog confesses she was the one who tracked Wanda and Phyllis to the blue house, and both women choose to forgive each other.

Wanda's treetop community grows for decades, and children born there develop extraordinary supernatural abilities described simply as change.

This pool opens with the backstory of how Kirby and Frida met in the ruins of hurricane-struck San Juan, establishing the fragile foundation of their family. During the storm, Kirby is pulled away by work and later searches desperately for his sons while Lucas, found shattered at Phyllis's house, can barely speak about losing Flip. In Part Two, Rudder steadily empties as neighbors flee, a senator's office dismisses Kirby's calls for help, and the linemen struggle with crumbling equipment and no government support. Wanda's birthday, Lucas's quiet departure for college, and the eventual evacuation of Florida trace the human cost of the town's collapse. Lucas returns once as a teenager, leading his own crew of helpers, before leaving for good and leaving Wanda to grieve alongside a fading Phyllis. The pool closes on Wanda's treetop community thriving for decades, passing supernatural adaptations to children born into a radically transformed world.

The supporting characters and community moments behind Rudder's long decline.

Frida goes into labor alone during the storm after Kirby leaves to search for the missing boys.

Lucas realizes mid-storm, racing through debris-filled streets, that leading Flip to the trailer park was entirely his fault.

Kirby arrives home to find Frida dying on the kitchen floor beside her newborn, understanding too late how completely he has failed her.

Wanda secretly goes through a hidden crate of Frida's keepsakes to learn about the mother she never knew.

Lucas secretly writes a college application essay declaring that he wants to save Rudder, not escape it.

Phyllis tells Lucas during a pickup visit that Wanda is special in ways perhaps even greater than they have yet realized.

Over several months, Phyllis and Wanda investigate and confirm that the mysterious lights fill any body of water Wanda touches.

The bioluminescent lights draw Wanda to an algae-covered canoe at a neighbor's yard sale, and she acquires it.

Wanda confides in Phyllis for the first time about the incident at the Edge, and Phyllis holds her as she cries.

Kirby rescues an abandoned stray kitten from an empty field and brings it home; Wanda names it Blackbeard.

Lucas loads his car and drives away to California while Kirby and Wanda assure each other the family will soon be reunited.

At a marina meeting, Wanda realizes that Bird Dog is Brie, the girl who once stood up for her against Corey at the Edge.

Wanda flees Bird Dog's suggestion to illuminate the water and is caught in open ocean when the dangerously hot sun rises.

A disoriented and lost Phyllis snaps at Wanda for illuminating the swamp, implying the glow may have originally led the intruders to them.

An elderly Wanda sits in peaceful silence beside Bird Dog and watches as the bioluminescent lights pass on to a young fisherwoman.

This pool follows the pivotal moments that quietly shape Wanda's character from birth through old age, beginning with the night Frida labors alone and Kirby arrives home too late to save her. As Wanda grows up, she discovers the depth of her connection to the bioluminescent lights, confides her most painful secret to Phyllis, and watches her brother leave carrying dreams she cannot share. The lights guide her to a canoe that will one day save her life, and Lucas's college essay reveals how much hope the whole family has invested in escape and return. Kirby's sudden death in the floodwaters changes Wanda's relationship to the lights, and Phyllis's frightened outburst years later deepens that damage. The pool traces how Wanda's recognition of Bird Dog as Brie, her flight from intimacy, and her near-death in the heat all force a reckoning with whether survival alone is enough. It closes on an elderly Wanda at peace as the lights finally choose a new keeper, completing the supernatural thread woven through her entire life.