The Flood: The Dangerous Exploits of Three Girls, a Cat and a Boat (The Elizabeth Books) (Volume 4) :

When eleven-year-old Elizabeth is left to babysit her four-year-old sister one rainy night, neither of them expect the adventure that unfolds. Their parents don’t return home, and by morning there is a flood that fills the first floor of their house. Elizabeth must take initiative and make an agonizing decision: whether to stay put where her parents might find them, or to be brave and leave home to go in search of their parents. Dangers loom in either scenario. Then Elizabeth and her sister Amanda rescue a neighbor, seven-year-old Maya, and her cat. In this adventure for girls, the three lost children and the cat together set out in a little red boat, looking for their mothers and fathers. As they struggle to survive the flood waters, find food, and make their way among the ruins left behind by the rising tides, the quest forces Elizabeth to rise to new levels of courage, bravery, and resourcefulness she didn’t know she had. But will they find their families before it’s too late?