4. Swept AwayIn storm-ravaged Santa Clarita, California, last March, Margarito Martinez approached
Road Runner Road carefully. A swollen creek had flooded it. Martinez, driving a Toyota SUV,
figured he’d be OK. Big mistake.
Halfway across, the rushing waters grabbed hold of his vehicle, sweeping it off the road
washing it down a rocky streambed. It finally stopped a good 80 feet away, when the water
somehow lifted the SUV and wedged it in the ground at a 45-degree angle. Bruised, shaken, and
trapped inside with the muddy rising quickly, Martinez was certain he was going to die.
On the road right behind Martinez were a party-rental delivery worker and his niece. They
watched the horror unfold, and when Martinez’s SUV came to rest in the middle of the gushing
creek, the man leaped to act. First, he grabbed heavy-duty straps from the back of his van and
secured the teetering SUV to nearby posts. Then he climbed atop Martinez’s vehicle and banged
on a rear window with his fists. Frustrated, he returned to his niece and yelled, “Give me a rock!”.
Over and over he smashed the rock into the window, to no avail. “We were scared that something
else was going to come down and take the SUV, take him, take my uncle,” Krystina Reyes, 27, told
CBSLA.
Reyes’ uncle shouted to Martinez to move away from the window. He braced himself – right
foot on the spare tire, left in the wheel well. He leaned back and threw the rock. Finally, the glass
broke and the man kicked in the remaining shards. Soon, a soaked Martinez emerged through the
window frame, and the men escaped to dry land.
(Source: Reader’s Digest USA, September 2018)
Answer the following questions.
a. What is the pattern of organization and the signal words used in this reading text?
b. Identify the main idea of each paragraph in the text.
c. Summarize the content of the text in less than 5 sentences.