When Cookie arrives to pick up Francine from her house, the house is eerily similar to her family house before the last flood that killed her first husband Frank and two daughters. Cookie and Francine drive to the local nursing home to perform with their glee club, the Friendly City Singers. After their set at the rest home and a rousing rendition of the Johnstontown Polka, Francine is approached by a resident, Libby Quigg—the oldest living survivor of the 1899 flood. Libby remarks to Francine that the rest home has “Foster Grandpersons’ program” and that Francine should apply.  The next day, while at work at a town department store and grocer, Francine overhears that 60 Minutes’s Morely Safer is in town conducting interviews.  That weekend, at the bar her husband Ray works at, she and Connie sit watching the 60 Minutes episode that features Libby in her regard as survivor of the Flood of 99. The town mayor expounds that though unemployment is high in Johnstontown, crime is down, to which Francine scoffs. The next day, Francine brings Libby to her house to spend the night, and after dinner and a bath, Libby is put to bed. Checking on Libby during the night, Francine is startled when she discovers Libby isn’t asleep, and the two strike up a conversation wherein Francine shares the story of the flood that her family—her first husband and first two children— was lost in. Libby, in her snide way, dismisses Francine’s story, remarking that, “As floods go, yours don’t amount to beans.” Several days later, after Libby tricks Francine into taking her to Johnstontown’s Inclined Plane, the two take several long rides in the rapturous cold up and down the incline as Libby relates the story of the 1899 flood that, with its 50 foot waves, destroyed the city, sweeping everything up careening towards a mountain and back again. Francine later reproaches Libby for her cheery recollection of the flood, declaring, “Shame on you ! You make that flood sound like the circus come to town, like you was just havin’ yourself a ball.”