Natural Disaster (Book 2): Quake

by Lou Cadle

  Gale sighed. “We can hope people will be at their best in a crisis…and protect ourselves the best we can when they aren’t.” He studied her face. “Do you and George want to leave? We can get you out with the refugees.”

  “No. This is our home, for twenty-two years now. We’ll stay here, even if it falls down around us.”

  “You’re the best, Marilyn. You know what else you could do for me?”

  “Anything,” she said.

  “If we walk the people out, starting tomorrow morning, if people along the way could offer just water — not food, necessarily, but water — that’d help a lot. It’d let us keep more water here, and it’d save the walkers the weight. Maybe your radio pals could organize something. Those communities could have churches or Kiwanis or whatever organize it. Some rural people with a well might be willing to share.”

  “That’s a good idea. Tomorrow? That’s soon.”

  “After a second night of this cold weather, I think many will want to leave. In fact,” he said, “I have to go and start organizing the exodus now.”

  And indeed the rest of the day was taken up with that. He barely spared a thought for missing Angela, or for Bash, or for the girls — not until they were dropped off at the EOC at 3:00 by a friend’s mother. And he put them to work, too, loading up grocery carts with packaged supplies for the evacuees. At dawn tomorrow, over a thousand people would be walking away from town, some of them forever.

  A large part of him wished he could go with them. He hadn’t lied to FEMA that morning about feeling the pinch personally. He and Bash were rationing the calories of the emergency food; his belly was growling most of the day, he was tired to the bone, and he was getting bored with canned room-temperature food. Not to mention, he’d punch his own mother in exchange for a long hot shower. Sorry, Mom, he thought, but I think I really would.

  Just before five, the rains started again, heavy, but without wind. Which was a damn good thing, because the helicopters were still able to drop the promised water. They didn’t land, just hovered over the pool and lowered the red buckets, then splashed it in. Some of it splashed back out and Gale felt a wrench at the loss. They zoomed off to the west, and when the noise faded, the staff was able to talk again.

  Everything in the grocery carts was sealed in plastic bags, so the rain wouldn’t do it any harm. There were over three hundred of the carts. The police had brought by some of the newly-looted supplies — he couldn’t think of what they were doing as anything but looting — and there had been a few small first aid kits, some boxes of trash bags, garden trowels — for burying their own waste along the way, and he hoped they’d understand how important that was. People would not want refugees camping on their lawns.

  He left with the girls at 5:30 to radio FEMA again, his afternoon people still hard at work organizing the exodus. He had taken a treat from the looted goods, which he had in a trash bag, to take home to his little family. He had taken less than their fair share until now, knowing he still had emergency food at home, so he didn’t feel bad at all about taking this one small treat.

  He hadn’t arranged for McKenna to talk to her mother again, but he swung by to take the girls with him to the radio. George had gotten hold of the radio operator in Rolla who recorded what they said on an iPhone. Haruka spoke in rapid Japanese. He promised to transfer the sound file via email to Haruka’s folks in Japan.

  They didn’t pull into the driveway at home until 6:49. Bash had been hard at work since coming home and seemed in better spirits today. The house was picked up. He had rainwater ready for them to wash their hands and faces, and dinner was on the table, along with two lit candles.

  Gale brought out his surprise, a six-pack of diet root beer. Useless, calorie-wise, but precious liquid and a taste treat. “Dessert!” he said, lifting it onto the table.

  Bash smiled. “That’s nice.”

  They sat down and heard about the girls’ day at school. Outdoor school was quickly losing its novelty value.

  “It’s cold,” said McKenna. “And we can’t sit down much because it’s wet from the rain. We take turns using the chairs.”

  Haruka added only a few words, as usual, but Gale thought she understood everything being said. He wondered if everyone in Japan was this quiet and polite, or if with each other, they whooped and chattered.

  As they finished eating, he passed around the root beers. He told the plan to walk a thousand people to safety. “So my question for all of you is, should McKenna and Haruka go, too?”

  Bash looked surprised. “Oh, I hadn’t thought.” He trailed off and frowned. “I guess it would be better for you to be with your mother.”

  “They can’t stay with her in a medical facility.”

  “What is the set-up for children without parents?”

  McKenna said, “We’re not children.”

  “You’re minors,” Bash said. “And I can’t even imagine what one of those big places with refugees might be like. Can young people just disappear from them? Who’d know to report it?”

  “I don’t know, actually,” said Gale. “I mean, I haven’t researched what would happen to them. I’m sorry, but I’ve been too busy.”

  “If I can’t be with my Mom, I’d rather stay here,” said McKenna.

  He looked at Haruka. After a long moment where she studied her plate, she looked up at him and said, “You must decide.”

  Gale knew she was right. The decision was on him, and on Bash. If he said they should stay, and there was another earthquake, or something else went wrong, and the girls were hurt, that’d be on him. If he sent them off and they were raped along the way, or killed two weeks down the road at some disorganized refugee camp, that’d be on him, too. He looked at Bash. “I never thought I’d be worrying about refugee camps and what might happen to kids there. Not in America.”

  “And who knew there’d be such hunger. I mean, without it being a fad diet sweeping the country.”

  Gale glanced at his diet root beer. He had known people in California that put low-fat and low-calorie foods in their earthquake kits. They were idiots. “You have to wonder what it’s like in the big cities,” he said. “Memphis, St. Louis.” He had wanted to manage zoning for a big city, but the challenge of helping fewer than 20,000 people survive this quake was too much. He got back on track and said to McKenna, “So you’re saying you want to stay here.”

  “Yes. I have friends here, and you two have been good to us, and I’m dry at night. I know things here,” she said. “I know the streets and the people. If something went wrong, I know alleys to run down and doors to knock on.”

  “Okay,” Gale said. “Bash?”

  “Yes, I’d rather know for sure they were okay, here with us.”

  Gale said to the girls, “You know there’ll be more aftershocks. And there could be another bad quake.”

  “We did okay in the others,” said McKenna, and Haruka nodded.

  “Okay,” he said, feeling less certain than he made himself sound. “So you’ll stay, until your mom can get on her feet and take care of you.”

  Bash looked pleased.

  In bed that night, he said, “Bash, you know those girls aren’t ours.”

  “I know. But I like them.”

  “When all this is done, I think we should talk about adopting. You’ll be a good dad.”

  Bash kissed his cheek. “So will you. But I don’t know if gays even can adopt here in Missouri.”

  “Who cares? We’ll go elsewhere, out of the country if we need to. Or back to California.”

  “California,” Bash said, with a wistful sigh. “I wonder how they’d have handled this in L.A. or S.F.”

  “It wouldn’t have been so vast an area there. Because of population density, as many people would be affected, but only in one corner of the state, just the Bay Area or L.A. If it had been way up north, or out in the desert, the numbers of dead and homeless would have been really low. The buildings on the coast are better. The zoning is better. The p
rep is better.” He winced. “I guess that’s my fault that it isn’t better here.”

  “Oh Gale, you couldn’t have done more than you did. You’ve been good for the city. Wonderful.”

  Maybe not wonderful, but barely good enough. A new thought struck Gale. He’d be able to move himself and Bash to California again, now. With this experience under his belt, any city in the Ring of Fire would be happy to have him on staff. If he didn’t screw up and got the surviving citizens through it okay, that is…or if the deaths would fall on the shoulders of someone else, lawmakers who hadn’t adopted better construction standards, FEMA for not helping enough, or the Earth itself.

  Horrible thinking, and shame on him for giving it even a few seconds of attention. But it was the truth: he’d be able to write his own ticket now, professionally. He could even consult, he imagined, travel internationally while Bash kept a home base in L.A. or S.F. Then he ruthlessly pushed that line of thought away. Focus on the day’s problems, and let the future take care of itself.

  After he’d started to doze off, a thudding knock came at the front door. Gale told Bash to get into the spare bedroom with the girls and lock the door. He walked through the living room and peered out a curtain, but it was pitch black out there.

  “Who is it?” he called.

  “Oralee. I’m Flint’s wife?”

  “Oh, hi. Go around to the garage, would you?” He hoped she was who she said she was as he went to grab the flashlight from the kitchen. He heaved open the garage door and shone the light out. It was just one person, a woman, also with a flashlight, now aimed at the ground. “Come in.”

  “I can’t stay but a second, or Flint will get worried. He wanted me to bring you this.” She raised her light and shone it into the garage then stepped over to a workbench and put down a towel-wrapped bundle. She unfolded it to show him a gun.

  Gale thought it looked even more sinister in the low light. He wasn’t a gun person, but whatever it took to protect Bash and the girls. “I thought he said he’d give me a BB gun.”

  “As they’re going through the houses, you know, looking for supplies, they’re finding plenty of firearms, too. He said to bring you these.” She brought a box out of her jacket pocket and slapped it down. “Ammunition, too.”

  “Except for pointing and pulling the trigger, I really don’t know how to use it.”

  “It’s a revolver, dead simple. But it’s unloaded for now, until you learn how to use it. Hang on.” She dug into her other pocket. “Here are some handouts I found you from a gun safety course. Don’t point it at anyone when you’re figuring out how to use it, even if you think it’s unloaded. Only point it at someone when you’re confident about, and if you’re willing to pull the trigger. Read this, and if you still can’t figure it out, ask Flint tomorrow. K?”

  “I appreciate it.” In equal measure, he hated having the thing, and when she left, he was half afraid to touch it. But he brought it inside and stored it temporarily on the top shelf of his bedroom closet. Then he knocked on the spare bedroom door and told them it was fine.

  The next morning before dawn, he went into work, leaving the girls to Bash, and taking the gun, a handful of bullets, and instructions with him. He had no doubt someone at the EOC — maybe everyone — could explain to him how to use the thing.

  Leaving the gun in his locked glove box for now, he started organizing the tent city’s exodus. When dawn came, he had twenty staff working hard.

  Before any FEMA supplies were delivered that morning, another helicopter came in, a bright blue and yellow copter with “NEWS” painted in white on the side. Gale stared at it, unsure whether he should be happy or not. He’d get the news coverage he needed, but he had so much to do this morning. Damn. This was not the best time to have to stop and deal with reporters.

  But when would be a good time? He smoothed back his hair and looked around for Megan, the staff member who, that first day, had stuck around longer because she had only her cats to worry about. He saw her, realized she was photogenic enough, and called her over. “You’re on communications, right?” he said. “Congratulations, you’re now our press officer. Come on.”

  “But I don’t know anything about that,” she said, trotting to catch up.

  “On-the-job training,” he said. As the helicopter’s engines started to wind down, he leaned over and yelled into her ear, “Pretend you know everything. Shoulders back, head high. Stand straight, no matter what.”

  “Oh, shit,” she said, then smiled. “Wait. Should I smile for the cameras? Or be serious?”

  “Good question. Serious, I think. Worried, but calm and professional. You can do it.”

  He walked forward and met four people who piled out of the helicopter. There was a Faye something, a reporter from channel 7 in Denver, wearing a blue jacket and high-heeled boots, and Patrick O’something, a reporter from channel 9 dressed in multi-pocket khaki like he was reporting from the war in the Middle East.

  After he introduced himself, Patrick explained, “Our stations share a helicopter.” And he introduced two cameramen, both in their 30’s, both named David.

  “You’re the town’s mayor?” asked the Faye, beautiful in that over-polished TV news reporter way.

  “Acting city manager,” he said. “Our manager and mayor both died in the first quake, in the City Hall collapse.”

  “And you run the city?” she said.

  “A lot of people make the town run,” he said, “But three of us, the police chief, A.J. Flint, and the fire chief, Dan Bickham, and I share responsibility for major decision-making.”

  Patrick pulled a small notebook from one of his pockets and jotted down the names.

  Gale said, “This is Megan, who will be your press liaison for the duration. She’ll give you that and any other information you need. Let me tell you what all this morning’s activity is about.” And he went on to describe the preparations for the exodus.

  He was still orienting them when the FEMA helicopters came in the with morning’s water buckets and dumped them in the pool. He then had to describe that. “But the best thing for you to see would be our tent cities, I think, so you can see how in need those people are. And the temporary hospital, which is in a parking lot near our collapsed former hospital. And check out the downtown and our makeshift levees, too.”

  They decided to start with a visit to the tent cities, where Patrick and David 2 would do citizen interviews with Megan. The other team, Fay and David 1, went with him to the Triumvirate meeting.

  Gale waited, aware of all that he could be doing elsewhere instead of this, as Faye did interviews with the other two. Dan came off just as he was, patient and competent and thorough, and Flint seemed uneasy and barked out terse answers. He needed a media coach, Gale thought. And then he thought what a stupid thing to think about it that was at a time like this. Then he drove the reporters to George and Marilyn’s house.

  “We couldn’t do a fraction of what we have done without these two,” he said, and sat in the background while they did brief interviews with both.

  David 1 said, “I’ll get a shot of the antennas outside when we leave. Editors might want to cut that in.”

  Gale sat down as George got FEMA on the line. He warned Director Hayes first thing. “I’m sitting here with the news team from Denver television, Director, ready to give you our lists of supplies and to talk with you about the refugees who will be coming your way in a couple days, walking from the tent cities here.”

  “How nice,” she said, and Gale heard the strain in her voice. “We appreciate the news coverage.”

  With witnesses — hell, with potentially the whole world as witness, Gale repeated every request he had made the past week and had not gotten filled. He explained there’d be about a thousand people walking out in a very few hours, and how they’d arranged additional supplies and water stations along the way on their own, through the ham radio community. He was performing for the audience as much as getting something accomplished, but
then, the audience was what was going to get more things accomplished for his city in the coming days. He hoped, at least. Maybe this play would piss her off so much, he’d make things worse.

  Director Hayes even answered a few direct questions from Faye before the questions started getting tougher, and then she said she had an emergency call from St. Louis she had to take. No one believed it.

  When they were done, Faye said, “Has FEMA been cooperative?” The camera was still running.

  Gale debated how to answer. Again, he wished for Evelyn’s expertise. He thought she’d know the right tone to take. “I understand they’ve done the best they can in a very tough situation. But you’ll see the tent cities in a moment, how cold and wet and hungry and filthy the people are. I understand that FEMA is trying to put out a lot of fires at once, and that to them, we’re just a tiny blaze. But this is America, an America a lot of people recognize, those from any medium sized town or suburb, a heartland community with salt-of-the-earth people, people just like those watching this report. Some of these people have lost everything. They’ve lost their homes, family members, their jobs, their futures, and they’re frightened, and cold, and hungry. It’s harder for them to think about what others have lost in the big cities, when they’ve lost so much themselves.”

  Not awful, he thought. He’d stomped on some hot-button keywords there, but his sentences were too long, harder to edit. Something to work on over the course of the day. Short, pithy sound bites, that’s what he needed.

  After that, he drove them to the hospital. McKenna and Haruka were there, sitting in the visitor’s chairs. He led the news team over to them and introduced them.

  “So you took in these girls you’d never met.”

  “It’s a small town. We’re all neighbors here,” he said, thinking, short sound bites.

  McKenna on camera was glib and charming, a child of the youtube age, aware how she looked on video and how to present herself well. Hell, he should have Flint get coaching from a cadre of teenagers, instead of paying a media consultant money.