According to the reporters getting a bird’s-eye view from helicopters, the debris field—the area buried in mud and slurry and wreckage—covered more than eighteen square miles.
Laurel pulled into the parking lot of the local high school that they would be using as their base of operations. A few stray raindrops splattered against the windshield. She turned off the engine and put her hand on Gem’s neck. “Ready?” she asked. Gem gave her cheek a lick. “Me too,” she said. “As ready as I’ll ever be, anyway.” Though she’d been a search and rescue worker for over a decade and had seen a lot of disasters, she was having trouble picturing what they were about to see and experience.
Their team was mostly assembled and already getting briefed when Laurel and Gem walked up. It was good to see familiar faces and tails. Meg, Opal, Roger, and Chip were there. Laurel also recognized a few other local fire SAR teams being loaded into the back of a large army vehicle designed to travel in high water. They exchanged hellos, tight smiles, and mellow tail wags. This wasn’t exactly a happy reunion.
Laurel stood beside the wheel of the high-water truck, waiting to get in. The tire came up to the top of her shoulder. She lifted Gem up to Roger, who grabbed the strap on her vest to hoist her into the big tarp-covered truck bed, then climbed in herself and took a seat beside Roger on the benches that lined the sides. Dogs and equipment sat on the floor in the center.
When everyone was loaded, they rolled out. The truck turned onto a road, but quickly the vehicle left the smooth pavement and began to bump and lurch along. Out of the opening in the back Laurel saw only thick mud and ruin—the roads were indiscernible. They traveled slowly, making their way closer to the epicenter of the flash flooding and mudslides. The dogs panted near their handlers’ feet. The rescue workers leaned in to try to see as much as they could. It was all a shock.
Laurel closed her eyes for a second, realizing that nothing could have prepared her for this. The world outside looked like an alien landscape. There were rock fields with boulders the size of cars smashed against the remains of houses. Power lines were not only down, they were twisted around trees and structures and sometimes completely invisible in the mud. Entire cars, even large SUVs, were buried in muck. She saw other cars with their wheels gone, stripped off by the force and speed of the debris wave as it streamed past.
Beside her, Roger took in a sharp breath as he spotted what used to be a home and was now just a sludge-covered foundation. There were large pieces of roof on the ground around it and more hanging in broken trees.
The truck bounced and finally jerked to a stop to allow the SAR crew to climb slowly down. Outside the sheltered bed of the emergency vehicle, the devastation was even more overwhelming. It went on in all directions, and when Laurel looked closer, she saw toys and bicycles and dishes and toothbrushes—regular objects of all shapes and sizes—littered throughout … relics from normal life just a day before.
Gem jumped down and stood next to Laurel. Her handler’s anxiousness was palpable, so she stepped closer and leaned against Laurel’s legs to let her know she was there. They were together. And Gem was ready to get to work.
Laurel put her hand on the top of Gem’s head and nodded in response to the unanswered question. She was ready, too, because they both knew that out there, in all that mess, there were people. People hidden and trapped and struggling to hold on. People hoping to be found. People waiting to be rescued.
The unloaded teams huddled around Alana Eggleton, the county task force leader. More teams, at least a dozen of them, were coming from all over California and a few neighboring states, but the local teams were the first on the scene. Alana was wearing a hard hat and safety vest and carrying a large pole. She cautioned the workers to take their safety very seriously—with the downed power lines and inability to see what was under the surface of the mud, the level of risk was extremely high. Laurel settled her own hard hat on her head.
“The moving mud and debris is dangerous and powerful. It also leaves pockets and voids. These spaces are precisely what we need to find and search, because they are the places where people can survive,” Alana explained. “We think the area we’re in now has the highest potential for survivors. We need to search homes and cars.” She instructed everyone to look for cars still in or near driveways and garages. Many people had been sleeping when the slide hit, and unfortunately this neighborhood had not been evacuated. The searchers passed around poles for probing the thick mud, and cans of bright orange paint so they could mark areas that had been searched. Laurel slipped the can into one of her vest pockets, anxious to begin. There was a lot of ground to cover.
Alana dispatched small groups to specific areas and explained that there were some places that they wouldn’t be able to reach by land because the roads were impassable, even with the military vehicles. In those cases teams would need to be flown in to search via helicopters, because excavating the streets would take too much time—time they didn’t have.
Laurel peered down the mud-covered road they were standing on. In the near distance, past a huge snarl of tree limbs, she saw a boulder the size of a shed blocking an entire lane. She exhaled slowly. This wasn’t even the hardest-hit spot!
“Okay.” Alana held up her radio. “Be safe. Be in touch. Stick together.”
The teams moved out. Laurel looked at Roger and then Chip, who had been assigned to a team with her and Gem. They’d have to have one another’s backs. Using their poles to probe the muddy depths and feel for anything unusual, Roger and Laurel slogged toward the nearest structures … or what was left of them. Gem and Chip hopped up onto the objects protruding from the muck, balancing on tree limbs, bits of wall, car roofs … anything that was above the muck. Their noses were on overdrive, perpetually scanning for human scent.
Gem smelled scores of people, which was normal for her. She was used to training with lots of humans around. This devastated area was populated with all kinds of emergency responders in addition to search teams. Local residents were out searching, too.
It was easy for Laurel to tell the difference between rescue workers and the people who lived in the area. Besides their hard hats, radios, and tools, the professional responders looked grim and determined. The residents, in contrast, wore everyday clothes. Many were still in pajamas. They had haunted looks in their eyes, and moved like zombies in horror films. Gem jumped onto a low stone wall that was still standing, and wagged closer to a mud-covered man who had stopped to lean against a truck with muck up to its floorboards.
The man reached out to absently pet Gem, leaving a streak of brown on her reddish-golden head. He spoke to everyone and no one at once.
“It was so loud,” he said, shaking his head. “I heard it coming. It woke me up. It sounded like a thousand freight trains … like the end of the world. And when it hit the house it just … I just … I looked back and they were gone. They were all gone.” He covered his mouth with a mud-caked hand and stared, glassy-eyed, into the distance.
Laurel wasn’t sure what to do or say. She wanted to ask who “they” were, but understood it was his family.
Gem pushed her head into the man’s leg so he could feel her warmth. She didn’t want him to feel lost. She wanted him to know that she was there.
“We’re here to find everyone we can,” Laurel finally said. “We’re here to help.”
Gem barked her agreement, and the man tucked his chin once, still staring.
Chip and Roger had kept moving toward the structures, and Laurel peered after them, anxious to catch up and stick together. She tucked Gem’s lead into her vest and looked to her dog. “Find,” she told Gem. The command worked for both specific and nonspecific scenting of humans. Gem was practiced at locating hidden people—she knew the targets were not the humans she could spot easily using just her eyes.
Gem followed in the direction that Chip had gone. The mud slurped at her feet, pulling them down. It wasn’t smooth mud, either. There were sharp rocks and sticks and lots of other
things in it that scraped her legs and paws. Squlech. Slurp. Schlop. She continued as best she could toward the nearest collapsed home.
The garage door of the house had been pummeled. It hung askew and was blocked by a fallen tree, a tangle of branches, an upended basketball hoop, and a surfboard. Laurel’s heart jumped into her throat as Gem expertly climbed into what looked like a surfing pterodactyl’s nest. The agile pup hopped onto the wider trunk of the tree and off again, sliding into a narrow space to enter the garage.
The entire house had been forced off its foundation and was tilted at a crazy angle. The west corner was completely buried in mud. Laurel blinked at it, watching the spot where Gem had disappeared.
The tossed-and-turned nature of the mudslide destruction was disturbing. It was the kind of damage Laurel would have expected to see after a hurricane or a tornado. Then she remembered footage she’d seen of a beachside town after a tsunami had hit—water with debris mixed into it was as chaotic and deadly as swirling, gale-force winds. Maybe even more so.
Without taking her eyes off the dark sliver of space where Gem had entered the slanting mess, Laurel scrambled onto a car-sized boulder sitting in the middle of what used to be a wide driveway. A low retaining wall bordering the driveway was still partly visible. She strained to see any movement or catch a tiny glimpse of golden fur.
Inside the collapsed garage, Gem moved cautiously. The smells were jumbled, and she huffed air in and out to try to capture and identify the scents. Smells almost always seemed sharper in the dark, and she easily detected a mix of sewage and natural gas coming from broken pipes. She picked up the earthier smells of splintered wood and wet soil. Jumbled-up smells from wet fabrics, smashed foodstuffs, drywall. She froze and inhaled. Exhaled. Inhaled. She did not smell any victims.
By crouching and crawling commando-style, Gem was able to wriggle back out of the space. She looked for Laurel as soon as she emerged.
Laurel saw a fuzzy head appear and had to keep from cheering. She climbed carefully off of her boulder perch to mark the spot as “searched” while Gem moved on to her next task.
Behind the garage, a tangle of cyclone fencing that wrapped around a half-toppled tree was easy to scale. Gem climbed up to see and sniff what lay beyond. It looked like a flattened yard area … fairly free of debris. She hopped down to explore further, but the second her paws touched the brown muck below, Gem knew she’d made a mistake. The ground was not solid. It wasn’t even just soft! In an instant she was swallowed up by thick muck that closed quickly over her head. She pumped her legs, but there was nothing solid beneath them to help her. The dense liquid that surrounded her was thicker than water and thinner than mud. It filled her nose and mouth. She struggled to lift her head. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t breathe. She could barely hear. The shrill scream of Laurel’s emergency whistle penetrated her dark, liquefied prison. A moment later there was nothing.
A strong hand grabbed Gem by the scruff and yanked her up and out of the deadly slurry. Coated in a thick layer of sludge, she landed on Laurel’s lap. Laurel threw her arms around her dog’s chest and squeezed hard to push water out and let air into her lungs.
Gem coughed up muck. She coughed and coughed while Laurel held her tight, now squeezing her out of relief and love. “Oh, Gem! My Gem. Oh. I thought I’d lost you!” It was one of the quickest and scariest things Laurel had ever seen. She’d caught sight of Gem as she reached the top of the fencing and then watched as Gem jumped down and just … disappeared. It was like the earth swallowed her whole! She watched her dog sink into the deep mud in the blink of an eye. Using her pole, she’d miraculously found a solid place to climb down and plunged her arm into the spot where her dog had gone under. Thank goodness Gem hadn’t sunk down too deep. Thank goodness Laurel had been able to reach her and haul her back up.
“Get it out,” Laurel said, happy to hear Gem’s coughing, even as she worried about what she might have swallowed.
“Is everyone okay?” Roger yelled down from his perch on the rubble above them. He’d come as soon as he heard Laurel’s whistle. He squinted at the dark brown, four-legged mass getting to its feet beside Laurel. The shape shook and muck flew everywhere. “Is that Gem?” Roger asked. Laurel nodded and held up her hand for Roger and Chip to stay where they were. She grabbed Gem’s vest, too. She wasn’t about to let her slip under again!
“Keep back,” she wheezed. “I think we’re right at the edge of a swimming pool! It’s filled with mud.”
Roger’s eyes went wide. “Holy moly!” he exclaimed. The surface of the pool looked like solid ground but was in fact deadlier than quicksand. “Stay, Chip,” he called to his dog. He gave a hand signal to the pup and reached down to help Laurel and Gem clamber to safety, or at least onto slightly more solid ground. He shuddered. The hazards left in the wake of the slide were countless and unknown. Even though they were skilled and trained, they all needed to proceed with extra caution.
Gem shook again and sent a few more globs of mud flying. She sneezed mud out of her nose and Laurel poured water from her bottle onto her dog’s face and eyes. After all that her face was a pale brown, and the rest of her remained covered in thick, stinky mud. Not a single inch of her golden coat could be seen.
Gem was so happy to be free of the smothering muck that she licked Laurel’s hand and wagged, splattering anything that wasn’t already coated. Her nose twitched, and when she bowed her head to lick one of her paws, Laurel stopped her.
“I don’t need you getting any more of this gunk inside of you!” she said. Laurel’s nose wrinkled. “It smells. Who knows what’s mixed up in here?”
Gem licked her lips. The mud tasted worse than it smelled.
Chip sniffed his canine friend. His legs looked mud-dipped, and his coat was a patchwork of crusty brown spots. He let out a soft whimper.
Roger and Laurel exchanged a look. “I just … I …” Laurel was not sure what to do next. She looked around at what had once been someone’s backyard, pool house, and garden … She tried to wrap her head around the combination of rocks, trees, cars, and portions of walls mixed together with the tiny signs of yesterday’s life that half-protruded from the mud … a Barbie, a shoe, a framed family picture, a teaspoon. Twenty-four hours ago things here had been normal, or at least intact. Tears filled her eyes. She felt overwhelmed—like Gem in the pool. The feeling threatened to consume her, but she managed to blink back the panic. It couldn’t be too much. It was real. She was here. They were all here, to help. They were needed. She took a deep breath and stroked her dog’s coated neck.
Steeling herself, Laurel got to her feet. She and Gem needed to do what they knew how to do … search for humans. Gem, though nearly unrecognizable, was ready to get back to work, too. Almost …
“Laurel, your diamond dog is looking pretty rough. I think you need to hose her down and make sure she’s okay under that scuba suit of goop before we can get back to work,” Roger advised. He pointed them toward the truck, which was equipped with a large barrel of water and a hose.
“Of course.” Laurel nodded. Gem’s safety—and her own—had to come first.
After a thorough dousing, the brown-black mud ran off of Gem in rivulets and her ruddy hue reemerged like the rising sun.
“There she is,” Laurel said, applying a gentle cleanser she carried in her pack to make sure no toxins remained. Gem would have to have another bath at the end of each search day—they all would—but this was good enough for now. When she was done with the washing, Laurel checked Gem all over for cuts or swelling. She inspected her paws and between her toes and looked into her eyes. All clear.
Gem accepted the bath and lapped up a cool drink of clean water. Then she looked at Laurel expectantly. All in all she was feeling pretty good!
Alana came to check on the team. “Roger told me what happened. You two can call it a day and get some rest,” she offered. Her eyebrows were arched in concern.
“Oh, no. Please.” Laurel spoke for both of them. “
We want to stay.” The last thing she and Gem wanted was to be done for the day. They wanted to get back out there and do what they’d come to do. They wanted to help. “Right, Gem?” Laurel looked at the wet dog beside her. Gem’s eyes glittered. Then, with a bark, she confirmed that neither of them was ready to call it quits.
Alana almost laughed. Instead she smiled with admiration and nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Go get ’em.”
Gem moved through a muddy, rock-and-branch-strewn area toward a half-crushed building that was once a detached garage. She knew now how the ground could look solid but not be—especially behind houses. The places where cars were parked were safer for walking and climbing, so she tried to stay in those areas. She did not want to get sucked into anything like that awful mud pit again. It was too scary.
Her nose quivered as she made her way through the twisted obstacle course. She smelled so many things that weren’t usually mixed together, and it took a lot of concentration to decipher them all. Plus, she still had to pay attention to where she was walking! The mud slurped at her paws with each step, and she had to pull them back up—sometimes hard. When she finally reached the partially smashed garage, she turned back to make eye contact with her handler.
Laurel was following, but with only two legs and more body weight, she sank deeper into the glop. Her progress was slow. At that moment she was navigating a fallen tree trunk that blocked her path, so it took a few seconds for her to look up. She quickly assessed, then nodded at Gem. Gem held still another moment for a deep, nose-clearing sniff, and then crawled up onto a pile of tree roots and debris. She scrambled forward until she found a plank of wood that made an impromptu bridge across a muddy chasm to a broken window. She made her way across without any trouble and stuck her snout through the broken glass. What did she smell? This was harder than any training she had ever done! She stuck her nose in a little farther and smelled again. Was anybody in there? She wasn’t sure. She had to go in.
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