by Zack Finley
Joel pumped the bilges but held off dumping the black water tanks into the river until we got underway. Not optimal, but better than letting them overflow. It would be nice to have flush toilets and maybe even a shower.
The Cumberland’s potable water tanks were nearly full, but we’d still boil or filter the water before ingesting it. If the fresh water tanks emptied, Joel though we could use the fire pump to refill it with river water.
I woke Allie before dawn after we had everything ready to go. With the snow gone, we got underway, using NVGs.
We assigned two lookouts in the wheelhouse with Allie. The intent was to have someone looking around with binoculars and the second verifying our position on the river. My guys might not be large boat drivers, but they could navigate using nothing but a compass and a map. That allowed Allie to concentrate on keeping us to the main channel.
Joel and Razor planned to swap off engine duty during the day. Everyone was in full battle rattle, and I wanted one person patrolling the main deck at all times. They’d be responsible for monitoring the auxiliary boats and be our first responder to any threat.
Getting underway was an anticlimax. The vessel was slow, moving at maybe 10 mph. With the current, we might travel a little faster, but nothing was zipping by.
When we got into the main channel, Allie tried a series of maneuvers to see how the vessel responded. She had Ben with her since he was the designated boat operator-in-training.
The skies were still overcast and ominous looking but night faded away to a half-light. Once we could see without NVGs, we pumped the blackwater tanks. Then sent everyone not on duty for a well-deserved rest.
I set my watch for three hours and was asleep as my head hit the pillow. I stacked my weapons and plate carrier on the bunk beside me but didn’t bother taking off my boots.
I was up and hit the head before climbing to the wheelhouse. Ben was navigating, and I planned to send him to get some sleep. We were near mile marker 890, approaching New Madrid, Missouri.
“How has it been?” I asked both Ben and Allie.
Ben replied first, “Someone needs to keep a sharp eye out for finger dikes,” he said. “Sometimes they are on both shores. They should have markers on them, but they are missing now. If the whole river is this way, I doubt our estimate of 26 hours will hold true. Allie’s been holding it at around 10 knots, and there is some current, but we are losing any advantage by having to zig zag to keep in the channel.”
Allie said, “We are using a combination of the charts in the computer and the charts we brought from the Coast Guard office. I’m glad I have the depth finder, but that won’t help us if I run over one of those finger dikes. Lots of sandbars, too.”
“How does this boat handle?” I asked.
“Quite well, I only have to tweak the little handles. I haven’t done any emergency maneuvers since we started, but as long as we spot the obstructions, we should be fine. It isn’t like we are driving 50 miles an hour,” Allie answered.
Ben walked me through the routine he, Allie, and Mike worked out. He offered to take the helm if Allie needed a restroom break and she took him up on it. While she was gone Ben demonstrated the controls for me. He said once they got underway, they hadn’t touched the throttle, they just tweaked the tillers. Mike kept careful watch for obstacles.
Tom and Kurt came up to relieve Mike. Allie was right behind them on the stairs. I spotted Craig on deck, checking on the two boats attached to our starboard side. The snow on our boat had melted away. While it was overcast, it wasn’t raining or snowing.
Ben and Mike left to get some sleep. I’d see them in about 5 hours.
New Madrid passed to our starboard side and was the first notable town on the river since we left Hickman. In about 5 hours we’d be off Caruthersville. South of Caruthersville was the I-155 bridge.
The river was wide and muddy. Bobbing limbs and other debris made it harder to spot the ends of the finger dikes. Being this high off the water made it easy to avoid them.
The wind, blowing from the northwest, added a small chop to the roiling surface of the river.
As we rounded the bend at New Madrid, Missouri, you could feel the wind hit the vessel from the stern. I hoped having it, and the current at our backs would push us along a bit faster. I hadn’t realized we’d be traveling at about the speed of Huckleberry Finn and his raft. It was faster than walking, but that was about all you could say for it.
Even with night vision, I understood Allie’s objection to traveling at night. In just the past half hour we’d spotted several errant barges and a boat of some type aground on one of the shallow banks. Even a floating tree might mess up our propellers. But if the river continued to be the way it currently was, I was willing to push it.
Looking at the charts, there wasn’t a lot on the river until we reached Memphis. Memphis was such a busy port city, I suspected there would be a lot of floating hazards there, not someplace to traverse at night.
Finding a place to stop, shouldn’t be hard. Nearly every town had one or more docks, for loading or unloading grain or other bulk goods. We could pick one and spend the night. According to the charts, we should have plenty to choose from.
If we stopped at dusk tonight, we wouldn’t arrive in Memphis until tomorrow evening. If everything went well in Memphis, we wouldn’t be to the Helena about mid-day on the day after.
It would be a lot better to arrive at Memphis tomorrow morning, but that would depend upon the situation as it developed.
“Jeremy, do you want to give steering a try?” Allie asked. “So far the biggest hazard is falling asleep at the wheel, or tiller anyway.”
“Sure, I’m game. Ben gave me a quick tutorial before he left,” I said.
“I figured he would,” Allie said, standing up and stretching. “Sit down in the chair, and I’ll go over the most important gauges for you. So far the biggest problem I’ve had is falling asleep.”
We swapped places, and I settled into the armchair. The gauges were labeled, and it was a lot easier to see them in the daytime. Allie suggested I try some maneuvers to get the hang of the controls
“Going to do a few turns, brace yourself,” I radioed. Following up, I swung one of the controllers slowly toward starboard. The boat moved right more abruptly than I expected. It was very responsive. I played with the controls before settling back into what I surmised was the main channel. Without a GPS we were just eyeballing it. The river was about a mile wide, and the channel was less than half that.
“All clear,” I radioed.
Kurt and Tom had both pairs of binoculars and were scouring the horizon looking for threats. Allie was reading the helmsman manual. That left me in the main chair. With nothing to do. There was a lot of sand on the Kentucky side of the river. We passed an occasional red or green buoy.
I remembered the old adage: red, right, return from some long-ago trip. Since we were leaving that probably meant I should keep red buoys on my left. Although I suspected in the past few months, they shifted around somewhat.
I spotted one of the red buoys south of New Madrid, Missouri and opposite of an industrial complex of white domes. Downriver from that were some grain silos then a sizable coal-fired power-plant. I just assumed it was coal-fired, based on the mounds of black stuff I could see served by covered conveyors leading from a dock. It had 20 plus covered barges parked against pier structures for this plant. Whether they were empty or full of coal wasn’t clear from this distance. I felt no compunction to investigate more closely.
More barges were crammed against the west side of the river. I couldn’t tell if they were aground or somehow anchored in place. According to the charts the Cumberland needed to move toward the east side of the river, south of the power plant to avoid another bunch of finger dikes. I was happy to spot a green buoy, passing it on our starboard side. We were back in Tennessee now.
Both shores were now heavily wooded. I aimed west after the sand dunes became noticeable to the east. Anoth
er grain silo with conveyor loader appeared on the west side as the channel narrowed to about a half mile. The river current was a little faster as well. Several flotillas of covered barges were parked near the grain silo.
I glanced at my watch and realized we’d been traveling more than an hour. According to the chart, we’d gone just over 12 miles.
I handed the helm back to Allie and arranged for Craig to ride in the wheelhouse and warm up. I suggested Allie swap out with both Tom and Craig so everyone could stay awake.
Our two auxiliary boats were snugged up against the side of the cutter. Both were riding well in the water bouncing softly against air-filled rubber fenders. Only their bows were attached to our vessel. I might have towed them behind us like rubber duckies, but then we’d have to worry about getting their ropes caught in our props. This was probably a safer alternative.
I walked around the deck for about an hour. Barges were stacked up on bends like matchsticks. Some were lying on their sides, having dumped their contents. Others were still upright with covers on. We passed several 40 barge flotillas tied to various grain docks. I suspected these were abandoned by the towboat crews.
Bargemen would have wanted to reach their families. I suspected most lived somewhere along the river, likely near the larger ports. Some towboats were independent contractors while most belonged to large fleets.
When the GPS system died, and all radio transmissions were blocked by static, what would the boat crews have done? I wondered what the Coast Guard told them before the power died. Did they go to the nearest port? Did they abandon their barges and return to their home port? Or, did they keep pushing their barges to their original destinations? I didn’t know how many towboats plied this part of the Mississippi River, but it had to be thousands.
Would they vote about what to do, mutiny, or abandon ship at the closest point? Each towboat was a self-contained unit with some food, water, and fuel, so they had more time to choose what to do. We saw several tied up at various piers. There were even three tied up in Hickman when we left. While the towboat we were on seemed large to me, I knew we’d be dwarfed by any that pushed the large flotillas of barges up and down the river.
I suspected most barges coming up river were empty, and those flowing down were full, but there was nothing but the frequent grain elevators dotting our waterway to back that up.
I worried about what we’d see in Memphis, the only significant port city we needed to get by. Many on this stretch of the river would have gone there to find out what was happening. That would probably mean a lot of abandoned barges in and around Memphis, would we even be able to get through?
Even if we had to park our main boat near Memphis, we could go get Andy with our two auxiliary boats and ferry them back to the towboat. We just needed enough gas to make three round trips from Memphis to Helena to have everyone on their way back.
As a fallback, those fit enough to travel could scrounge a vehicle and gas to drive up the west shore of the Mississippi River to meet up with us. They could easily beat us to New Madrid, Missouri or even Dorena, Missouri if need be. With better communications, I would have already sent a squad on ninjas to rendezvous with Andy. If rural Arkansas was like rural Tennessee, it was probably a viable choice. But if anyone got into trouble, there would be no backup. I just couldn’t risk it.
I reached a decision. We wouldn’t stop for the night until just before Memphis. I wanted to get through Memphis while we had enough light to see, but as early in the morning as possible. Of all the hazards we’d encounter, sunken barges were my biggest fear. Our draft was quite shallow, but we still had to worry about our props.
I was on my twentieth stroll around the barge when Tom asked if he could spell me. I knew he was probably struggling to stay awake and considered just sending him to quarters, but swapped anyway.
Kurt was sleeping in the captain’s cabin. I suggested Allie take a quick break, she left Craig at the helm. When she got back, I sent Craig to get some sleep. That he didn’t try to talk me out of it confirmed for me that he was struggling to stay awake.
“I’m thinking of sending Tom to get some sleep,” I said. “What do you think?”
“I agree,” Allie said. “I know he is exhausted. Things in this part of the river seem under control. If we need help, I can always slow down even further. The guys are quick risers.”
“We can take turns, walking the deck, watching the horizon, and steering the boat, if you want,” I suggested.
“I need to switch off,” she said. “If I don’t switch off occasionally, I can’t keep my focus on driving the boat. The mechanics are easy, but mentally this is tough duty, it is tough to stay awake, and I had a solid night’s sleep compared to the rest of you.”
“Tom,” I radioed. “Check to see if Joel and Razor need anything then hit the sack. We’ll wake you when needed.”
“Roger,” Tom replied.
Joel or Razor must have wanted the company, I’d actually expected them to tell Tom not to bother.
I took the first turn as the lookout, checking the chart before searching for obstacles.
“I want to keep moving overnight,” I said. “It is challenging to make sure you stay in the channel, but so far we haven’t encountered anything that is trouble.”
“Yeah,” Allie said, “This is a lot easier than I imagined. Mind you running into a buoy, dike, sand bar, or barge is still a bad idea but we are going so slowly, there seems plenty of time to do what is needed. I’ve read and reread the manual, and everything seems pretty intuitive. Losing propulsion would be big trouble, but not much we can do from up here if that happens.”
“Once the next crew wakes up, we’ll get Kurt out of the cabin, and you can take a nap,” I said.
“You need some sleep, too,” Allie said.
“I do, but we’ll play it by ear,” I replied. I knew very little about Allie’s background. It hadn’t been that relevant so far, other than her boat handling skills.
“What were you doing before the crash?” I asked.
“I just started my senior year in college,” she said. “Seems like forever ago.”
“Where?” I asked.
“UT in Knoxville. Not far from home but far enough. I was majoring in biology. Now both Dr. Jerrod and George are training me to be a combined vet and doctor,” she said. “I don’t think much I learned in school will really help me. I was actually majoring in ecology and evolutionary biology. Not a great foundation for medicine.”
“What career did you want to pursue?” I asked.
“I was quite interested in studying climate change and its impacts on ecosystems,” Allie replied, sighing. “Not very important now. Studying it won’t do any good, now. I can’t help but wonder whether the CME was a type of karma balancing event. If a lot of the world’s people die off, then I’d expect the carbon dioxide levels to drop over time. No way to know for sure.”
“I didn’t meet you until after the crash,” I said. “I’m afraid I don’t really know how you are connected to the Valley.”
“My grandad and your dad served in Vietnam together,” she said. “My mom is the link. My dad has a business in Oneida.” She paused. “Had,” she corrected. “It was a small heating and air conditioning business. When we got the call, most of my extended family returned to the Valley and moved in with my grandparents to wait out the emergency. I haven’t heard from my brother and his family since the power went out. He lives in Wisconsin, and they planned to ride it out up there.”
I waited, scanning the horizon with my binoculars, knowing she probably had more to add.
“That Saturday night before, I really thought he was smart to have ignored the recall. I was pissed off for missing a frat party. My family spent most of Saturday helping my dad move the “critical” supplies on “the Plan” from his shop to the Valley. I suspected we’d all be moving them back on Monday,” Allie continued. “After the president’s broadcast, I still hoped that would be true.”
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p; “We all did,” I answered. “None of us wanted to be right. Being right was too horrible to contemplate.”
“Timmy, my brother, called us from Wisconsin right after the president got off the tv. He apologized for not being with us. He doesn’t have as good a setup as the Valley, but his in-laws were more prepared than most. I just hope he is okay,” Allie confided. “I don’t know much about the rest of my relatives, most weren’t close. My sister was still living at home, she is the youngest and was going to junior college.”
“What do your folks think about you joining Team Gamma?” I asked.
“They aren’t happy. I just think it is something I need to do,” Allie said. “My dad is the worst. He was never very committed to the whole survival stuff. He mostly went along to please my mom. He thought it was a waste of time and resources until the shit hit the fan. Now he is always complaining about something. My mom was born into it, so she is really good with all of it. She is anxious about Timmy, but she is on the council and puts in tons of hours. I think my dad would have a different attitude if he’d been with us at the bait shop or saw how malnourished Kurt was. He doesn’t understand how good we have it. He’ll come around. He is still adjusting.”
