by Linda Ellen
For a moment, Vic was torn as he wondered if he had made the right choice. An empty feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. As his boat turned the corner and continued on, Vic faced forward, his gaze focusing on evidence of the magnitude of the encroaching disaster. The street headed downhill and Vic watched in awe as the boat smoothly glided past a street sign, rising just four feet above the water line.
Somehow he knew the ‘adventure’ on which he was about to embark would be hugely instrumental in changing the course of his life. The only thing was…would it be change for the good…or for the bad?
*
As the day progressed, WHAS interspersed bits of music between ‘flood’ reports of street closings and gauge levels, as the unstoppable river continued to rise.
Nervous schoolteachers, tense bus and trolley drivers, worried business owners, and the general public, wondered deep down if this time around…this flood, would be different. An ominous portent of gloom seemed to be hanging above the city, hiding within the ever present, thick, dark rain clouds.
Although they had heard of flooding in other river towns up and down the Ohio, the thoughts on everyone’s minds were, “It can’t happen here. Not that bad.” Nevertheless, many people, the Hoskins family included, heeded the Health Department’s suggestion to fill their bathtub with fresh water…just in case the pumps at the pumping station shut down.
By noon, Mayor Neville Miller issued the order that all schools be closed early, much to the delight of the youngsters, including Billy Hoskins. A typical kid, any time he could get out of doing a little schoolwork, he jumped at the chance.
Donning their rain gear and traversing the route from three different schools, the Hoskins siblings met at the corner of Second and Chestnut. They couldn’t believe the depth of the water – it was now up over the curbs and sidewalks.
“Oh my gosh! Look at the water!” Louise gasped as she looked up at Sonny through the drizzling rain, shifting her umbrella to try and also cover their little brother.
Sonny placed his hands on his hips, looking first at the water, then around toward downtown, clearly pondering a decision. Finally, he murmured something unintelligible and set off in the direction opposite from home.
“Where you goin’?” Louise hollered after him.
“Tell ‘em I’ll be home later,” he tossed over his shoulder as he took off in a trot toward downtown, his footfalls splashing with each step.
“But…Sonny!” Louise squealed, taking a step toward him, one hand outstretched.
“Just do it!” he hollered as he disappeared around a corner.
Billy glanced up eagerly at his sister, already beginning to move out from the protection of the umbrella as he offered, “I’ll go see where he’s goin’!”
“Oh no, you won’t,” she returned with a stern glare as she reached out to clamp a hand on his arm and keep him still.
Not wishing to get any wetter, Louise shook her head in exasperation and tugged at Billy’s wet jacket.
“Come on, we better get home.”
Splashing through the water on the sidewalk, the two made it to the four steps on the slight hill in front of their building. They hurried up the front walk and then up four more steps to the entry door. Louise glanced at the houses across the street, aghast that the water was now up to the second steps of the stoops, as the land was much flatter there. A shiver ran through her as she quickly opened the door and practically pushed her brother inside.
Reaching their open apartment door, they each hesitated as they saw their parents and sister moving furniture and raising items off the floor.
“Where’s your brother?” Lilly barked as they came on inside, not surprised to see them so early due to having heard on the radio that all the schools were closing at noon.
“He said he’d be home later.”
“Oh that boy! Where did he go?” she asked in frustration.
Louise gazed at her mother, who normally made sure every hair was neatly in place, her clothing well groomed, and wearing a modest array of jewelry. Louise almost hadn’t recognized the woman standing before her, as her hair and clothes were disheveled, and no jewelry could be seen, save her wedding band. Although her mother was customarily high strung and did not handle stress well, she had never seen her quite so bad.
Louise and Billy both shrugged. “I dunno, Mama.” “He wouldn’t say.”
“He’ll be home soon,” Willis assured his wife, handing Louise and Billy large cloth sacks with orders to help pack.
“What’s goin’ on?” Billy asked as the magnitude of the situation began to sink in. This ‘flood’ business of exploding manhole covers and school closings was suddenly not so much fun anymore.
“We’re getting ready…just in case the worst happens and the water gets this high,” Willis patiently explained as he looked around, trying to decide how to protect his large easy chair from the creeping menace.
“But…where would we go if the water comes in?” Louise asked, her fear and uncertainty ramping up a few notches.
“Upstairs with the Anderson’s. They said we could stay in their apartment until things get back to normal.”
“But I don’t wanna stay up there…” Billy began to whine, but his mother cut him off.
“Willis Junior, you just do what you’re told!” she hollered with more aggression than needed, her arms full of sheets and towels.
In the act of helping her sister place chairs up on the dining table, Louise looked nervously over at their father as he paused to take his harried wife in his arms.
Unnerved, the others went about their tasks. The soft strumming of a guitar on the radio, and Bing Crosby’s smooth crooning baritone warbling, “South Sea Island Magic,” went along quite well with the sound of the rain outside. But for once, the amusing choice the deejay, Foster Brooks, had made had no calming effect on the frantic atmosphere inside.
Moments later, the WHAS news announcer broke into the song to make a report concerning yet another street closing, and mandatory evacuation for the residents and businesses there.
Stopping in her tracks, Louise fixed her eyes on her father. Softly she asked, voicing the question that had been on each of their minds since the eerie sight of the sewer geysers that morning, “Daddy…will we have to evacuate?”
Her father cast her a look and shook his head. Then, he glanced at the others in the room who had stopped their activities to stare at him and await his words of wisdom.
“I don’t think so, honey. I’m sure the water won’t get this high.”
Although Willis had made his statement as though it were fact, in truth, he was plenty worried. In all his sixty-four years, he had never seen a weather system like the one they had experienced since the first of the year. Willis was afraid he would be proven wrong in the eyes of his children and wife – the people who looked to him to be the soul of knowledge.
He would have been even more afraid had he known just how wrong his statement would prove to be.
‡
CHAPTER 6
B-13 and The Rescue
“There. Hopefully that’ll slow it down,” Willis murmured as he climbed to his feet from stuffing rags under the back door of the apartment house’s common hallway. At the rate the water level was raising, he knew it wouldn’t be long before it found its way under either the front door or the back.
The others stretched around one another to gaze out the door’s window at the turbid water, now lapping up against the stoop. It was an eerie sight, as the unstoppable progression now covered the ground as far as they could see. Houses seemed to be floating, vaguely resembling pictures they had seen of the city of Venice, Italy – only much less grand. It was as if they were looking out the door of a houseboat.
Edna opened her mouth to make a wry comment, but at that moment loud, forlorn weeping was heard from a neighboring building. With the doors and windows shut, it was hard to make out the direction, which only added to the feeling of hopelessness.
Billy suddenly shouted from his ‘post’ at the front window in the foyer, “There’s a boat goin’ down the street!”
The residents of apartments one and three came out of their doors, arms full of personal items they had been moving up off of the floors, as everyone hurried to view the sight. A boat? Going down their street? Unreal…it all felt so surreal, this couldn’t be happening!
At that moment, the music on the radio in apartment number three was once again interrupted. This time the announcer’s voice was fraught with tension as he urgently began, “This is WHAS, owned and operated by the Louisville Courier Journal and the Louisville Times. The time is exactly 3:15 pm. We have been asked to broadcast the following announcement: Warning to all river lowland dwellers. Already above flood stage, the river is expected to go at least two feet higher by morning. If your home is anywhere near the rising water, make plans to leave it at once!”
“Two feet higher! Oh Will! Our Sonny! He’s out there somewhere!” Lilly exclaimed, bursting into tears.
Willis took her in his arms, doing his best to soothe her. “Sshhh, honey. He’ll be all right. He’s a smart young man. He knows how to take care of himself.” He hugged her tightly. “Don’t you worry, now Lilly. Hush now…” he added, one large hand cradling his wife’s head to his breast, his fingers gently patting and smoothing her hair across her forehead.
Sniffling against her husband’s chest, Lilly removed a hanky from the pocket of her apron and dabbed at her nose as she murmured, “I know…I just can’t stand it if I don’t know where one of the children are…”
Edna, in a rare moment of family camaraderie, offered, “Aw, don’t worry Mama. I bet Sonny’s down at the Courier building right now, trying to sell the morning paper with front-page pictures about the flood. Once he gets done, I bet he’ll hitch a ride on a boat if he has to, and come on home, his pockets full of money…”
“Yeah,” Louise agreed, reassuringly taking her mother’s hand in hers as Lilly used her other to wipe her eyes. “You know how he is…he don’t wanna miss a good opportunity to make a sale. Right Daddy?” she added with a trembling smile.
“Right as rain, Sweet Pea. That Sonny Boy, he’ll be walking in that door real soon, with his pockets jinglin’ and whistlin’, ‘We’re in the Money’, just like he always does,” Willis agreed, sending his daughters a wink at his pun and a grateful smile as he felt his wife relax a bit.
He just hoped they were right…but he had a feeling, somewhere deep down, that much time would pass before they would see their ‘Sonny Boy’ again.
*
The hours stretched on as Vic, and several other volunteers, labored to save stranded citizens from their quickly flooding homes. They had also been instrumental in rescuing people in downtown Louisville; employees had gone to work that morning without a clue regarding the imminent danger, only to emerge from their jobs to find the streets shin deep in water. ‘Rush hour’ was a crazy experience of people yelling, crying, and wailing – or laughing and joking – as they tried to make their way home. Buses, of course, were unable to make their runs. Cars flooded out. Only high axle trucks could make it through.
Vic had joined a group of men in a larger boat with a motor, and had participated in one rescue after another. The policemen that had recruited him had been right; by late afternoon there were so many people stranded and yelling for help, it was impossible for the boats to keep up. City police, fire, and rescue crews were soon stretched to their absolute limits. Word had passed down that the mayor had been busy calling all around for help, and the Coast Guard was on its way.
Slumping down on the seat in the boat after helping a somewhat heavyset woman on board, Vic shook his head in wonder. How quickly everything had changed since that morning with the gushing sewers!
The young man looked over to another boat motoring past them, a large Red Cross logo hastily painted on its side. With a tired smile, Vic acknowledged that the mayor had done his work well, having coordinated with the efficient relief agency regarding detailed plans. If a rescued citizen had nowhere else to go, boatmen had been instructed to transport them to the old Armory at Sixth and Walnut. Utilizing the radio tuned to WHAS, they responded to call after call of, “Send a Boat…”
Many temporary rescue stations had been hastily placed to dispatch or receive boats near the water’s ever-expanding edge, each one given alphabetical and numerical designations. Vic had been assigned to the B-13 station, located at the O.K. Storage Warehouse at Broadway and Barrett, which afforded an immediate uphill route to safety.
As his boat motored up to the building, Vic gazed at its seven-story limestone and brick façade. Wrought iron bars covered the lower windows and decorative moldings graced the doorway. Lights from inside beckoned warmth and relaxation to the rescuers, but what caught his eye at that moment were the large block letters spanning thirty feet across and four feet high. The crisp light from their bright red bulbs beamed in the gloom, ‘O K STORAGE’. Somehow it seemed so strong and permanent in the midst of what had become an unstable, quickly changing world.
Once at the base camp, as he assisted yet another family of refugees from the boat, the wife gave Vic a quick hug. She thanked him for his instant reflexes and fast thinking in saving her rambunctious four-year-old from tumbling into the dirty, chilly water. Pleased and humbled, he nodded his thanks and shuffled his way into the building with his fellow rescuers as the woman’s gracious words warmed his heart. It felt mighty good to be appreciated… Indeed, for Vic, it almost made up for the fact that at the moment he couldn’t even feel his cold, waterlogged feet. He hoped for a brief respite and perhaps a few minutes to thaw out.
Glancing around at the seemingly impenetrable eighteen-inch thick walls of the large warehouse’s main floor, he took comfort from their solid strength. Twenty feet up, sixteen by twelve inch raw wooden beams supported the second floor. The brick walls were strewn with dusty wires running to the lights, with bare bulbs hanging from the upper beams. Vic took in a deep breath, thankful that the delicious aroma of fresh brewed coffee overpowered the damp musty air inside the structure.
“Oh good,” greeted the station’s commander, Harold C. “Doc” Latham. He was a large, charismatic, hip-booted, raincoat wearing man, with a shock of red hair and a booming voice. “Bob – headquarters just radioed that they need your boat to transfer some supplies from City Hall to the relief center,” he informed the captain of Vic’s crew, Bob Gibson. “Said they need you A.S.A.P.”
“Ahh dang it. No rest for the weary,” Bob grumbled, albeit good-naturedly. He grabbed a sandwich off a tray and made an about-face, signaling to one of the men to accompany him. The two returned to the large craft Bob had left tied to the corner of the building and started up the motor again, quickly reversing and speeding off on their mission.
Vic and the remaining man from his crew – a tall and lanky, affable fellow by the name of Gerald – sat down on some chairs and began gulping down sandwiches and hot coffee provided by volunteers from a nearby church. One such volunteer – a sweet looking little lady wearing a kitchen apron over a dark blue sweater and skirt, her gray hair in a neat bun – introduced herself as Irene Waller. She hovered close, fussing over the two young men as if they were her children. Vic gave her a weary smile, his heart drawn by the gentle matronly attention.
Vic stared tiredly at the worn wooden floor beneath his feet, absently noting the scars and marks from many a wheeled cart hauling miscellaneous freight around inside. As he chewed on a sandwich, his gaze slowly lifted and he scanned the interior, including the small office area against the left side. Its walls only rose about eight feet into the expanse. He smirked as he took another bite, remembering when he had sat inside the small cubicle and filled out an employment application. Man, that seems like another lifetime…but what was it…a month ago?
After just a few minutes, the radio across the large room crackled with another distress call for a boat. With no other team available, Doc Lat
ham cast an apologetic look their way.
“Better take this, night’s approaching fast,” Doc offered as he handed Vic an oil lantern.
Cramming the last of their sandwiches in their mouths and gulping down the rest of their coffee, Vic and Gerald grabbed some supplies from piles by the door.
Once outside, Vic fastened the lantern to a pole sticking out six feet from the bow of a small craft sporting an aged outboard motor. At least we won’t have to paddle, he observed with a grateful sigh.
As they jumped into the vessel and headed out again into the still drizzling rain, the evening sky was just beginning to dim.
*
“Well, there’s no stopping it now,” Willis murmured as he stood from trying to stop the flow of water determinedly finding its way in under the back door of the apartment house. Mrs. Higgins stalked away down the hall to her door. Cursing under her breath about the coming damage to her property, the inconvenience of it all, and the situation in general – her tirade muffled slightly as she crossed her own threshold. The only one in the building with enough money to afford a telephone, Mrs. Higgins picked up the receiver and grudgingly asked the operator to connect her to WHAS, joining the throng of other citizens with the plea of, “Please, send a boat to…”
Though the residents of the two large apartments on the top floors of the structure were determined to tough it out, the first floor occupants had held out as long as they could. Two had already vacated the marooned building and headed uptown to stay with friends. The Andersons had been inundated with family and had callously rescinded their offer of hospitality to the Hoskins, which left Mrs. Higgins and the Hoskins family to fend for themselves.
“Come on then, let’s grab what we can and go…” Willis began as he headed into the apartment.
“But how? Where?” Lilly fussed, her hands shaking as she slipped into her green woolen coat. “And what about Sonny! He’ll come home and find us gone!”