In the next few minutes, they could see on the screen the enormous waves that engulfed the southern tip of Manhattan, Battery Park, the Lower East Side, the Village, Tribeca, the West Side Highway, and Staten Island. It looked like a tidal wave hitting New York. Many of them had seen it five years before, and now here it was again. Charles and Gina stood in shocked silence as they watched with hundreds of other adults in the shelter, while their children went back to their games, oblivious to what was happening on the screen. Watching it made Charles grateful that they were at the shelter, instead of Gina being in their apartment on the Lower East Side, right next to the East River. They could see familiar buildings being battered, and one woman burst into tears watching her ground-floor apartment on the West Side Highway disappear under water, as the river overflowed and swept an entire street of cars away like so many toys, while other vehicles simply disappeared.
“Oh my God,” Charles said in a muffled voice, as he instinctively put an arm around Gina’s shoulders and pulled her close to him and held her. It was infinitely worse than anyone had expected, and there was no doubt that lives would inevitably be lost as the flood tides rose and swept across the Zone 1 areas that had suffered similar damage before. It was a nightmarish déjà vu for them all. And all Gina could hope, as she watched it with her ex-husband’s arm around her shoulders, was that Nigel would survive the waves washing over Red Hook in Brooklyn, and that he had already left his studio. The waves were said to be twelve feet high in some areas, fifteen in others, and the Hudson River had washed over its Manhattan banks again.
—
The doorman and superintendent came to check on Grace and Ellen again just before the storm was supposed to hit. They were waiting peacefully in the apartment, sitting on the plastic-wrapped couches, with battery-operated lamps around them, and Blanche on Grace’s lap. The wind was howling, and one of the trees outside the building had fallen over earlier, but the floods hadn’t started. Grace and Ellen heard it distinctly when they did. It was like a roaring and rushing sound, with crashing as equipment fell or was swept along. They looked out the window and saw the entire street of cars disappear beneath the water, and within instants, there was the sound of the doors breaking in the lobby, and they were suddenly standing in several inches of water, which rose to their knees almost immediately, as they escaped up the stairs, while Grace clutched the dog. The water stopped halfway up the stairs for a few minutes, almost as though it were resting, and then continued to climb. All the furniture in the living room was underwater by then, and the flood in her living room was steadily rising. And as Ellen and her mother watched in horror, there was a frantic pounding on the door, and the superintendent of the building and two policemen forced their way in, and pushed open the door. They saw the two women on the stairs, and the men from the rescue unit told them there was a boat outside to get them out, as they waded toward the stairs to reach them.
“You need to come with us,” the rescue team told them, and Ellen looked at her mother fiercely.
“We’re going with them, Mom.” Grace nodded and ran up the stairs. She reappeared with their two small go bags, much to Ellen’s astonishment, and she had put on a baby harness and slipped Blanche into it so the dog was secure and she had free hands. The water was to the men’s waists, and almost to her chest when she and Ellen came down the stairs. The superintendent grabbed their bags from them and held them high to keep them dry. And the policemen in diving suits half-carried the two women out of the apartment and across the lobby, which had filled with water. The water had reached the dog’s collar by then, as Grace pushed the baby harness higher to keep Blanche’s head out of the water. They moved through it in total darkness, and as they went through the front door, they saw the boat with the searchlights outside, and the two policemen lifted both women up and heaved them into it. More strong hands grabbed them, and set them down in the boat. Grace and Ellen were soaking wet and barefoot from wading through the water, and Blanche looked like a drowned rat in her harness, but all three of them were alive, and hadn’t stumbled or slipped beneath the water as capable hands had guided them through the darkness and water in the lobby out to the waiting boat, which was buffeted by the winds and currents like a toy. There were three other people in it who had been rescued, and the policeman operating it turned up the powerful engine and drove the boat several blocks away to higher land, where they were assisted out, wrapped in blankets, and put in an ambulance to dry off and catch their breath. Someone handed Ellen and her mother towels and dry clothes and rubber flip-flops, which they put on, still shocked by what they’d been through, and then Grace dried Blanche off with one of the towels. The poor dog was shaking. They were led out of the ambulance into a van then, as another boatload of rescued flood victims arrived, and those in Grace and Ellen’s group were driven to a shelter close by. They still had their go bags with them, although Ellen was sure that everything in them was soaking wet, and they walked into the shelter looking dazed. Grace murmured something to Ellen about how guilty she felt for not evacuating sooner and taking up the rescuers’ time when they surely had more important things to do, but she was grateful they had come when they did.
So much had happened in such a short time that it was hard to absorb or understand. Ellen was holding her mother’s arm and guiding her through the crowd at the shelter when she heard someone call her name. She turned in surprise and saw Charles Williams from the plane with a woman and two little girls. But he no longer looked terrified as he had that night—he looked strong, calm, and protective as he reached out to Ellen and gave her a hug. He felt he owed her at least that for nearly breaking her arm when he thought they were going to crash on the plane.
“Are you all right?” he asked, worried about her. The two women looked profoundly shocked.
“I think so…we were just rescued from my mother’s apartment, in about four feet of water. They got us out in a boat, just in time.” They wouldn’t have drowned on the upper floor, but they could have on the lower if they had stumbled for an instant, or if they had tried to get out of the building. Even Grace was stunned into silence as Ellen introduced her to Charles, and explained how she knew him.
“And this is Gina, my…ex-wife,” he hesitated only for a beat before he said it, “and my daughters Lydia and Chloe.” The two little girls stared at them with wide eyes, and they were excited to see Blanche, who was still in the harness on Grace’s chest that had saved her life while they exited the building. It had seemed like a ridiculous thing to buy for no reason ages ago, but now Grace was grateful she had. Grace took her out of the harness then and cradled her in her arms. Ellen went to get some hot soup and tea for her mother, and left her with Charles and Gina, who led her to the area where the girls’ cots were so she could sit down. It had been quite a night so far, and the images on the enormous screen showing scenes of the hurricane were terrifying. Ophelia had turned out to be as bad as Sandy, and was hitting the city and surrounding areas just as hard. And the damage to Grace’s apartment that night had been considerably worse than what she’d experienced five years before. Grace looked dazed when she sat down and felt suddenly ancient.
When Ellen returned with the soup and tea for her mother, Grace took it from her gratefully without a word. All she could think of was that they were lucky to be alive, which was what others were thinking as they watched the hurricane’s disastrous path.
Ellen insisted that her mother lie down on a cot that Charles was kind enough to get for her, and when Grace fell asleep with Blanche next to her and a blanket over both of them, Ellen went back to the cafeteria with Charles for a cup of tea herself. It had been an incredible, terrifying night.
“I never expected it to be like this,” Charles admitted to her.
“Neither did I, or at least I hoped not,” Ellen said sadly, thinking of the state her mother’s apartment had been in when they left. She was just thankful they had gotten out safely, made it to the rescue boat, and saved her mother’
s dog. Grace would have been traumatized beyond belief if the dog had drowned. And Ellen was suddenly doubly grateful for the harness.
“I wish I could get my girls out of here and take them home,” Charles said in an exhausted voice. “I’d love to take them to a hotel room in the meantime. They were talking about evacuating mine when I left. Gina hasn’t heard from her boyfriend yet, and I’m sure she won’t want to leave here till she does.” His eyes were tired and sad, as Ellen nodded. It was hard to believe what they’d been through, or imagine what still lay ahead.
“Hopefully, the worst will be over soon, and the water will recede again,” Ellen told him, still dazed herself. “That’s what happened last time. The water went back out as fast as it came in, except in the low-lying areas below sea level, where it stayed.” They were still talking about it when they went back to find the others, and Ellen was relieved to see her mother sound asleep on the cot with her dog beside her. They all knew it was a night none of them would forget, and it wasn’t over yet. The full force of Hurricane Ophelia, and the destruction she was wreaking, was just beginning.
Chapter 4
The ER got increasingly busy as the night wore on after the hurricane hit. People with minor injuries were brought into the ER, and some with very major ones, among them a man who had been hit by a tree branch that had fallen on him, and he had brain surgery that night but didn’t survive it. And the police began bringing people in from the rescue boats by eight o’clock. Some had been injured, and most of them were in shock. Two young children had drowned, swept away by the currents. Others had drowned in their cars, when the waters came up quickly.
Juliette, Will, and the other residents and doctors on duty did triage all night, and raced from one patient to the next. The entire hospital staff had been called in. It was nonstop as they treated triple their normal capacity of patients. They had them lined up on gurneys in the hall—they had run out of rooms and cubicles hours before. And Juliette had just referred a six-year-old to the orthopedic resident for a broken leg when the lights in the ER flickered and dimmed, and then went out, like so many candles that someone had just blown out, and they were instantly plunged into darkness.
Someone said “Shit!” in a loud voice standing close to Juliette when it happened, and she recognized it as Will’s but didn’t acknowledge she’d heard him. Nurses scurried everywhere, and maintenance men, to set up battery-operated lights, so they could at least see what was around them, but the lights weren’t strong enough to treat their most seriously ill and injured patients. It was exactly what had happened at NYU five years before. Then the maintenance men informed them that the backup generators had just died, although no one seemed to know why. It was a serious problem for them in the ER, but a disastrous one in surgery, ICU, and the neonatal ICU (NICU), and for patients relying on respirators or other forms of life support.
As she hurried down the hall to find out what they were doing about it, Juliette could see Will Halter at the nurses’ desk, speaking to them tersely.
“Get the boys from the OES in here now! Paramedics, the fire department, anyone you can get here. I’m not going to lose patients tonight because the goddamn generator failed.” NYU hadn’t lost a single patient when it happened to them, and he didn’t intend to either. The nurses started dialing everyone they could on their cell phones, including 911, and reported what had happened, as Juliette looked at Will. They were both exhausted, but the real work was only just beginning, with what had happened when the hurricane reached its peak at high tide.
“What can I do to help?” Juliette said to Will in a voice that was calmer than she felt.
“You were right,” he said through clenched teeth. “They must not have checked the backup generators. I don’t know what the hell we can do now.” He looked livid, and scared.
“They managed it at NYU during Sandy—so can we,” she said quietly. “We need to send teams of people upstairs when the cops and fire department get here and start bringing people down.”
“Where are we going to send them?” He was fighting waves of panic and impressed by how steady she seemed.
“The other hospitals will take them—they have no choice. The cops will help us figure it out. We need to get everyone on respirators out first, and the babies in the NICU, and operate the respirators manually. They’re probably organizing teams upstairs already. Thank God we have no code blues in the ER right now.”
“Don’t say that out loud,” he said, worried, as paramedics, uniformed policemen, and firemen started to arrive. The head of the hospital was on site that night and came to talk to them immediately, and a plan was made to get their sickest patients out of the building as soon as possible. With limited power from a few small generators, the decision was made to let the least sick patients stay, so as not to create mass panic trying to get everyone out. All off-duty staff had already been recalled, so they had enough personnel to manage the evacuation.
Juliette didn’t see Will again for several hours, and she was talking to one of the nurses about how to handle the patients lining the halls on gurneys when a man in overalls and a fireman’s slicker walked in. He had an air of total authority, and moved with lightning speed from one problem to the next. He was in charge of the entire operation of moving their patients to other hospitals that night, and he identified himself to Juliette and the other staff.
“Sean Kelly, OES.” He was from the Office of Emergency Services and had an official badge around his neck, and he exuded both tension and calm at the same time. Tension to attend to the task at hand with the utmost precision, speed, and efficiency, and the kind of calm that inspired everyone to do their jobs and give a thousand percent of themselves. He asked Juliette how many patients they needed to move out of the ER. They had just over two hundred people being treated in the unit that night, and she estimated that forty-one needed to be moved to other fully functional hospitals immediately. They would keep the rest. All the ICU had to go, the NICU, and the entire surgical floor.
The OES and NYPD had commandeered all the ambulances they could, and staff from the upper floors were already carrying patients down the stairs, with respirators and without. And she watched Sean Kelly mastermind the entire operation, with all the help he could get from the hospital staff. He ran it like a Swiss clock, and by two A.M. everyone who needed to be was out, and the OES staff on site in other locations radioed back that all patients had made the transfer safely, even their preemies. A cheer went up from the ER staff and on other floors when they heard the news. Will Halter was beaming and high-fived Juliette, then lowered his voice to speak to her.
“Thank you for not saying you told me so,” he said sincerely, and actually sounded human. He had been humbled that night.
“Who cares?” She smiled at him. “I’m just happy we got them out safely.” It had been the most impressive transfer they had seen, in crisis circumstances, in the dark, with their sickest patients at life-threatening risk. And it had all gone smoothly. It was a modern-day miracle, and Sean Kelly was behind it.
“What are you in real life? A magician?” Juliette said to him when she ran into him in the doctors’ lounge, when they were both getting a cup of lukewarm coffee half an hour later.
“Thank you, doctor.” He smiled at her. He looked energized, not exhausted like everyone else. He was running on adrenaline and brilliant at what he did. “No, I’m just a crisis junkie. I flunked medical school and should have majored in transportation.” She laughed at what he said.
“I was at NYU when it happened there during Sandy. I thought that was amazing. You outdid yourself tonight.”
“So did all of you,” he complimented her and meant it, and took a sip of the coffee. “It’s going to be a long few days for everyone here,” he said sympathetically, and she nodded, wondering when she might get some sleep again. Clearly not anytime soon. And something he had said to her had caught her attention.
“Maybe we’re all crisis junkies in this business,” s
he said honestly.
“The key word is ‘emergency.’ In my case emergency ‘services,’ in yours emergency ‘room.’ You could have specialized in dermatology or plastic surgery. You didn’t. So here we are, running around like lunatics turning disaster into victory. It’s a high like no other.” He smiled at her again. He was a good-looking man, with powerful shoulders and electric blue eyes that saw everything, and he had a very humane quality to him. He was practical and down to earth, and all he cared about was the lives they saved.
“I guess you’re right,” she said, looking pensive. “I never thought about it that way. Actually, one of my brothers is a plastic surgeon, the other one is an ENT, he treats runny noses, and my father is an obstetrician. That’s kind of a high too.”
“Not like ER though,” Sean Kelly reminded her, and she nodded. “See ya,” he said, waved at her, and went back to work, checking each floor before he left. He wanted to make sure himself that they hadn’t left anyone behind who needed to be moved.
Sean Kelly had nailed her as a crisis junkie, and she couldn’t say he was wrong, when she thought about it. Not in her personal life, which had been comatose since she entered medical school; but working in the ER, she got her highs. It was a thrill to come to work, and she liked the tension and fast pace. He was right, she admitted to herself, as she threw her empty Styrofoam coffee cup away to go back to work. And he claimed it was true about himself too. It took a special breed to do what they did.
She went back to the nurses’ desk then, and they assigned her to a supply closet with a cot in it for two hours, so she could get some sleep. With the hurricane having hit its peak that night, they had a long day ahead of them tomorrow, and probably a long many weeks, and it would be months before the city returned to normal again. One thing was sure—countless lives had been changed irreversibly when Hurricane Ophelia hit New York that night. New Yorkers and the world would remember it forever. And heroes would emerge from it, like Sean Kelly and the rescue teams of the OES.
Rushing Waters Page 7