As their titular leader, Larry’s strength in organizing was encouraging. “Okay. So let’s all get Lem’s telephone number and email address on a card in our pockets. And I think we need to think about at least temporarily setting up a communications center in the meeting room over the firehouse. They have the phone contacts. And after the meeting, Lem, you could take your computer there. There’d be more room and we could get others to spell you on it. But I’m gonna ask you to be the head honcho for the online communications. Can’t believe the Town Hall is not yet online. Although the library is. We need to keep that in mind.”
Lem was up for it. “If push came to shove, I could even sleep at the firehouse. It’s already setup with beds and we’re going to need twenty-four hour coverage. Thaw, you could help with that. You know my system. And you know how to work the short wave.”
Thaw was also ready. “Sure. Glad too. But let’s not move there right away. Let’s see what the next few days bring.”
Larry summarized. “So I’ll put Lem down as coordinator for the Communications Center and explain it as a two-step plan in case the situation becomes complex.”
Larry’s easy grasp of the direction of the conversation confirmed that like Lem and Thaw, he, too, has some solid Emergency Response Training. Thaw wondered if all geologists were so trained, but he suspected it was more likely that just as he and Lem had done, Larry had also picked up his ERT in military.
Larry looked at his watch. “It’s almost 5:30. We have to stop. Lem, you write to FEMA and SEMA. And try the Red Cross in Bain, too. Then pull off the web anything you think is relevant from them and bring them to the meeting. I’ll have the secretary make copies of everything you bring and we’ll distribute a set to each member of the Council.”
Depositing their cups in the sink as they went, all but Lem parted quickly and silently, each on a mission: Martha to the drugstore and then the train, Thaw to the hardware store, and Larry to prep further for the meeting. Tufty rose to leave with Thaw but Lem grabbed her by the collar with a “Stay girl.” Closing the door, Lem settled himself once more before the computer. Tufty settled herself on the floor, her nose across one of Lem’s shoes.
5. Minor Adjustments
It was but minutes after the meeting that Lem’s sister, May, and her two daughters, Dahlia and Caroline, arrived. They showered to decon…just in case…and Lem brought them some of his clothes. The children settled for some of his T-shirts and his sister belted herself into a pair of his pants and a T-shirt over which she donned a plaid shirt, selected to cover her nakedness beneath the T. Lem then handed May two fifties he had stashed and suggested she also pick up some clothes for Natalie and Natalie’s sister and daughter. That agreed, May headed out to the store for flip-flops and sweat suits and bathing suits for herself and the other women and children. Lem’s money would help, especially if it turned out the computers were unable to process charge cards. Lem then placed his sister’s and nieces’ discarded clothes and shoes in a large green leaf bag which he took out and put in an empty garbage can. First slapping the lid on tightly, he moved it far back into the shed beside the house. Coming out he latched the door behind him and slipped a keyed lock onto it, which he also snapped firmly shut. No way did he want stray animals or curious children emptying out the barrel’s contents. Hard to tell without a dosimeter just how radioactive those clothes and shoes were…if they were at all.
Natalie, her sister, Judith, and her niece, Hannah, arrived next. They pulled up to Thaw’s cabin around six-forty, looking harried and distraught. Natalie had already prepped them about deconning so there was little time to talk before Thaw, with help from Natalie, shepherded the mother and daughter into the house. There Thaw left the three females to their ablutions and went to work sweeping out anything from the car that looked like fallout. He then washed it well, inside and out, just in case there remained particles of the radioactive ash too small to be seen. Meantime the three refugees left their cast-offs, including their shoes, in the green leaf bag Thaw had put by the door for them. Then they showered and dressed in the makeshift wardrobe they found had been put out for them. Each dressed in flip-flops or heavy socks and either a sweat suit or belted jeans and oversized shirt selected from the things Thaw had made available. When they again emerged, wet-headed and shining in cleanliness, the leaf bag was no where to be seen.
“Much better,” they all agreed.
At the sound of the car, Tufty had wandered up from Lem’s and now Hannah grabbed a Frisbee she had found near the door, waved it under Tufty’s nose, and winged it across the open area. Tufty caught it in midair.
“You’d better fix yourselves something to eat,” Thaw suggested. “I’ll be in in a minute to catch you up on our plans for the evening.”
By the time Thaw, followed by Hannah and Tufty, joined the sisters, they had arranged makeshift seating around the table and set it with sandwich makings. At the whistle of the tea kettle Hannah took it upon herself to put some cups around.
“Everybody serve yourself,” announced Natalie. Hannah was the first to sit. Tufty hung beside her expectantly. Thaw asked about the trip, but Natalie assured him she would fill him in later. “The main thing is that we are all here. Thank god.” She clasped his hand across the table. “Now tell us about tonight.”
They listened in rapt attention as Thaw filled them in on the plans for the meeting. “But we need to see Lem and figure out sleeping arrangements. His place is bigger than mine and he has some ideas as to how we will all be most comfortably accommodated.”
It was decided that of the women, only Natalie would attend the meeting at the school gymnasium that night. And at seven-thirty, as Thaw had left to run errands, following Thaw’s instructions, the females wandered down to Lem’s to discuss a sleeping plan. Lem said he would have to leave soon, but he could sleep on the futon in the living room, although it was most likely he would stay at the firehouse for the first week or so. At this announcement, the women all cried out at the thought that it would be putting their comfort above his. However, when Lem suggested they prepare and bring meals to him at the firehouse, they quieted. But not before they extracted a promise from him that he would take meals with them here whenever possible.
That compromise accepted and Lem’s room now free, they decided that Lem’s sister and two daughters should take his bedroom. Natalie’s sister would share the other one with her daughter, making twenty-four-hour childcare easier on both women. This would leave the one room cabin to Natalie and Thaw. The plan seemed to satisfy everyone. But none were more pleased than the children who were simply delighted at the thought of having such a large, constant group of peers.
Before leaving, Lem encouraged his sister to wait until after the children had gone to bed to listen to radio and television news as minute-by-minute coverage would probably be more upsetting than useful. So the mothers turned the television to face the cooking area, and for now it stood silent and black. With Lem and Natalie gone, the household settled in, the three girls with pencils and paper at the table and May and Judith jointly peeking through kitchen cabinets and planning the next day’s meals.
Martha arrived at the Ellensville train station just after the 6:10 left. She found a handful of migrants: a woman in her seventies with a cat in a carrier, a young man with his pregnant girlfriend, and a Mexican woman, Maria, with her two teenage daughters, Juanita and Rozlyn. Not knowing what else to do, Martha gathered the six newcomers into her car. Martha asked the young man to sit in the middle with the cat carrier but his girlfriend said it was better she take it as he was allergic to cats. So Maria took the older woman on her lap behind Martha; Manfred, the young man rode in the middle, knees to his chin; and the sisters sat younger on older in the back seat behind Manfred’s girlfriend, Elaine. Martha transported them to her house with instructions to take off all their clothes including their shoes and to leave them in the plastic bag she had placed on the back porch and to shower. Scouring the house once they arrived,
she gathered some makeshift clothing for each of the lot of them including some sweat pants for the young man, Manfred.
Luckily it was summer and they would be all right shoeless until she could pick them up some flip-flops. She settled the woman and her daughters upstairs in the guest room, which had a double bed and bunk beds; the young couple she gave the family room couch that opened out; and to Granny, as the older woman was happy to be called, she gave the living room couch. She showed them where the linens were kept and which were the closets with food in them, fixed herself a sandwich, which she threw into a plastic baggy to eat on the road, excused herself, and left for the evening meeting. The six were to sleep at her house for the night and on the morrow she would seek out long-term emergency housing for them.
For now, however, they were safe.
Lem, Natalie and Thaw returned from the Council meeting sometime well after midnight. They found May half asleep in front of the TV. According to her, satellite photos showed the area around Magdum Heights to be completely devastated within a radius of four to ten miles after which fires raged to a distance of about sixteen miles. Death rates in those areas were assumed to be absolute, leaving no survivors. Because no living person could report on the cause of the explosion—or explosions—and fires, terrorism had not been ruled out. Still, as no terrorist group had claimed responsibility for the event…assuming it was a single event…a spontaneous meltdown also had not been ruled out. But then neither had arson and Dirty Bombs been ruled out. Nor had internal sabotage. Ruin, burns, injuries and devastation were in clear evidence in a radius of thirty-five or forty miles and all the local hospitals were completely filled.
Fatigue and moroseness permeated the group as they gathered in silence around the TV. Emergency decon areas were being set up at a safe distance from the devastated area and FEMA had communicated to the four affected states’ emergency management agencies that the situation was beyond their capacity for adequate, immediate response, but that all that could be done was being done. A major problem with the coordination of planning was due to the breakdown in general communication systems, including telephone, telegraph, shortwave and computer in the areas directly affected, up to a distance of about thirty-five miles from the site of the explosion and in some areas to the south, even further away. Persons traveling in cars evacuating the area were advised to travel in any direction other than east as the prevailing wind was from the west. But currents directly related to the local land contours had also caused the largest plume to follow the James River northward for a distance of about forty miles. All vehicles leaving the area were required to carry no fewer than four passengers and to keep windows closed and air conditioners off. Martial law had been declared and cars with fewer than four passengers up to a distance of forty miles from the site of the event were being stopped and drivers wishing to leave the forty-mile radius had to accept assigned stranded walkers into their vehicles to ensure that each vehicle left the area with no fewer than four passengers. All travelers were ordered to strip and decon immediately upon descending once they had reached a distance of at least forty miles from the site of the meltdown. Each town was arranging for the collection of discarded clothes on which dosimeters had confirmed ionizing radiation was in evidence. Where no dosimeters were available, the towns were to assume there was radioactive material on the clothing and the clothing was to be discarded and maintained in a safe containing area.
May rose to prepare the group a late night snack. While the news was incredible in its impact on the worn assembly, it at least assured them that their intuition had steered them well. Still the situation was even worse than they had suspected. And both Thaw and Lem separately concluded there had been more than a meltdown, that the event had been well-coordinated and that arson and Dirty Bombs had been part of it.
In order to get the complete story, the group snacked somewhat in turns, filling each other in on what they had missed, confirming as they did so that their plans paralleled the downstate ones: Conservative suggestions included that those within a thirty-mile radius of the events who had relatives further away with whom they could stay were being advised to go to them for safe harbor. And as telephone and communication systems were so highly disrupted, people aware of relatives who lived within the contaminated or burning areas were encouraged to be prepared for their arrival. And as hospitals were overwhelmed, expectant relatives were told they should be prepared to offer showers, fresh clothes, first aid, and shelter, in that order and not to be afraid of contamination as any fall out brought by the visitors would be too small in power to endanger their hosts, especially if the guests immediately deconned and placed their clothes outside the house. And, according to the reportage, after seventy-four hours any significant radioactivity should have dissipated.
The three states directly affected by the disaster had now all been placed under Federal Marshall Law, although the means to enforce the law would be slow in arriving due to the enormity of the problem which impacted travel on roads and trains and into and out of area airports. Residents were therefore being asked to cooperate with travel suggestions and schools, hotels, motels, public buildings and places of worship in surrounding areas up to a distance of seventy-five miles were ordered closed to normal business and to be opened to shelter all the refugees reasonably possible as they arrived. When each shelter filled, later emigrants would be asked to move on to the next available one. As no one knew how many forced immigrants there would be, no prediction could be made as to how far the refugee spillage would expand outward from the disaster-torn areas. As such, all communities in all three states directly affected were asked to be prepared to make ready accommodations as possible.
Until the situation could be more completely appraised, each community was asked to establish a communications center in one of the public buildings, preferably the firehouse if there was one, as fire personnel often were trained in intercity and state communication systems.
Police were to be assigned to manage traffic flow primarily and to handle emergencies where they occurred. As much as possible throughout the affected states, an emergency fire lane was to be kept open so as to ensure roads did not become closed to traffic flow generally and emergency vehicles would have free and unhampered movement. Due to the heavy contamination in areas near the site of the explosion, only those trains which had not passed through the area of contamination would be in use. People wishing to use trains were to get lifts to either Waxton in the north or Wallaby in the west or Harbor Hill in the south and travel outward, away from ground zero to friends, relatives or emergency shelters.
Buses still in operation were to have their routes reassigned to transport people to the train stations at Waxton, Wallaby and Harbor Hill. Trains were to use all working diesel engines and distribute passenger cars among them in order to permit frequent departures as new groups of refugees were dropped at the stations. South of Bain, trains were each to depart from the stations listed whenever cars were full or there was a half hour lull with no new arrivers. Trains north of Bain were to maintain their previous lighter schedules in order to insure that the largest number of trains would be maintained in the most heavily populated areas. Communication centers from the surrounding areas were to notify officials at train stations when all emergency shelters were full, at which point the trains were no longer to drop passengers in those communities but were to move on to the next community even if it resulted in an increase in train travel north of Bain.
And so the residents of Lochlee engaged at every level in preparing for the coming emigration onslaught, kept informed as to what they might further do to prepare and respond, and waited for the worst, well aware that even their most desperate efforts could not possibly prepare them for all eventualities. But they remained open and receptive to offering help and ready to do whatever must be done to preserve the peace and provide for the hungry hordes likely to descend upon them.
6. Locklee. February 2020. Thaw and Natalie: The Way We Were
The clarity of Thaw and Natalie’s relationship since The Plant went down had been hard bought. Thaw remembered the first time that things had gone awry. He could recall well that bitter cold February day earlier this year when he had been forced to consider that things between him and Natalie were not what he had believed they were. Before that day he had coasted along in the relationship pretty much unaware of Natalie’s take on it.
Natalie was up for the weekend. Their plans for a light late afternoon meal were interrupted by a romp in the hay and then, dinner done, Natalie was cleaning up. Thaw was relaxing, sipping some coffee as he observed Natalie from where he still sat at the table. The even warmth of the stove belied the weather’s rawness while outside the wind whipped and the temperature plummeted.
“We’ve got chemistry, you and me. Chemistry,” reiterated Natalie, vigorously scrubbing the bottom of a burnt potato pan. They had put potatoes on to boil just minutes before it had occurred to them to climb the ladder to the loft. There in the light of the late afternoon they had taken turns with zippers and buttons and attended tenderly to their various findings.
“But Natalie. Six years. There has got to be more to it than that.”
“Yeah, what?”
Thaw was at a loss. “Well, don’t you like talkin’ to me?”
“Yeah.”
“And don’t you like walkin’ with me?”
“Yeah, so?”
“And pullin’ out fish with me?”
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