Once the schools were filled, the effort to provide emergency housing early on took two routes. One was to provide for sanitation needs for those living in vehicles. The second was to have each willing household take in as many people as it could readily sleep, in any mix that suited the homeowners. Some townspeople would share only with people of their same sex and age while others wanted people older than they or of a different sex or both. Children were either strongly wanted or strongly not wanted. Some wanted a small family. Some took no one. A system of informal interviewing was arranged in case obvious differences caused families to be incompatible, but in general each family took whoever came to them in the mix which they had requested.
When all was said and done the population living in regular houses almost doubled. But this still left almost as many people as were housed living in cars, vans, trucks, tents and makeshift lean-tos.
Within the month of the first emigrants’ arrival, the citizen’s communications center in the upstairs room of the firehouse expanded noticeably. More communications equipment had been hauled up and set up and the center now included some six phones, six computers, two fax machines, a rather large laminating machine, a copier, and six TV monitors. The firemen’s single beds had been pushed against the walls and were used now more as couches in the daytime while weary communications workers often collapsed on them at night. By the end of the first week, Lem began to go home to sleep on nights when he could find a replacement, and by the end of six weeks he was sleeping at the firehouse only one or two nights a week depending on who was available and where they were in the communications stream. Some room dividers and a few large tables had been brought in to break sight-lines. A makeshift sleep area had been walled off for overnighters and anyone in need of a power-nap at any time. The dividers also improved the sound-level control when ad hoc meetings had to be held there while others slept.
Martha, on some days with one of the Spanish women she had taken in, and Natalie and May in turns with other women from the village, worked long hours organizing the distribution of incoming donations—which in the beginning had to be solicited but in time came in quantities. The donations usually arrived by train from all over the United States and Canada. The resulting increased quantities of donations added to the challenge of sorting and organizing their redistribution. Word was that the Red Cross was coming to help with the treatment of minor medical problems and the sheltering and feeding of the Newcomers. It would also offer psychological support to distressed disaster victims, community volunteers and, when necessary, its own workers. Sometimes Martha felt like she was the Red Cross.
Martha had once been a Red Cross volunteer, so she knew what it could do. If only the world outside could guess how difficult this time was for everyone in Ellensville and Locklee. Even just feeding and providing the minor medical needs of the community, now almost three times the size it had been just weeks ago, could not be adequately done by an already exhausted community. And so each day she watched for a Red Cross ERV—an Emergency Response Vehicle—to arrive bringing prepared meals, KI, and psychological support. But no ERV appeared.
At times Martha speculated on the possibility of convincing the Southern Baptist Conference to send one of their ERVs this far north. But she doubted the likelihood of that possibility, too. Why? Well, it seemed that the Red Cross determined its priorities by the designated severity of the needs for each identified area, and the one that would have served Lochlee had dedicated itself to responding to the needs of people in Bain. And why was that? Well, not only was it that the local Red Cross that might have served Lochlee was located in Bain, it was also the one that had taken the tally of loses and problems. And it was in Bain, not Lochlee, where the hospitals had been overrun and the shelters completely filled and the numbers of people involved so large that it was only reasonable for Bain to be classified as being Minorly Affected while Lochlee, with no hospital and just a fraction of the number of people, had to be classified with the lowest priority of classifications for receiving help: Affected. And didn’t the Southern Baptists and the Red Cross always cooperate with one another in responding to emergencies? And weren’t there even greater priorities of necessity in areas determined to be either Destroyed (except in this instance uninhabitable even for rebuilding) or with Major destruction? So even Bain had been lucky to have qualified in any timely manner at all as the Destroyed and Major destruction areas were some seventy-five miles south of Bain.
Further, given its low priority as just an Affected area, Martha did not think any of the national agencies or even any of the state agencies would remember Lochlee. Lord, imagine what it must be like downstate! She laughed to herself. I guess we’re all the Red Cross!
For more heavy donations such as tents and building materials, men with trucks did the hauling and sorting. Thaw’s van was too small to serve well in that task, but he had a lot of time on his hands and needed something more to do than he currently was. Nick-Sue was providing emergency housing, so it was closed, and Thaw’s plans for looking into going in with some other painters and sculptors on a loft gallery in Aesopolis’ artists’ district had been put on hold. So Thaw began to help with food collection and distribution. He also initiated a Saturday afternoon art class for teenagers, which he held in the art room of the high school—which, due to its large size, had been reserved for storage and was not being used in the sheltering effort. Perhaps, too, the oversized-tables and wealth of materials had intimidated the early planners. Then with other options opening, except for sheets and blankets stacked on a couple of back tables, perhaps it had just been forgotten. Like his art. It amused him that he had become such a people person that rarely did he even think about the passion he had—or once had had—for painting.
Natalie and he were so busy days they hardly saw each other, but Thaw made a point of being sure they were together at least one day a week and every night. Natalie looked great. She had taken her two weeks of vacation days and seven accumulated personal days to regroup and help out. She had given up wearing make-up and her exposure to the elements had brought out more freckles across her face and arms. She now wore her hair tied back or up in an ever rather artlessly charming fashion that never failed to enchant Thaw.
Thaw, on the other hand, continued to shave more or less regularly but let his hair grow. His painting having stopped, he did, however, enjoy occasionally sketching Natalie…her hands, her feet, her face, or in sweeping, clean lines, her body and the angle of her head. At night together, while love-making might be of shorter duration, it remained sweet and essential to their relationship. And Natalie enjoyed nothing better than waking with her body beside or wrapped around Thaw’s.
Elsewhere in the community Dody had managed a successful search among the Newcomers and located several competent carpenters and builders from among them. Working with Natalie to achieve a more complete response related to the new zoning plan, he organized work crews to build temporary shelters. This was necessary as the few public buildings in the area were filled, including the school, which was, of course, closed due to the emergency; the firehouse, where the firemen at Natalie’s suggestion and in concert with all the available hunters in the area had taken on the job of handling the tremendous parking problem the community faced; and the church, which was set up as a sickbay. The sheriff’s men along with some newly deputized hunters spent their time primarily handling the traffic. In the process they relied happily on Lem’s communication center to let them know where the next set of Newcomers, as everyone now referred to the emigrants, might park, find shelter, get food, or have any other of their needs met. The community being too spread out for any one person to observe, they could not imagine how much more complicated their job might have been had they not had the enlarged sketch of the village Thaw had done and Lem had stretched on the wall to cover with pins and sticky notes communicating priority needs on any given day.
Through it all, the Council continued its work, and by the time it had co
mpleted its organizing there were committees on decon, food collection and drinking water allotments, clothing collection, clothing distribution, zoning, sheltering in homes, emergency community centers sheltering, parking, gasoline rationing, policing, communications within the town, communications with outside agencies, medical supply acquisition, medical supply distribution, pet control, child care, Newcomer self-help, and Newcomer family-member locating and contacting. These committees then sub-divided their assignments so that specific people within them were held responsible for specific areas of control. Naturally, friends called upon friends for help so that finally, almost no adult in the community was without at least one assignment.
When FEMA arrived at the end of the first six weeks they deputized and maintained the same hunters but in reduced numbers for any given shift as they had brought with them some of the National Guard to help in the restoration and maintenance of order. They found the current communications center to be well organized, and given the lack of alternate space, they set up their equipment there, adding in two more computers and some high-powered radio systems.
While short of words to express the thought, it seemed the FEMA personnel were quite impressed by the progress the community had made in accommodating the needs of the Newcomers. And if truth were to be told, they even seemed somewhat surprised at the extent to which the Newcomers had begun to work actively on behalf of themselves, including even participating in ad hoc memberships on the Town Council.
4. Following April 11, 2020: KI
On the morning after the arrival of the women and children, Lem and his sister prepared breakfast together. The children and Natalie’s sister were still asleep. Lem poured coffee for the two of them and May put out some toast beside the scrambled eggs she had just served and seated herself. Lem sipped his coffee. As he did, he reached over for May’s hand. He held it and she looked into his eyes. With his other hand he pulled from his pocket a long row of attached silver packets, each of which appeared to hold a pill.
“May, here are twelve pills. Three for you and four for each of your daughters.” His eyes filled with tears.
May was alarmed. Lem was not given to tearing easily. “Arthur, what are they?”
“Potassium iodide.” He released her hand and handed the string of silver packets to her. Each packet contained one tablet.
Lem had explained potassium iodide to her a long time ago. “You mean KI?”
“Yes.”
Lem took another sip of coffee. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
“You know me, May. Always wanting to be ready. It’s just my nature. So before I retired from the service and Madeline and I were still living in Waxton, I ordered two two-week supplies as Radioactive Iodine is one of the major fission products from a nuclear reactor. One for her and one for me. I worried about the Heights. And when I moved here, I brought them with me. Stuck ’em in the back of the medicine cabinet as we had never used them.” Lem paused. “We can use them now.”
May contemplated the packet. “Are they enough?”
“They recommend taking it daily for as long as there is exposure to radioactive iodine”
“But this is not even a week’s supply!”
“I know. It’s the best I can do. I’ve decided to distribute them among the seven of us.” He paused. He was not sure May would react well to his plan. She did not react, so he continued. “All of the children will get four. Each of the adults will get three. That’s twenty eight pills.”
May just looked at him. Tears formed along her lower eyelids. Lem went on.
“Chances are the greatest amount of radioactive intake is early, right after the event. And there is a good possibility the fallout had not even reached your area before you left it. Probably Natalie’s sister and daughter are at greatest risk. They were in a mall near where the first Dirty Bomb went off in Aesopolis. Then they were on their way back from Aesopolis when the other ones went off not far from their route.” Lem did not share his knowledge that for Dirty Bombs, treatment depended on the radioactive isotope and that, for example, for Cesium-137 (radioactive Cesium) the drug of choice is Prussian Blue, not KI.
May reacted first with silence and then stifled sobs. Dirty Bombs meant terrorism. Something they all avoided discussing. There was enough without thinking about that. But through her tears she defended Natalie’s sister and daughter. “But they were in the car. That should have provided some protection.”
Lem was not quite ready to handle that one yet. Still, May needed to know. Cars did not provide protection from radioactive materials. Time, distance, and shelter did. The exterior of the windows, sides and the car roof were too near and too thin to serve. He believed that May had not been near where the Dirty Bomb went off in Waxton. Still, he would need May to be on the watch for thyroid changes in the children in particular, they being the most vulnerable to the effects of radioactive iodine. Also Natalie’s sister needed to be watched. The key was early treatment. But early treatment was possible only with early diagnosis. When the time was right he would explain this to Natalie and her sister. He wanted them to know so they might also occasionally monitor their parents who, because they stayed in Bain, he could not ascertain whether or not they had been near any of the series of terrorist-inspired, radioactive events that had occurred. And he would have to research which radioactive isotopes had been released from the Dirty Bombs and what was the recommended drug of choice if not KI.
“Hopefully the whole family was further north than the radioactive material from the meltdown may have reached. And hopefully they did not cross any radioactive areas left by the Dirty Bombs. But probably the larger concern is whether or not they drank or bathed in any radioactive water. Doubtful, but the uninformed will stop to drink from an exposed water fountain or help themselves to lettuce from their garden to make sandwiches while on the road. It might not matter if they washed it thoroughly, but in a hurry, who knows?” He paused, then plowed on. Someone other than himself needed to know what his thoughts were.
“Traveling in a car they would have been too close to any fallout on the roof or windshields to have gained any protection. Also they may have picked up a significant amount on their tires from the road. A car offers almost no protection unless you are protecting yourself from airborne ash, or fallout as it is commonly called. Then you could pull over, park and lay under it and wait forty-eight or more hours to come out. But with Dirty Bombs, it’s not the ash as much as the ground-spread of radioactive material from the bomb itself as people walk or drive over it. In any event, if they had already taken the KI and immediately deconned, that might have helped. Probably immediate deconning would have been the greatest help.” Mentally he noted that a covered foxhole with at least twenty-four inches of dirt all round would have been perfect, but he avoided saying it as the irony of the statement might not have sat well with May. “So, assuming they didn’t carry it on or under their car…” He paused. “But let’s not get hung up worrying about it as most people who make it through events such as these just go on living. In service we had a saying…if you can walk out, you’ll live.”
But the whole discussion upset May, who had to stifle a long inward moan. Lem rose and came to her side. He caught his hand around her waist and tipped his head toward the door as he helped her up, guiding her outward as he did so. The house was asleep. It would be better to keep it that way. He closed the door softly behind them.
“May. May. Calm yourself.” He pulled her around to him and she stood muffling her sobs into his soft flannel shirt, intermittently wiping her nose on the back of her wrist until Lem provided her with a large colored bandana-like handkerchief which he pulled from a back pants pocket. “Blow,” he said. And May blew.
When May began to calm, he lessened his grip on her and turned her toward the lake. Together they began a walk down the hill.
Lem picked up where he had left off. “The best thing probably would have been for them to hunker down for a few days in so
me bathroom underground.”
May thought a minute. “But how could they know?”
“Yes. And where would they have found the windowless underground room they needed. I’m sorry May. I can’t estimate the amount of risk to which they have been exposed, but I need you to understand the possibilities. You will be with Natalie’s sister and daughter and you two women will talk together.”
“You want me to talk to them about it?”
“No. I just don’t want to lay this all on them yet. The main thing is to get the KI distributed and everyone to take their quota. One a day each until they’re gone. You’ll be in charge of making sure everyone gets their pills. I’ll do the explaining. You can support them through their fears. And when you need someone to talk with, I want you to come to me. I’m here.”
May nodded in assent. But Lem wasn’t finished. He took a deep breath before he began again. “Having seen action, I can tell you two things: The worst thing is to be among the dead or wounded. The next worst thing is being among the survivors.”
“Lem. No. You can’t mean that!”
“But I do.”
“Don’t say that!”
“Surviving means living. But living as a survivor means living with some sense of guilt. A sense of having survived but being soiled. The feeling lessens with time, but it never goes away.”
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