by Ginger Booth
The graphics box switched to an amateur video clip of an onrushing towering wave as it barreled in over the broad sandy beach of an urban waterfront. The churning wall of water was a couple stories tall. The low features of the beach, life guard chairs and low wooden piers anchoring the sand, looked tiny as they vanished under the speeding surge.
Far Rockaway, Hudson, the caption said. That was on the south coast of Long Island, about halfway between Jones Beach and where we sat now in Brooklyn. The person holding the camera was on the roof of a big building, maybe eight stories up, because the wave stayed well beneath him.
I hope Mangal didn’t choose to say anything important during that clip. I swallowed, and reached out to hold Cam’s hand. He clasped it back tightly.
The wave hit a parking lot below, tossing the few cars like toys. The camera jerked wildly as the impact hit the building below. The clip cut to the view on the other side of the building, a few seconds later. The tsunami had rushed on into a densely-packed neighborhood of wooden houses, and simply crushed them. Off to the right a few hundred feet was higher ground, with people fleeing uphill. After another break in the video, the wave drew back out to sea, showing rubble and broken kindling in its churning wake. Not a tree or house seemed to be left standing in that low-lying neighborhood. A few blocks away, the usual grid of houses appeared untouched.
“My God,” I breathed. “The entire East Coast.” Cam pulled me onto his shoulder, I think to comfort himself as much as me.
The video window abruptly closed. “– Pam Niedermeyer, reporting from Point Judith, Narragansett,” Mangal was saying. “Hi, Pam, thank you so much for helping out today.”
Pam beamed from a windy hill, her chin-length straight red hair whipping at her plump winter-pale face. A little locater map showed Point Judith at the sea-ward western tip of Narragansett Bay, the body of water that formed the core of the old state of Rhode Island. Judging by the lowering sunlight, this conversation happened an hour or so ago.
“Hi, Mangal, glad to be here,” Pam replied. “This afternoon, we drove east from New London, Connecticut, to here at the tip of Narragansett Bay. Most of Long Island Sound was sheltered from the tsunamis. But this stretch of coast outside the Sound was hard-hit. Below us to my right is East Matunuck, where the Block Island Ferry, well, used to be.”
The camera zoomed in on the water wreckage beneath Pam’s hill. A rolling wave poured into what remained of streets lined with brick buildings, stirring the wrecked cars and telephone poles, pouring through broken ground-floor windows.
“As you can see, we’re still seeing tsunami waves. They’re lower now, maybe twelve feet. The highest wave here in Point Judith was twenty-one feet. Fortunately, this is a rocky coast, unlike the sandy shores of Long Island and Jersey. High ground is nearby, and we had a few minutes warning. A lot of people managed to get out of the low-lying areas.”
Mangal cut in, “Did you receive any warning where you were, near New London?”
“Yes,” Pam agreed. “My local volunteer fire house. Sirens went off all the way up the New England coast, and into the Maritimes. God bless Cam Cameron for giving us warning. Our house is on a ridge, so I stayed put after I checked the announcements. My husband was down at the Coast Guard Academy. He could see the waves rolling in from there, though they didn’t reach him. Lost a lot of lives and boats around New London harbor. Really bad near the airport, too, I hear.”
[ Cam kissed the top of my head. “You should have gotten credit,” he murmured. I shook my head, and denied, “Not what matters.” ]
“So you drove east along the coast from New London to Port Judith,” Mangal prompted.
“Yes,” Pam said. “I rendezvoused with your PR News producer in Stonington. We have some video from there.” Video clips took over the screen to show coastal damage from Stonington, Connecticut, eastward to Point Judith. Pam continued describing what they’d seen, who they’d spoken with.
“Did you get any casualty numbers?” Mangal asked.
“No,” Pam said primly. “Saving lives we can still save is what matters now. Although, you know, I’ve been married to a Coast Guard officer my whole adult life. Other Army, Navy, Guard, any service wives, if you’re like me? You see something like this and you’re like, ‘What can I do? How can I help? I have to do something!’ And…we know how to notify next of kin. So this is a real volunteer opportunity for those of us who have that solemn experience. We can free up the martial law forces and clergy to help the living.”
“Absolutely,” Mangal said. “At the bottom of the screen here we have an Amenac volunteer database for this crisis.” A footer was born on the screen, starting with the simple, short website address, then scrolling into assorted volunteer opportunities. “On that website, you can also report missing persons and their last known location, who to contact if found, and so on. We hope this gives you some comfort in this worrisome time.
“We’ve been showing the on-shore damage here, Pam,” Mangal continued. “Any word on the situation at sea?”
“There have been losses,” Pam said grimly. “Again, a broadcast isn’t how we notify next of kin. The Navy is mostly safe enough, well out at sea. In mid-ocean, tsunami waves are only about a foot tall. Very hard to notice in the ocean swell. And the Atlantic blockade is well out of sight of land. That’s why we didn’t get any advance warning from the Navy. My son is out on a Coast Guard training cruise right now, on a naval resupply mission. Thank God he was out past the continental shelf when this hit. And it’s winter, so only seasoned sailors are out on the water. But in close to shore – the Coast Guard, ports, coastal shipping, fishing boats. There are losses.”
“I’m glad your son is safe,” Mangal said. “Following in his father’s footsteps, eh?”
“That’s his plan,” Pam agreed. She didn’t want to talk more about her family. “I don’t know that we have any word from the islands yet. Block Island, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard. And the waters are still unsafe for the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard is scrambling to save its own boats. So I doubt we can help the islands yet either. They’re out of reach until the waves die out. I mean, we can overfly them to scope out the damage, but that’s about it for today. I imagine the Cape is also in bad shape. Also hard to help right now.”
The screen switched to a map of this rugged shore while she spoke, showing Connecticut and Long Island east to Cape Cod.
Pam continued, “From what we’ve heard, the islands inside Narragansett Bay took a pounding. Including Newport. Providence, up at the north end of the bay, may have been shielded by the islands. We don’t know. Forces from the New England Army and Narragansett National Guard turned us back at Port Judith. They weren’t answering questions.”
Knowing Pam, I understood why the screen showed a map instead of her face during this report. Poor Pam. As the Great Pumpkin of the online forums, Pam Niedermeyer was one of the leading Constitutional agitators in New England. When Connecticut transferred to Hudson, making John Niedermeyer report to Sean Cullen, bitter blowups ensued in the Niedermeyer marriage. Pam advocated they simply pack up and move house a few miles east into Narragansett, and to hell with Hudson. As usual, John’s career prevailed over hers. Pam’s political aspirations were quashed. Governor-General Sean Cullen called her to cordially but firmly instruct her to retire the Great Pumpkin. Hudson already had a Constitution. As the wife of a O-6 level Hudson officer, she would support that Constitution.
Fortunately, Pam really was quite fond of John. The divorce word was only thrown around once or twice. I thought her essay of resignation from the Re-Constitutional Convention, ‘A Farewell to New England,’ was among the Great Pumpkin’s finest work.
Pam signed off. “Next,” Mangal said, “we want to explain Cam Cameron’s warning from Jones Beach, Long Island.”
7
Interesting fact: In planning for Project Rebuild in the old New York City, the new Apple mini-cities were established at least 13 feet above sea level.
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sp; “Here’s a map of Jones Beach, Long Island,” Mangal explained. “Basically a sandbar, a barrier island on the Atlantic Ocean. Today’s tsunami waves were at their maximum power when striking land parallel to the wave front. Just like this island. And the waves’ maximum devastation was on low, flat shores, like this one.
“On Long Island now, people are forbidden to live on the southern barrier islands. People flock there to play in summer, but the islands close at night, and they’re evacuated in winter.” Briefly, the screen showed a video clip of a crowded Jones Beach in summer, surfers at play, then returned to the map.
“The lead Resco of Long Island, Lieutenant Colonel Cam Cameron, was driving on Jones Beach this morning, with our own Dee Baker of PR News. They were here,” X marked the spot, “when they realized that what they were seeing on the beach presaged a tsunami.
“Most people would not recognize the signs,” Mangal explained. “Before a giant wave, the water draws out to sea, very rapidly, much farther and faster than a typical low tide. They happened to see that, and understood it. They turned the car around, and ran for their lives. While Colonel Cameron drove like a madman, Dee Baker sent out warnings to the lead Rescos of Long Island and the rest of Hudson. Those warnings were immediately passed to New England and the Maritimes, giving a few minutes advance warning. Their warning probably saved thousands of lives.”
A red line drew on the map, to show our island-hopping progress to where we ditched the car, literally. “But Cam and Dee had to drive to here to find the nearest high ground. At that point they abandoned their vehicle and ran up-hill.” The line switched to dotted. “But the wave was too high. Somewhere around here the tsunami caught up with them.” Another X marked a very bad spot. “The wave tumbled them back into lower elevations and carried them to here,” a final X, “before they were able to climb a tree and escape the water. The tsunami carried them over half a mile. The winter water here in the North Atlantic is about forty degrees. That’s five Celsius.”
Mangal appeared to contemplate the map. “It’s nothing short of a miracle they survived. But furthermore, Colonel Cameron carried a satellite phone in a waterproof, impact-proof case. They were able to report their location. Choppers were dispatched to retrieve them back to Dee Baker’s home in Brooklyn. This footage was shot by the chopper crew on that return trip.”
Cam sucked in air sharply beside me, as the screen showed the southern Long Island shore by air. Houses and trees were reduced to kindling. Yet another tsunami wave barreled in through some town or another, probably part of Queens. Another clip showed a wave drawn out to maximum. The barrier islands seemed to be gone, just a flat expanse of glistening sand and wreckage stretching out to sea. I held Cam’s hand in sympathy. He gripped mine back hard.
“Communications are broken everywhere along the coast,” Mangal continued. “So if you’re wondering why we received so little warning – that’s why. Very few people caught in their position would have had the luck, the knowledge, the connections, the tools, and the sheer athletic stamina, to survive the way they did, and send out warning.
“Lieutenant Colonel Cameron and Dee Baker are badly bruised, with broken bones and the after-effects of hypothermia. But both are expected to make a complete recovery.”
Someone had taken a picture of us huddled asleep on the couch. Our faces and arms looked like hell, but the worst of our contusions were safely smothered under blankets. The medic on the chopper had cleaned up the wounds. A doctor would drop by eventually to set Cam’s broken leg, but they were swamped right now.
“Few people caught by the tsunami were this lucky,” Mangal concluded. “We have this report from Brandy O’Keefe of IndieNews in southern Brooklyn, at a triage center. Hi, Brandy.”
“Hi, Mangal,” Brandy replied with a solemn smile. The redhead stood eddied out of a scene of pandemonium in a large and beautiful church. Stately arched side galleries and a vaulted altar oozed grace from above to human chaos down among the pews. She wore a loud plaid flannel button-up shirt, turquoise and cobalt blue on white, over jeans and thigh-high wading boots, her gorgeous hair tied back today.
“I’m standing in Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic church, in the Bensonhurst mini-city in Brooklyn. What you’re seeing behind me is tsunami victim triage and first aid. These people are cold, wet, and battered. They were caught by the waves in the Coney Island, Brighton Beach, and Gravesend sections of Brooklyn. The south-facing waterfront of Brooklyn and Queens fared almost as badly as the rest of southern Long Island. The churches and public cafeterias here in Bensonhurst are overrun like this today.”
Predictably, Brandy skirted the edge of common sense to get the best story today. She and her team skated within a block of the high water line to get footage southward into the city tsunami zone, often climbing buildings with a good view, where they flew a few drones as well. They did an awesome job. I envied her having the time of her life reporting today, while I was tossed in a wave and perched freezing in a tree, and now lying useless on a couch. Her running commentary was professional, describing where they were and what they were seeing.
“Since Project Rebuild,” she explained in mid-travelogue, “the new Apple mini-cities are at least four meters above sea level, thirteen feet. The beaches were off limits for settlement. Bensonhurst here is high and dry. Gravesend and Sheepshead Bay were considered high enough, at fifteen feet. But powerful waves topped eighteen feet here in Brooklyn. The water washed through those two mini-cities and did substantial damage. Casualties were minor. Siren and meshnet warnings sent people indoors, and rising water had them climb upstairs in strong brick buildings. These cities will need a lot of cleanup.
“Most of the injured are epidemic survivors who resisted being resettled into the mini-cities. They stayed as squatters outside in the city ruins. Some of them suffer from serious ‘apple trauma.’ They can be hard to help.”
Video showed militia trying to control a sopping wet man, blood running from his scalp, striking out in a panic attack, the whites of his eyes showing wide around his irises in terror. Maybe someone set him off by trying to take his wet clothes. We saw these people all the time. I lived only a few miles from the Brooklyn oceanfront.
Brandy interviewed the priest of Our Lady of Guadeloupe church, Father Philip Bilik, gaunt and grey, clearly an apple survivor himself. “I understand most of the people here in triage are not your parishioners, Father Bilik?”
“No,” he agreed. “Bensonhurst was spared today, thank the Lord. These people were bused in from Gravesend and Sheepshead Bay. Terrible business. But the people working triage, some of them are parishioners. And laundry.”
“Laundry?”
“They’re all wet,” he explained. “We take the clothes and rinse off the salt. Surely you’ve seen all the clotheslines. We let the refugees work laundry if they can. To earn a full day’s wages and food.” This came out in fits and drabs, as Brandy clearly wasn’t following what the priest suggested.
“I see,” she agreed. “And what will you do with them after triage?”
“There are some overflow apartment buildings, south of our Calm Park. Part of Bensonhurst, but not really part. The Cocos run them as refuges for the ghosts. When it’s really cold and stuff. That’s what we call the squatters outside the mini-cities. Ghosts.” Father Bilik seemed saddened by the nomenclature.
“But they’ll have to work for food?”
“Everyone works for food here,” Father Bilik agreed patiently. “After breakfast.”
Brandy frowned, again not following him.
“Before breakfast, they’re too weak to imagine working, you see. So we give them breakfast free. Then they’re not so weak. They can imagine maybe having the energy to earn lunch. Maybe even dinner. Just until the waterfront is safe again. Then they’ll probably go home.”
Brandy blinked in consternation.
“I lived down there myself,” the priest shared gently. “During the starving time. Brighton Beach. So lovely.”
[ “Still doesn’t know what to make of apples, does she?” Cam quipped. I suggested, “Brandy’s so ambitious and driven. Doesn’t get the Eternal Now of hunger.” ]
Brandy tried to refocus the interview. “Do you need anything here? To help care for tsunami victims?”
Father Bilik shot her a beatifically sweet smile, that suddenly transformed his face. “We have enough to give. We are rich beyond imagining.”
Cut back to Brandy alone, speaking to the camera. “They do seem well-supplied to meet the emergency here. The victims need warmth, dry clothes and some food, shelter to rest up and heal their bruises and concussions. The Apple cities keep stockpiles of emergency heat blankets. And everyone seems to pitch in and help. It’s amazing down here. Back to you, Mangal.”
“Thank you, Brandy,” Mangal said. “Have you spoken to any Rescos or Cocos in Brooklyn?” he prompted.
“I spoke with Lieutenant Colonel Ash Margolis earlier,” Brandy said, “the lead Resco of the Apple Cities. He requested no interviews with Cocos, Rescos, or militia today. They’re too busy saving lives, and dealing with housing the displaced population. And Governor-General Sean Cullen will speak tonight, on behalf of the whole martial law government. We’ve honored that request.”
“Understood,” Mangal said. “Any word on the other boroughs?”
“I understand Queens is much like Brooklyn,” Brandy replied. “Manhattan and Bronx were only lightly affected. Staten Island and Jerseyborough were hit hard. The land is lower there.”
“Thank you, Brandy,” Mangal said. “We’ll have Amiri Baz reporting later in this broadcast from Staten Island and Jerseyborough. But now I have a report from Jennifer Alvarez, on a trek to relieve Long Island.”