Cascadia Fallen: The Complete Trilogy, page 9
Everywhere he looked he saw people in a daze. Some were quietly trying to assess their homes and install tarps on roofs. Others were stuffing everything they could into their cars. He could hear various intensities of people crying and wailing. Others like him were trying to transit on bike or foot from Point A to Point B.
When Tony got to his daughters’ school, the remnants of people still there were mostly staff. The children had been released before the hammer fell. He rode straight up to a large canopy someone had set up between the parking lot and the main building. He made a snap-decision to use his size to get some results.
“I need to speak to whoever is in charge,” he stated loudly. A few people looked up, but they all went about what they were doing. “Now!” This had the desired effect.
Mrs. Engle, the lead front office administrator, came scurrying over. A 4’ 11” Filipina, she was having none of it. “No! No yelling!” she said, reserving the right to do that for herself. “We are all doing our best here!” Seeing the shocked look on his face, she softened her tone slightly. “Who are you.” It was more of a statement than a question, made even more ominous by her Tagalog accent.
Tony’s mother-in-law was Filipina, too, a common demographic in any Navy town. He knew politeness and respect were his new best friends. “I’m very sorry, Tita,” he said, using the Filipina title for Aunt, often used as a respectful title for non-relatives. This caused her face to grimace less. “I know everyone’s stressed. I am Talia and Tasha Manner’s father. I believe they were on a field trip today.” Tony’s voice started to crack a little. “Do you know where my babies are?”
Mrs. Engle’s face shifted from annoyance to genuine concern. “Mr. Manners, I am sorry—we don’t have any news about the field trip. We have FEMA people here trying to find out.” She was referring to the volunteer radio operator that had reported to the school. “If you please wait with the other parents, we’ll let you know when we hear something,” she said, pointing to where Tony should sit.
Tony noticed a second large canopy behind the first. Under it were folding chairs and about a dozen worried-looking parents. He took his large frame over to the second canopy and plopped down in a chair.
After about an hour he asked for an update, but Mrs. Engle had none to give. That hour had given Tony time to think. He decided his idea was worth risking the time to look into. He went over to the bike, jumped on, and rode north, which took him towards the water near the south shore of Simpson Inlet. It was downhill so he made quick time, other than the expected obstacles. He did have to scale one creek with the bike on his shoulder as he got closer to his destination. A bridge on the road that navigates the base of the hill had collapsed.
He rode up to the home of his real estate agent and former softball buddy, Jason Chou. Jason owned a boat, and he lived really close to a boat launch. He knocked on the front door.
“Tony!” Jason stated, confused why his client would be here, especially on this day. Sticking his hand out for a shake, he followed up with, “Did ya’ break down or something?”
“Hey, Jason. Sorry, no…” He paused, accepting the hand shake. “Listen, I’m just gonna come out an’ ask. Can you take me to Seattle?”
8
Rest for the Weary.
Tahoma’s Hammer + 6 Hours.
Ash was definitely falling. At first Crane thought he was imagining things. He’d first noticed what looked like a mild snow falling, a dusting that was noticeable as it floated by the shipyard’s street lights. The lamps put off a yellowish hue. Now that it was dark, the lights and the ash combined to give everything an otherworldly effect. It made him wonder if this might be what the shipyard would look in some sort of alternate universe. As the shipyard workers finished up a long tour of inspections, they were being directed to busses to take them to the adjoining base. By the time he got off his bus at the softball fields he could see footprints and tracks in the ash, especially in the grass.
This must be what if felt like after 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, he thought. Crane was too young to remember 9/11. The day had been surreal. His legs felt like they were walking through invisible goo, sluggish and weak. The earthquakes combined with the volcano and miles of walking around the shipyard had taken the wind out of everybody’s sails. Everyone was demoralized by the destruction—cranes had fallen, many buildings had suffered severe damage, dry-docks were flooding, ships were damaged—it was too much for the emotions to deal with.
After the first earthquake, the workers had all been rallied by the commanding officer. After the hammer fell, they had another muster in the same spot. No rah-rah speech by the captain that time, huh? They asked for volunteers to stay. Not surprisingly, about two-thirds of the already depleted workforce had opted to leave. Everyone wanted—needed—to go check on their families. Many of those who’d stayed after the second muster were single or divorced. Crane had decided to stay because he wanted to make sure those with kids left first. He had sent texts to his dad to keep him posted, but he had received none in return. He was fairly certain the cell towers were either destroyed or log-jammed.
He strode down what was turning into a path through the ash, from the bus stop to the tent city that had popped up over the course of the day. He was joined by about forty fellow “yard-birds” of varying trades and engineering codes, including about a dozen of his brother and sister shipwrights. They slogged through the ash like zombies. The group was greeted by a Navy petty-officer with a clipboard and a radio as they approached the big gap between the two tents on the nearest corner of the camp. The tents were the large canvas type with multiple peaks, similar to what Crane saw when his dad watched “M*A*S*H” reruns.
“Welcome,” the sailor said as the group came within earshot. She pointed at the ground in front of her feet. “Please stop here. Form a single-file line. I’ll need your name and badge number. Once six of you have checked in, one of the runners will give you a quick tour of the camp. They’ll show you where you can find a bunk, take a shower, and grab chow.” Chow, Crane thought. I could use some of that. I don’t care if it is Navy food. I’m starving.
Crane was in the second group from his busload to check in and make it past the sailor. He was joined by Joey Garcia, another shipwright. He recognized three of the others as electricians. The last person was someone he didn’t know. Another sailor was just returning from taking a group on its tour. They must have several of these sailors doing this, he thought.
“Please follow me, sirs and ma’am,” the sailor said.
Sir! Look how filthy I am. Do I look like a sir to you? The sailor began walking the group in a big, counterclockwise loop through the tents, which were basically set in a pattern of two boxes, the bigger box of tents completely surrounding the smaller one. It filled the entire ballfield. In all, there were six back to back tents forming the inner box, a wide aisleway around them, and then about twenty tents in the outer box.
“You’ll find that the perimeter section of tents is all berthing, with the exception of the two you walked through to get in here. Your berthing tent is about halfway up this back long side, labeled Golf-35…here.” He pointed it out as they passed it. “Keep following, please. We’ll be back in about three minutes.” He pointed to the nearest three tents in the inner circle. “These three tents are the heads,” the sailor said, using the Navy’s term for a restroom and showering facility. “The eastern-most tent is the female head.”
As they began to start the back-leg of the short tour, the group all walked up a small ramp, along a small deck, and back down a small ramp. The fixture covered a slew of hoses and cables that were running up the space in between the two three-tent rows forming the middle box. Those must be for plumbing and power, Crane realized. That’s when he realized he was walking in the glow of several portable spotlights up on masts, and he could hear a bank of large generators off to the west. They’ve thought this through just a bit, haven’t they?
“Why is this here?” Crane asked.
The sailor was puzzled by the simplicity of the question. “Sir? To give you all a place to rack for the night…”
“No,” Crane pressed. “I mean, ‘Why’ is this ‘Here’?” he asked, pressing his hands on an imaginary piano keyboard, pointing at the ground. “Who set this up?”
“Ohhh,” the sailor caught on. “I’m just an E-3, sir. All I know is that every ship and shore command was ordered to send twenty percent of their crews to help set up and staff all of this. It was stored in some conex-containers out by the power plant.”
Crane nodded, somewhat apologetically for causing the whole tour to stop for his question. They continued.
“These three tents are for chow,” the sailor went on, pointing at the other side of the inner circle. They were starting to walk back towards the corner they’d entered through. “The center one is the mess-line, and the tents on either corner have tables and a scullery. Please provide your shipyard badge number when signing in to eat.”
As they approached the original corner gap they’d entered through, the sailor provided one last piece of information. “The tent to the right of the entrance is sickbay. Please check in with the duty corpsman if you have any injuries that need looked at.”
Crane looked over and was surprised to see a few yard-birds and sailors through the open flap.
“The tent on the left is the Admin Tent. Any odd issues—need to try to contact your families, things like that—you can get help with in there. Any questions?”
One of the electricians asked, “What is that camp over there?” He was pointing at the soccer field.
“Navy. This camp is civilian, that one is for sailors. Some of the barracks and ships have been deemed uninhabitable.”
The group thanked the sailor and all started drifting off in their own directions. “Food?” Crane asked Joey.
“Like, yesterday,” Joey stated in clear terms. He was hungry, too.
They stepped into the line of the center mess-tent. Inside the flap was a table with a Second-Class Petty-Officer sitting at it. “Badge,” she said flatly, as if they’d all been doing this for weeks.
Joey and Crane both gave her their numbers and moved toward the chow line. They moved through it, getting plenty of rice, pork adobo, and mixed vegetables to fill their bellies. At the end of the line, they found large plastic urns on a cart. In them was the Navy’s famous “bug juice,” which was nothing more than Kool-Aid. There was also plain water. Crane drank two cups of those before he even bothered to move to the next tent to eat.
When he and Joey ducked into the western corner tent they heard a familiar voice. “WA-HOOoooo!” Crane knew Billy’s familiar greeting anywhere. It was a lone moment of happiness in an otherwise horrible day. The duo made their way to two empty chairs at Billy’s table. Tracy and several other familiar faces were there, and a round of hi-fives started up. Unlike the fist-bumps earlier in the day, this round had a lot less enthusiasm to it. It was more like they were saying to each other, “Glad to see I’m not the only idiot who stayed.”
“I lost you after the second muster,” Billy stated to Crane. “Where’d you wind up?”
“Back at F. Then the piers out here on the base. Then back into the ’yard, ultimately all the way back to the machine shop. I think they’re trying to figure out how to get the shafts back to the carrier. I heard the welders and fitters are working on some emergent train track repairs in several spots. You?”
“East end,” Billy started. “We checked out Dry-docks C and B. They’re trying to keep people away from A. Not good, bro. I’m hearing stuff—bad rumo—and all I can say is that I’m glad I got pulled out of the nucs when I did.” Billy was referring to having his radiation qualifications downgraded for medical reasons several years earlier. He paused for a few seconds, thinking. “We also watched the port-ops boats tryin’ to wrangle that big ship before it sank. I guess it broke loose and smashed into the Dry-dock A caisson.”
He continued. “Then they had us go and set up a transit to take an optical shot on the Hammerhead. It’s leaning almost two degrees to the east. Supposed to shoot it again first thing in the morning to see if its moving.” Billy sat quietly for a moment, staring at Crane’s eyes, daring him to ask.
“And?” Crane finally took the bait.
“She’s goin’. Maybe not tonight, maybe not tomorrow…but she’s goin’.” Billy could hardly believe his own ears. He’d been dealing with the world of plumb and square his whole career. If he said it was going to fall, it would.
This dampened the mood, reminding the tired workers why they were there. This is a defining moment in history. We ain’t playing here, Crane remembered. One at a time, they all got up and found the scullery to drop off their trays and utensils.
Crane made his way to the “head” tent to take care of business and then to tent Golf-35. He walked in and looked around. Next to the entry flap was a shelf unit with several sets of Navy-issued blue coveralls. For after the shower, I guess. He strode over to a cot that looked like nobody had claimed it yet and plopped down. Maybe I’ll just check my eyelids for light leaks for a second. The shower could wait until morning.
Phil Walker had spent two-and-a-half hours clearing trees on his way from his personal ground zero to the club property. He drained his chainsaw of fuel and bar oil. He made it stretch by using the pruning saw to limb the trunks first. He knew that somebody had to man up and get the clearing going.
By the time he and Dakota got to the range, he was tired and dehydrated. I think I may need to camp here tonight. Need to drink water and get onto the crutches for a spell. I just hope other people are clearing the trees north of the round-about. He could hear the roar of chainsaws rattling through the woods and hoped he wouldn’t have to do all the clearing himself. He was worried about the state of the house, more for the sake if Payton and Savannah showed up. One issue at a time… He checked his phone. Still no texts. Hmmm….
He went to the nearest outdoor spigot and filled up his water bottle. Dakota had found her bowl on the front porch to the office and started guzzling. He made his way to the rifle line and dropped his pack on the closest shooting bench.
Phil decided another walk-around was in order. There was no natural gas to the property, and the only propane was the cage that contained several twenty and thirty-pound bottles. His concern was more about structural issues than explosive threats. Amazingly, the little office was intact. He was worried about the three 700-pound gun safes falling right through the floor. When they moved them into the building several years earlier, a couple of the range members had gone into the crawl space and built brick stacks under the joists where the safes would sit. Seeing the small building intact, Phil wondered if those heavy safes had somehow actually helped the building stay put, instead of sliding down the small slope that helped it overlook the shooting lines. There are a lot of guns in those safes. Phil started to think about range security for the night.
The classroom seemed fine, too, but the restroom trailer hadn’t faired so well. It had been shaken right off its setting. That’s unfortunate, Phil thought. I need to sit down and talk to a guy about a horse… He decided that a field privy hole would be the fastest and best solution for that issue. He grabbed the wipies from his bag and headed to the woods for a moment. He preferred to carry wipies over toilet paper because it was more effective, the package made them somewhat water-proof, and they could be used to clean cuts as well.
After the “horse had been purchased,” Phil and Dakota strode down range to check on the well house. The gap between the pistol and rifle lines had a large wedge shape, which contained the first four of several action shooting bays. At the end of that line of bays was an area with a couple of forty-foot conex boxes, which contained work benches and storage racks. The area outside of those had an assortment of barricades, tire stacks, plastic barrels, and steel plate racks. The well house was in this area.
There was a road at that point that went left—north—to access four more of the action bays. It ultimately circled back and uphill to access the rest of the property. The front shooting-lines and bays were the most used, about twelve acres overall. The back buffer of the property was about sixty feet higher in elevation than the front parcel. The 250-yard-long rifle line ended in a berm the size of a cliff, carved into the base of the hill at the beginning of this buffer area. The club members called the back sixty acres “the field,” since there was a fifteen-acre clearing up there. In summer, most of the field caught a lot of sunlight since the fir trees were so far away.
Phil opened the well house and looked in. He didn’t notice anything greatly concerning. He was extremely thankful that they had installed a hand-pump as a backup on the shallow well many years earlier. That’ll save some generator fuel. He walked the property, noting all the downed trees. Most of the stacks of tires and barricades in the prop-storage area were strewn about. There will be a lot of clean up. What he was really doing was watching the areas where they had buried PVC pipes from the well house over the years. He’d been slowly setting up a service grid to the rest of the range, installing water spigots and power outlets in strategic areas. I’ll have to run the well on generator power and walk around to spot leaks in the distribution piping. The drizzle earlier in the morning meant he might be slowly watching for a day or two just to be sure. This made him look up. What was the forecast? Another “pineapple express,” I think. He was referring to the massive rain storms that came up from the central Pacific and doused the region for weeks on end. Great.
They went back to the restroom trailer, which was clearly knocked off its foundation. Phil went to the isolation valve and secured it so he didn’t flood the area when he got around to testing the water system. I’ll deal with that tomorrow. It was dusk and almost dark. Yep—camping here tonight.
