Chapter 15: Castaways

[Late Summer 2261 AD]

When the eye of the storm had started to pass over our city, Madge Undersee and I had taken the big truck and driven around to check for damage. Close to the river south of Appacolia, we had stopped and looked around, and we saw a person on a small island in the river, not much more than a rock, cut off from the shore.

Madge and I looked at each other, and when we looked out again, the person waved to us. It seemed to be a small person, like a child, and we knew that we needed to do something. The water levels were still rising, and the small place the child was on might be flooded in a few more hours. But what to do? The current was too strong for swimming and we did not have a boat; as a matter of fact, I did not even know anybody in the city who had a boat.

After a couple of minutes I got an idea:

"Look, Madge, there is something we can do. Let's move the truck upriver a bit, I slip into the body harness we have here and don the life vest, and I connect myself to the truck's rope winch. You operate the winch and release cable until I get there, and when I have the child, you pull me back. What do you think?"

We were fortunate that a body harness and a couple of life vests were part of the truck's standard equipment. Madge was not happy about my plan, but could not come up with a better option, so that she finally nodded. Once we have moved the truck to a proper place, I removed part of my clothes, slipped into the body harness and the life vest and connected the harness t the rope winch. While Madge made it slowly turn to release, I slowly stepped into the river and tried to get a feeling for the current; that part was easy, as I was swept from my feet when the water had not even reached my hips; I now hang in my harness and felt the water rushing around me. Fortunately, the current pulled me into the right direction, and after a few minutes of struggling – I was not a good swimmer at all, but that would not have made much of a difference anyway – I actually managed to touch the small rock. I needed a minute to catch my breath, and I saw the child, probably a young boy around six or seven years, looking at me with big eyes. Fortunately, when I opened one of my arms, the boy did not hesitate and came over, and I grabbed him tightly while I raised the other arm to signal to Madge. And indeed, the rope tightened, and I was slowly pulled back into the water, with the boy in my arm.

There was absolutely no way I could have made it without the rope, but the motor powered winch managed to pull us back to the shore without trouble. We had been pulled under water briefly a couple of times, despite the vest, but the boy continued clinging to me firmly, and finally we climbed out of the water. While Madge grabbed the boy, I detached vest and body harness, and all we could do now was to get back as quickly as we could.

As we did not know if the boy was all right, we first stopped at the small hospital and made sure that he was getting checked, and they decided to keep him there for some time to make sure that he was all right; there he told all of us that his name was Ben. Afterwards we drove the big 6x6 truck back to the town hall to report to Mayor Undersee, Madge's father.

Right when we got back, the small patch of blue sky above us had gone, darkness descended once more, rain started, and the wind picked up; the storm's eye was obviously past the city now, and we'd have to endure a few more violent hours.

When we met the mayor, he seemed to be excited:

"Somebody called me from a house on the southwest side of the city. Their boy ran off when the eye started, and they saw him sliding into the river; they fear that he may be dead!"

Madge smiled:

"Is the boy's name Ben, by chance?"

"Well, yes, it is, how could you have known?"

"Because we rescued a small boy named Ben, and he is at the hospital right now."

Madge told her father the entire story, and then he called the parents, one of those who actually had a phone line already, that they would find their boy at the hospital, but they should not go there in the storm.

Now we had a chance to discuss other topics. The issue with the bridge to the north would have to wait until some experts could check it, but we had a look at a detailed topographical map somebody from Europe had helped us to create. It showed elevations on a very fine scale, and we had a closer look at the area next to the river on the south side.

"Look, the river was supposed to be there, but we already saw the road under water here" Madge explained while pointing to specific areas on the map.

"So, the river got from about ten meters wide to two hundred meters wide, at least" the mayor replied.

"And, as we can see, the ground the first houses are on is just one or two meters higher than the road there" I added.

Carefully checking the details on the map we concluded that there was a small group of houses, not more than a dozen of them, which might be in danger. All of the other areas in the city were higher than that by at least ten meters and should be safe.

Not all of the houses in the city had phone lines yet, but we did have the mandatory emergency screens, so that the mayor sent a message out via the screens specifically dedicated to those lower level houses. Citizens living there were encouraged to prepare to move to a higher floor, and one of us would check later if evacuation was required. Fortunately the latest versions of those screens had a battery, enabling them to show emergency messages even when the main power was out.

Meanwhile a message had come in from our port city. They had received a wireless message from a ship out on the ocean, apparently not far from our coast, and they had reported an emergency. Due to very high waves and strong winds their ship had been damaged and was sinking, and the crew was about to got into the lifeboats. They asked for help, but of course there was none to give. We did not have any rescue boats or coast guard cutters or so, and even we had them, it would have been very unsafe to send them out in hurricane conditions.

For this night I was going to stay here in the town hall together with two others to check for updates and news, and we had a few places to sleep. It wasn't like home, of course, but we could rough it for one night. The mayor was, of course, staying as well; he actually had a bed and bathroom adjacent to his office for situations like that one.

Soon after sunset the wind and rain were at full force again, and for the entire night the building was vibrating from the attack of nature forces. Fortunately, though, the town hall had been built properly, and no leaks were identified and no damage observed. Marc came back in the middle of the night from his tour with the big truck, and he told us that he had helped a few families move out of their threatened houses and find a place with friends and relatives in other parts of the city. Marc also reported that the main streets were mostly under water, too, now, with the sewer system unable to cope with the amount of water coming down. The experts from Europe had warned us about such a possibility early on, though, and almost all of the houses had been built with the main entrance a few steps up from street level, so that this should not be a major problem.

I could still recall a part of what one of them had explained:

"Since the early 21st century, extreme weather conditions have become more frequent, including periods with higher temperature levels, but also the amount of precipitation. Since the climatic apocalypse, the situation had become a little more stable again, but we still have to expect extreme rain from time to time in many areas of the world. Based on that, we had established some basic building guidelines a long time ago, and they include that any access to a city building via door or window must be at least one meter higher than street level. If a building has a basement, the basement walls must be hardened against humidity, too."

They also had rules for building robustness in hurricane danger areas, and we had applied those at least for the official buildings, related to outer wall thickness, windows, blinds, and roofs. Dad and Peeta had used those rules also for the bakery and our own home, and many other residents had done the same. We had been warned that Appacolia was in an area which might be hit by a hurricane from time to time, after all.

In the morning the rain became less extreme, and the wind blew in a less violent way. I had barely slept a couple of hours, and I used the opportunity to get out into the yard for a few minutes in my underwear to take some kind of very fresh shower. Of course I needed to change afterwards, but at least I was awake now.

As soon as I had eaten something, I took the truck again and drove around the city, together with two of the mayor's staff, to see if anybody needed help urgently, and we helped a few citizens with this and that before we got back. Dad was in the bakery and had the small oven on, the one which could be heated with wood and coal, and he was already baking together with Peeta. Overall, there were a few damaged buildings, but the construction style we had adopted from experts in District Two and in Europe had clearly proven itself. The hurricane had, according to what the weather expert told us, not been one of the highest category, but good enough to serve as proper example for what we had to expect from time to time.

Once my tour was done, I crashed onto a bed and slept for a few more hours.

I woke up to the afternoon sun shining into the room. There was almost no wind blowing any longer, and when I looked out, the city looked peaceful. Only when seeing the streets with lots of debris here once was reminded of the storm which had passed, but the water had gone, and now we'd have to work on cleaning up.

Before we got to the cleaning, though, the town hall got a call from the port station. The people in the guardhouse there, next to the maglev terminal – the maglevs were not operating yet, as the tracks had to be checked for potential damage first – had a report for us which seemed to be urgent. During the storm they had, as we had learned earlier, received an emergency call from a ship which was in big trouble on the ocean, due to huge waves and strong winds. Some brave fisherman had dared to got out in their boats when the eye of the storm was passing their area, and they had actually managed to find a couple of lifeboats and pull them to the coast just before the eye of the storm had passed and the wind picked up again. Some of the people they had found were in poor condition and injured, and with the maglev being non operational, they wondered how they might be able to get them to the hospital.

Marc, the mayor and I looked at each other, and Mayor Undersee asked back about the number of injured people. We learned that most of them were doing all right and just needed food and rest, but three were in critical condition, as a woman with medical training out there confirmed. We promised to find a way and call back, and then we looked at the map. With the maglev not usable, we did not have many options, but there was an unpaved road as well, and it might be passable with our huge truck.

"Look" Mayor Undersee said, addressing Marc and me, "I know you have bee working a lot during the last few days. Are you still having enough energy in you to take the big truck and get the injured people to the hospital? The winds are still too strong for a zeppelin, and our two hovercraft are busy elsewhere."

We had moved our two hovercraft back to the core district, as we did not have proper hangars here and did not want to risk getting them damaged by the storm. The pilots were not on alert, and it would take too long to get them down here; in addition, visibility outside was still limited with dark hanging clouds and all, and we did not really have the proper equipment to fly the hovercrafts in foul weather. Every once in a while the sun peaked through the clouds, but most of the time the sky was still cloudy, and some rain came down, too.

I looked at Marc, and we both nodded; taking the big truck seemed to be the only feasible option. We made sure that the vehicle's hydrogen tank was full and the battery fully loaded, and then we picked up a nurse from the hospital, who was going to ride in the back.

For the first part, the ride was smooth. The water had receded, and the streets in the city were wet, but no longer flooded. Outside of the city borders, though, the road narrowed, and while we did not have to cross major rivers on our way down to the coast, the road was not maintained well, as traffic was done almost exclusively via the maglev connection. About a dozen kilometers out from the city the road changed from paved to unpaved, and right after the change we had to cross a creek which was normally probably just a couple of meters wide, but now stretched across ten or more meters. Fortunately the big truck was able to ford water up to two meters high, and the huge tires were able to gain traction even when they were almost fully submerged. For the first creek, that limit was not even close, and we were back on the road quickly.

The next obstacle showed up in form of a small tree which had fallen across the road. Again the big truck and the big tires helped, and we could simply drive across, carefully but safely. If we encountered a real big tree, that might be a problem, though, but so far we were in luck and only met smaller obstacles. The day was not yet gone and we should have some daylight left, but dark clouds cut off most visibility. Again, that was not really a problem as the truck had powerful lights not only in the lower front area, but also on top of the cabin, and the illumination provided by them was more than good enough to drive safely at limited speed.

About half way down to the coast we got to a larger creek which looked wider and deeper than the one before. Marc asked:

"Can we get across that one, too?"

"Not sure, but I guess we need to find out; you know, the front sensor will warn us if the water gets too deep, so that we can back up if necessary."

The ford through the creek was only twenty centimeters deep at normal times, we had been told. Now, with the amount of water which had passed and was still passing, we did not have a good way to tell how deep it currently was. There were clear signs that the water level had even been higher hours before, but it still did not look safe. However, the big truck could do a lot, and we were willing to find out; I drove on and switched to the lowest gear.

When we had managed to get to the other side, we were both sweating. The crossing had been scary, and twice we had almost thought that even this big truck would be pushed downstream by the current and we'd lose traction in deep water, but the vehicle's weight persevered and we made it, though not exactly reaching the point we had aimed at, so that we need to drive upriver first in the shallow water on the other side before we could find the road again.

After that deep creek, we had to drive over some more fallen trees across the road, but none of those were big enough to pose a serious problem; eventually we arrived at the port station, where we had a short break, and from there we took the well maintained road down to the fishing village. The clouds were less thick now, and sometimes we could see a star or two in the sky. The drive down there could have been a nice and idyllic one, but we were on a mission.

Fortunately, the fishing village – did it have a name? I could not remember… - was only a few kilometers from the port, and even in darkness this range was easily covered in less than ten minutes. Already from some distance we could see some people coming out of what looked to be the main house, maybe some kind of town hall, and one of them started to wave. Marc was driving now, and he stopped our truck close to that building and the people; quickly we, that is Marc, the paramedic lady, and me, got out and met the local citizens.

"I am glad that you could make it" one of them said.

"Us too" I replied. "For anything but this huge truck the road was practically impassable, but we made it, indeed. Now, how many wounded have you got?"

"We have three who are, as our nurse tells us, critically injured; the others should be all right staying here."

Our paramedic went into the building, and of course she wanted to see for herself. Marc and I got some offer of food, but we ate only a little; we were too excited for eating. We both gulped down a bottle of water, though.

Less than ten minutes later we were called in, and our help was needed to get three stretchers into our truck. Some of the locals helped, as the stretchers needed to be lifted very high to get them in; this wasn't a bus or tram or so with easy access, this was a heavy duty truck. The inside had been prepared, of course, and the paramedic made sure that the injured were connected to the truck's emergency equipment. Normally most of that equipment was not on board, but it had been quickly installed into available slots before we had left, so that there was oxygen supply, blood plasma, a defibrillator, and much more available for the paramedic to use when or if she needed it.

As soon as the paramedic gave the signal, we shook hands, got in, and started our trip back. For two reasons it was easier than getting out; first, we knew the way now, and second, the water levels had gone down a little bit, so that the various creeks we had to cross were less scary than they had been just a few hours ago. Thus, we needed less time, though we still needed to be careful and pay our full attention. Eventually we made it back to Appacolia, delivered our passengers to the small hospital and brought the truck back to the town hall garage.

It was the middle of the night now; only a few of the night staff were around, and once we had told them that we were back we were both ready to crash down; I barely made it back to home before I fell on my bed, just managing to remove my shoes, but not bothering about most of my clothes.

[Author's Notes: At that time, they do not have weather satellites and such, so that quality of weather forecast is not as good as in the real world nowadays.

As mentioned before, writing and publishing progress is very slow at this time. My heart is focused on my Skyrim stories for now, with one story getting close to an end and another one ready for publishing soon. For this story I am going to change to something like a monthly or bi-monthly publishing rather than bi-weekly for some time to come, and I kindly ask for your understanding.]