Chapter Thirty-Two

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

COUNTDOWN TO ZERO HOUR 41 MINUTES

“MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY ! Bridge collapse. Firefighter down. Engine Forty-Two calling for assistance.”

Carla was on her knees at the front of the school bus gripping the handheld mic in an instant. “What do you need, Forty-Two?”

Her voice shook with fear as the memory of kissing Levon goodbye at the kitchen sink earlier that morning flashed through her mind. He’d come up from behind, wrapped his arms around her waist, and whispered his wedding vow in her ear.

I’m gonna love you forever, Miss Carla.

Promise? she had replied there at the sink, just as she had at their wedding.

I do.

The radio was filled with static, but Boggs’s voice was clear:

“We need divers. The bridge collapsed. Dani’s trapped. We need dive gear. Now.”

R.J. was the only person Carla knew who had any diving gear, and his was already in service at the plant. She looked at Principal Gazdecki. He shook his head with a shrug. This was rural Minnesota. No one had their own dive gear. Before she could answer,

Marion’s voice came over the radio.

“Is she okay? Is Dani okay?”

Carla heard the panic in his voice. She could envision Marion in the bunker, Brianna standing beside him. Carla wished she could take the little girl out of the room. Tell her it would be all right. But Carla was a terrible liar. Brianna would see right through it.

“Marion, she needs help” was all Boggs said back. “We need divers.”

Suddenly the radio background filled with loud chatter and commotion.

“We got some friends here that might be able to help” came Reverend Michaels’s voice.

Carla and Gazdecki were both confused.

Friends?

From the altar, Reverend Michaels nodded to a National Guardsman, who ran off to inform his incident commander of the urgent request for divers.

“We’ve got this,” said the reverend over the radio. “We’ll get it done.”

Outside on the lawn, a FEMA helicopter was dropping off more supplies: Boxes of potassium iodide pills. Hazmat suits. Breathing masks. Everything they needed. On the other side of the church, a different helicopter was loading up, ready to take the next group of passengers north to Bloomfield, where they’d meet up with the Waketa residents who had already been evacuated by boat. Makeshift short-term shelters were being set up on the dormant fields. Food, water, beds, bathrooms—everything families would need was there or on the way.

Reverend Michaels watched through the window as the National Guardsman yelled something over the sound of the rotor blades to the incident commander; he listened, nodded, and began talking into a radio on his shoulder, presumably relaying the request for divers.

And they would, the reverend realized in awe, get it done.

Reverend Michaels looked around at the scale of the operation that was unfolding before him. All the supplies, all the gear, all the manpower and organization that was given to things at the top of a priority list. It was not a sight he was accustomed to in Waketa. And he deeply appreciated it. They needed it badly.

But seeing the might that came with this kind of operation… it didn’t make him feel the way he did when he looked at the pile of sandwiches on the folding table beside the half-eaten sleeve of Chips Ahoy! cookies that came from the McCanns’ pantry. The big boxes of new medical supplies were, indeed, crucially needed—but they didn’t touch the healing that came from eight-year-old Becky Wallace’s Band-Aids with the cartoon butterflies they’d resorted to using earlier in the day.

Reverend Michaels was grateful for the federal assistance. It was desperately needed. But he was also grateful for the reminder that people in crisis need other things too—and only Waketa had been able to provide that for itself.

The National Guardsman ran back into the church. “Coast Guard divers are on their way,” he reported breathlessly.

Just like that.

Reverend Michaels smiled and held the mic up to his mouth. “Engine Forty-Two, Coast Guard divers are en route. Tell Dani to hang on, help’s coming. And Carla, whoever you told that they could find us all here and that this was the place where help was needed? Please thank them. Help has most certainly found Waketa.”