We began in earnest, the process of moving everyone and everything we could from the west side of the compound to the east. It wasn't an easy task.
The rain would not let up. Martha had lived her entire married life in that beautiful Spanish style home overlooking the Pacific with her husband, Jake. For her to leave her home at 82, if only just across the street, was almost as traumatic as losing Jake. But then, she remembered hearing her grandmother tell of her rough life in Poland as a child and surviving Auschwitz. She calmed down enough to accept her fate of having to move her most precious things and plants across the street. The saturated soil made moving the plants a lot easier. But many would die with their roots and tops severely pruned.
Any work at all, removing fruit trees from the west side with or without heavy equipment like our 4 wheeler with a backhoe had to be severely anchored by either rope or chain to the firmest ground to the east in case of, while working, the ground would fall away underfoot. It happened a couple of times and people doing the work, including me, were saved when I fell. Only a few feet and was able to be pulled back up by the rope attached to my harness. Better safe than sorry. Our motto in construction.
I recall from high school classics for those of us going to college, something about, "Beware the Ides of March." In the classical case, it was a warning about Caesar's pending betrayal. In our case, I was beginning to think that the weather was betraying us, regardless of our plans.
Those moving, making their way to temporary shelter in the hotel we reopened near the airport, were hampered, along with our construction crews working in the airport with frequent street flooding. We had to use high wheeled vehicles when that occurred.
Even though there were thousands of vehicles available, the ones we had to use for construction, we didn't want to get caught in high water and disabled. We could always do something else while waiting out the flooding, and did. There was much to do even while waiting for flooding waters to subside.
When torrential downpours occurred the flat terrain of the airport would flash flood. Sometimes as much as two feet before the water would drain off after. While the upstairs sections of the hangers we were renovating were safe, all of the planes that we wanted to keep in good running order and their service vehicles, were on the ground floor pavement and were repeatedly flooded. As long as the water didn't reach the fuselage we were okay. In some cases when the water did, the bodies were watertight and the planes floated. Like everything else in the LA area, survival was like a roll of the dice.
As expected, there was another pregnancy boom. The nurseries at the compound, the port and the ship were filled to the brim and required 24-hour a day care with substitute moms while their mothers were working. First, Melody got pregnant again. And then, some others in the compound who had given birth before, and finally, Daphne and Renée.
I begin to wonder how many children I would have. I had no experience as a father, but remembered how Josh and Dad got Derek and me doing construction at an early age. I will do that with my sons and daughters. We won't rebuild the city—they will.
One morning when they were getting ready to go to work in their newly remodeled airport home, Ginger took a pregnancy test and brought it to Harlan.
"Har, honey! I've got good news! Look what happened this morning! I took a pregnancy test. See… the color has changed. We're pregnant!"
Harlan took a look and almost couldn't believe his eyes. "Well, Ginge, it sure looks like it. You think it's because we're married? This change? Or is it something else?"
"What do you mean, Hon?"
"Do you think I haven't noticed how you and Drake are together? You seem like you can't wait to get out of my sight so that I can't see what you are doing. Well, I placed a few small cameras and have seen the two of you having sex… And then, you come home to me, all hot and bothered, and want to have sex with me!" Harlan's face was flushed red. He was clearly agitated.
"I'm sorry, Hon. Drake and I just have this thing, you know. But he's already got other women who want him to be their child's father. I can't blame them. Just something in him that attracted me. Drake's way of going about surviving this whole thing and bringing us all along with him.
“I love you. I always will. We could raise this child together, regardless if you are the father or not. Only a DNA test will be able to tell. And that may not be available for some time. I'm sorry for not telling you earlier."
Harlan saw how sincere Ginger was. "Okay, I think I understand. I like Drake. We are helping each other. I'll take responsibility for the kid. Whether he's mine or not. I deserve to have a child with my wife."
His look had shifted, but still showed that while he was trying to keep peace, he was still upset and trying to deal with it.
The next time they were together working on another airport residence, Ginger told Drake.
"Drae… I told him. He told me that he had us on some cameras that he planted. He's upset, but willing to go on with the plan we have. You may find him rather different how he deals with you now.”
"I'm glad you told him. If he's angry, it'll blow over in time. In fact, we are flying this afternoon. I'll know then."
Whenever it quit raining and the runways were clear, Harlan was teaching me how to fly. We started with the Cessna, but there was a former Air Force helicopter pilot at the ship that he was working with to get a couple of the news helicopters working again, so we both could train on those. We all met at the hangar for the MGM helicopter for a demonstration run at 2 pm.
When I arrived, I saw her talking to Harlan and he introduced her to me. A tall black woman in jeans.
"Drake, this is Glorious Epps. She tells me that she's a career Air Force major flying helicopters.
She was flying missions for the Air Force during the pandemic and found herself in the hospital when she couldn't leave a downtown hospital rooftop platform after delivering Covid-30 patients because she was too ill.
She recovered and survived with other hospital survivors until November when Glorious arrived at the ship. Afraid to tell them too much because she wasn't sure how the others would receive her ability to fly helicopters or her being in the military as a single woman of high rank."
"Hello, Glorious…" I held out my hand to shake hers. A woman who looked about 30 with a hardened face of a career military person who had seen battle.
"That's a rather strange name, Glorious, but interesting. I'm glad you're here. Harlan and I want to be able to fly these helicopters and we hope you can help us do it."
"I'm often asked about my name. My father wanted to name me, Gloria. But my mother said that was too ordinary and came up with something unique… I'm glad. It's good to meet you personally, Drake. I've seen you at the ship many times and feel honored if I can help Harlan and you, not only fly, but fly a vehicle that can get you to the places that are becoming hard to get to. For the last three years, I was training young helicopter recruits. I can't wait to help out."
"Okay," Harlan said, I've been tinkering with this MGM beauty ever since we were flooded last week and I think I've got her working well again with a little grease on the suspension joints where the water had washed all the lubrication away. If you run down the safety check with me, Glorious, we'll see if we can get this chopper in the air."
They started checking and I watched, trying to pick up as much as I could of this required procedure before leaving the ground. Helicopter pilots tended to have the shortest lives of all pilots even though most helicopter crashes were not as violent as plane crashes. Regardless, flying could make you dead if you didn't make sure that all of the functions were working properly before taking off. Over the years I remember many military helicopters going down. Sometimes, losing the entire crew.
It took about a half-hour and everything was found to be in good working order, thanks to Harlan's routine maintenance. We pushed the helicopter out of the hanger into the open and got in. Harlan sat up front with Glorious. I sat behind her, watching her every move while I strapped myself in and put on the headphones so that I could converse with them above the beat of the rotors.
The turbojet engine roared into life and in an instant we were airborne over the hangar and headed south along the coast to examine what the storms had done to the beaches and shoreline. It was devastating. Where there were beaches, there was a lot of beach erosion and a tremendous amount of debris from boats, buildings, logs, and even whole trees crowding the sand in huge piles with each wave coming in bringing more.
Where the coast was cliffs, it was worse. Whole sections of the coast had fallen in taking any buildings or highways like Cal 1 with them. Traveling the coast on that highway might take a very long time. Whole lengths of the venerable old road would have to be rerouted and rebuilt.
Glorious turned inland at Camp Pendleton and all we could see was snow topped hills of anything over 3000 feet and many, many mudslides and landslides destroying not only buildings, but the ability to travel main highways like 101 and the 5. Through LA proper the flooding was more devastating than with the hurricane, but somehow hadn't affected the port. Largely, because the prior flooding had created several more direct channels to the Pacific.
But it was when we got into the Hollywood Hills and all of the posh retreats in that area that we counted over 500 mudslides with so much destruction that it looked like it would take 50 years to repair and rebuild it all. As a construction guy, I couldn't believe it, but there it was, right below us. The Hollywood sign was left with only the H and the Y standing. The rest of the sign had slid downhill.
We landed a couple of times to get a better look and took some videos along the way to show to others. It was obvious we would need helicopters to get into some of these areas long before we would be able to rebuild the roads with heavy equipment. It was sad to see so much destroyed former beauty. I knew we would try to make it even more beautiful in time.
And then, we flew north to Santa Barbara and followed the coast back to the airport. There was more of the same and it was sickening to see. At least, our little foothold in what had been Los Angeles was still there. But for how long? I couldn't begin to guess. Just hoped that all of our work would turn things around for the better and not be destroyed by the tides of the weather and other calamities in the coming years.
Copyright 2024 © Ronald W. Hull
2/11/24
