Amid clouds building, we arrived at the compound to discover for ourselves the shocking truth. While the drive through the compound to the cul-de-sac at the end was still there, all our homes on the west side of that street where we had grown up and recovered quite well from the pandemic, were gone! Gone in the inevitable creep of the West Coast of California falling into the sea.

       And, the east side of the ridge that the compound was built on was also showing some decay with parts of the backyards and back fences fallen off in the valley between the next ridge subdivision. It was like that all over, destroyed roads, collapsed buildings, and chances that much of what was damaged or nearly destroyed would probably not be worth rebuilding again.

       We landed in the courtyard in front of the mansion, but inside the fence where Daphne, Renée and their in and out consorts lived. As we exited the helicopter and ran to greet them coming out of the house, another aftershock reminded us that this whole place probably shouldn't be inhabited anymore.

       Part of the veranda roof and upstairs balcony had fallen in front of the entrance and we had to walk around it to get into the house. Once inside, we could see extensive damage to the circular stairway and almost everything on shelves or hanging on the walls that had come down, along with portions of the walls, themselves. It was a real mess. They needed to evacuate.

       Both of the girls were a real mess, too. They were wailing…

       Daphne declared, "Drake, what are we going to do? I don't think we can live here anymore."

       While Melody hugged her and Wondah hugged Renée, all of them pregnant, I tried to answer.

       "The only thing I can think of, Daphne, is for you and Renée and everyone else living on this block to come with us and stay in the LAX terminal until we can find some temporary housing for you, and then, find a place or places for you. I'm overwhelmed with work, but I'll try to find something for you along with all the others that need help with housing."

       My eyes grew misty and I couldn't hold back my feelings anymore. I thought I was going to lose it, but I knew that I had to get these people out of there–soon. So, I sucked in my stomach and tried not to vomit.

       We walked through the gate to see the large cracks that were very prominent on the west side of the street, but less so on the east. Our friends were coming out of those houses. Stephanie and Flower, Melody's oldest who had been staying with Marsha, but now taken in by Ray. Augie, Rocky and Ginger Palmer, some of the mainstays of our construction company. Selma Lopez, who had been working with Stephanie and Marsha. Ray Dugas, who had been taking care of the girls since Marsha passed. Finally, Viktor, Victoria and Peter Sarnoff, ironworkers and an essential part of the Hutchins Construction Company, too.

       While it was terrible that they all had to be evacuated, it was probably a good thing that they were relocating to the airport. Everyone could leave together for the construction sites each day rather than drive from the compound. One of the first jobs for the Palmers and their crew would be to come up with a way to capitalize on the coming rains to provide hot water to the airport terminal bathrooms where the temporary residents could find some semblance of group bath convenience.

       It took four trips back-and-forth carrying them and their belongings they put together trying to make their new home more like home, with the promise that they could come back later when they found alternative housing and get their furniture and other, reasonable personal items that they loved.

       As the rains began, the whole village fell into depression and found it very hard to get up in the morning in the gloom and began to eat the elephant that lay before them. Just to make it somewhat like the village was before the earthquake and tsunami changed things, seemed insurmountable.

       The counseling circles were growing, and Melody and I attended regularly to try to help me with my inability to figure out how to proceed with so much to do and so few to do the work. One of the things that came out of the counseling session was this: by working hard at physical labor, everyone said, "For a little while, I forgot what was troubling me as I focused on getting something done… A little accomplishment in the many accomplishments I would have to do to make things more normal again."

       Like they had to initially, get past the loss of friends and loved ones in the pandemic.

       I began with making sure that all the power sources were working, water and sewer lines were not damaged, plugged or otherwise not working. And that all of the greenhouses were working and had someone to maintain them--mostly the children--to produce fresh vegetables and greens for the community. While the animals had initially been frightened by the earthquake and some swept out to sea by the tsunami, the green grass and new plant growth of the rainy season was a boon to health and growth. Most of them still had a warmer, drier place to go in and out of the cold, mud and wet.

       So, we still had adequate fish, seafood, meat, milk, eggs, vegetables and fruit from our higher ground warehouses and food stores. It just took a little tweaking here and there to get things working at full production during the rainy season. Ray told me that most of the Santa Monica Pier and nearly all of the luxury beachfront homes were completely destroyed.

       "I will see if I can start another net fishing operation near the airport so that we can have fresh fish while we are camping out. The roads are impossible to get to the Santa Monica beach anyway."

       We had a rather subdued Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations but celebrated a lot of second and first birthdays during that period and got the streets between the airport and the medical center in good shape by using gravel and blacktop to fill cracks and placing culverts where water had tried to make gullies across streets from heavy rains and flooding.

       Like children always have, those little guys and gals were having the time of their life with their siblings and friends and didn't have a care in the world when it came to all the hardships that we adults were going through. Those birthday parties were great morale boosters for all of us. We tried to do something special for each one… More helpful for us adults than the kids.

***

       The rainy season wasn't as happy and as good as we matured, so all of this time we spent whittling away at problems. Fortunately, the weather cycle changed, and we went into a winter with little rain and snow on the mountains. Little by little, we were able to open up more roadways and make them easier and safer to travel, even if we had to slow down for the bumps created by temporary patches to the road surface. By mid-summer we had opened a route to the Central Valley so trucks could roll again and we were able to rescue the four trucks that had to be abandoned on the road and their drivers picked up by helicopter and brought back to the village.

       They were really happy when the drivers returned and found their trucks still in good shape. Some of their cargos, if they were refrigerated, were not, and it was a terrible, sickening job to clean them out.

       The inmates that escaped while being evacuated came back, one at a time, because they were cold, wet starving and were immediately assigned to daily roadwork crews. Something they gladly did for better food and fresh air… Even though sometimes it was pouring rain. The guy who had killed Deputy Chang did not return. One of the others told Sheriff Singh, "Ricardo committed suicide rather than starve or give himself up. He was one hard-core mutha. Glad I ain't like him."

       Being unable to use most of the elevated sections of the highways made travel take much longer and less predictable, timewise. Fortunately, the old roads before they were elevated, were still there. After removing all the rubble and repairing all the cracks and gullies, our trucks could move quite quickly unhampered by the traffic that originally required the freeways to be built in the first place. They would be a long time being rebuilt. But even  these old roads had washed-out bridges and culverts to deal with. All we could do in the beginning was just makeshift work or devise a detour around the problem.

       It was another long and dry summer. Fortunately, most of our cisterns had completely filled by the end of the rainy season and were able to supply our crops and homes with water. In a few cases we had to haul water again from various lakes that were now crystal clear and full of fish and other wildlife that we hunted for additional food. Drake, Ray and I savored those times we went hunting because it took us away from the grind of daily construction jobs that were endless.

       There were more births and pregnancies. All of these babies and toddlers were a real joy, but could be a pain and they got into our computers or papers that were left around the house. Of course, we had to get dogs and cats and there were many, many strays to choose from. If one didn't work out for one reason or another we could put it back out in the wild and get another one, usually a puppy or kitten so it wouldn't develop any bad habits before we taught them.

       When I told the twins one day, "While you were still in Mommy's tummy, we had to shoot dogs and cats just to get something to eat," in a jovial way, they both started crying and ran off calling out, "Mommy… Mommy! Daddy said he's going to kill Jax and Penelope! Says we are going to eat them!"

       While she comforted them and they hid against her growing belly, I tried to apologize and tell them that I didn't mean "our" pets. But it was to no avail, until a couple days later when they came back and jumped up on my lap while watching streaming movies after a long hard day’s work. I wondered if they were going to be sissies and unable to take on what it would take to run the company after Drake and I are gone.

Copyright 2024 © Ronald W. Hull

5/2/24