Rick Mofina: Whirlwind

“My sister and I were stuck in the traffic, trying to get out, when we saw it coming-the hail, everything going black. Things started hitting the car.”

“Lawn chairs, tables, steel poles,” the second woman added.

“I thought we were going to die,” the blonde woman said. “We heard this roaring, like ten freight trains. The ground shook and this pressure came, this huge pressure, like something trying to crush us. Our windows shattered. We could hear the metal of our car literally crumpling.”

“We just hugged each other and prayed,” the second woman said.

The blonde woman said: “Then the car rocked back and forth and the tornado picked it up. We spun and flew for about fifteen seconds then it dropped us and the air bags popped. We were upside down… I screamed for my sister. But we were alive, thank God. People pulled us out. Our legs and shoulders hurt but we’re all right…but other folks-” The woman stared at the sky like she no longer trusted it. “Others weren’t so lucky.”

Kate steeled herself, offered words of empathy, moved on and talked to more survivors. All the while her deadline was ticking down. She needed to find the Saddle Up Center, get official comment from the scene, write up what she had and find a way to get her story to the bureau.

Everywhere people were calling for help.

Rescuers worked to pull people out of the rubble. They used their hands, pipes, pieces of wood, whatever they could as emergency radios blared. The air smelled of churned earth, fresh-cut lumber and desperation.

Helicopters thumped far off overhead, paramedics moved out the injured on gurneys, others used doors or sheets of plywood as makeshift stretchers while volunteers held IV bags.

Kate saw several firefighters huddled at a table, talking on radios, poring over rolled-out maps. She identified herself and asked for a status report from the most senior member of the group, Station 9 Captain Vern Hamby.

“We don’t have a lot to report right now.”

“Can you give me what you know, please, Captain?”

His weary face creased with experience and concern when he yielded and gave Kate an on-the-record summary.

“We’ve got a significant number of casualties. The dead could be in the hundreds, or higher.”

Kate wrote as he spoke.

“We’ve been told it was an EF5 tornado. That’s the strongest on the scale, with winds in the 260 to 300 miles per hour range. On a day like today, there might be upward of three thousand visitors to the market. The grounds offer little shelter.”

Kate absorbed the information.

“Our priority is to rescue people in the rubble,” the captain said. “We’ve got spot fires from ruptured gas lines, blown transformers. It’s treacherous. We’ve got apparatus coming in from all over the region. We’re setting up triage units, shelters, missing-persons centers and morgues, some on-site. See the flags? Others will be near schools and community halls. We’ve got reports that a number of tornadoes touched down in the Metroplex, across Texas and in other states.”

Hamby’s radio burst with cross talk. He had to go. Kate walked with him, posing her last questions.

“The Xs on the vehicles?” She nodded to a van with X3 sprayed on the side. “It means you looked at them, right?”

“An X means no one inside, an X with a number, tells you how many confirmed dead inside and that you should move on to help those you can help.”

Kate cast a sad glance at the van. A hand was protruding from a door frame.

“Which way to the Saddle Up Center?” she asked.

“The Saddle Up?” Hamby shook his head slowly. “A lot of casualties there.” He spoke into his radio’s shoulder microphone. After a static-filled response, the captain stopped and pointed Kate’s attention to a distant landmark. “See that car that looks like it’s standing on its rear bumper against that pole down there, like a rocket ready to launch?”

Kate nodded.

“It’s way down there.”

Making her way to the center took time.

Kate stepped slowly through the remains of a destroyed building, taking care because pink insulation hid the jagged sections of the broken wooden walls. Midway, a hand seized her ankle.

“Help me!”

Kate had almost stepped on a woman entangled in the ruins. Dirt and glass fragments were embedded in the woman’s face. Kate got her free and into a sitting position. The woman was holding a cloth to the blood oozing from her leg.

“Let me have a look.” Kate lifted the blood-drenched rag.

The woman’s lower left calf had a twelve-inch gash to the bone. The woman was losing blood. Kate’s first aid was rusty, but she knew they had to clean that wound and get pressure on it to stem the bleeding. She pressed the woman’s hand back on the cloth.

“Hold it down firm.”

Kate looked around, called for paramedics, for firefighters, but none were near. Nothing that looked clean, no fabric, nothing was at hand. Kate removed her shirt’s belt, then cut the bottom of her shirt against a broken window and tore long strips from it. She used her shirt to treat the wound then wrapped the clean strips around it and used her belt for pressure.

“Please don’t leave me,” the woman said.

Kate took her hand and sat with her while calling for help.

“I was in the office,” the woman said. “Everything outside went black. The whole office twisted off the ground, the windows exploded, the walls started wobbling like rubber. I was hurled around like a doll in a blender. The desk, the chair, smashed into me. Broken glass flew like bullets. I was going to die.” Tears were streaming down the woman’s face. “Bless you for helping me.”

Kate consoled her until paramedics arrived.

As Kate continued to the Saddle Up Center she spotted a satellite truck for WFGG-TV News, reminding her that she needed to get a story to Chuck at the bureau.

I need to file now, before I get to the center .

She sat near two crushed cars with Xs, paged through her notes and began writing on her cell phone. She had the story structured in her head and her fingers moved fast. The screen smeared with blood as she typed, finishing at the five-hundred word mark.

There’s no cell service. How will I get this to the bureau?

The answer was in the distance.

She hurried to the WFGG-TV satellite truck with its dish extended on the pole above. Satellite phones didn’t need cell phone networks, they worked anywhere. No one was around. She pounded on the doors. A man in his mid-twenties with a stubbled face opened a side door. Jaw clenched, he stared at Kate.

“What is it?”

“I’m Kate Page, a reporter with Newslead.”

“Yeah, so? I’m busy.”

“What’s your name?”

“Fitch, but I’m busy.”

She saw the array of small monitors, computers and equipment.

“You guys have a satellite phone, right, Fitch?”

“We’ve got satellite everything.”

“There’s no cell service. I need your help now. I need you to take a file off my phone and send it to my desk over your sat system.”

“Sorry, I’m busy.”

“Fitch, please, I’ll give you twenty bucks.”

He looked at her, considered the deal.

“Thirty.”

“Come on, where’s the professional camaraderie?”

“Thirty.”

“Okay, thirty. Deal.”

“Let me see your phone.”

Kate gave it to him. He examined the ports.

“I should have a transfer cable for that. What is it you need to move?”

Kate took the phone, showed him her file named “Storm-1”.

“Just text?” He turned to his workstation, rummaged through a box of wires and adapters, fished out a cable, connected one end to Kate’s phone, the other to a laptop.