Storm Runners

On TV, news anchor Richard Krupp talks to reporter Cindy in St. Petersburg, who says that the hurricane has largely missed the city and instead made landfall at Palm Breeze. Its sudden high-speed rush toward land surprised the forecasters. Richard says he’s tried to reach his wife, but the Palm Breeze phone systems are blacked out by the storm. Emergency responders report 17 fatalities so far; school and government buildings are sheltering stranded drivers. Richard insists that he should be allowed in to reach his family, but Cindy assures him that all roads into and out of the area are blocked, and no one is allowed in or out. Richard calls it “the storm of the century” (91).

After signing off, Cindy expresses to her cameraman her displeasure with the self-centered Richard. She walks over to John at his nearby 4x4. They’ve spent much of the day together. John tells her he’s unable to reach Chase by sat phone, but he knows from the school secretary that Chase departed campus on a school bus. John tells Cindy that he and Tomás will drive north, find their way in, and try to locate Chase. John invites her to come along. Though it may get her in trouble with her TV station, she accepts the invitation, as does her cameraman, Mark.

Chase, Nicole, and Rashawn yell, jump up and down, and throw rocks at the giant alligator lying across their path, but the creature doesn’t budge. Rashawn thinks the gator might be dead; if alive, a beast that big must have struggled to climb up the levee. Either way, Chase calls it “fate” because they must get around it.

Chase crawls forward and tries to step over the tail, but it whips awake and trips him. The gator turns and bites at him, but he dives over the levee and rolls down to the water’s edge, the gator right behind. Chase scrambles along the bank and then climbs quickly back up the levee, hoping the huge gator can’t keep up. He sprawls, gasping, on the road.

Nicole and Rashawn rush to him and half-drag him 50 feet down the road. Nicole calls his stunt “the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen a human do with a wild animal” (96). Chase retorts that it worked, but privately he agrees with her. Nicole feared the gator ate him, but Rashawn says an alligator first buries a body in the lake bottom and waits for the flesh to soften up before eating it. She suspects the giant alligator hunts by waiting on the road until an animal wanders past.

They check the GPS: They still have three miles of walking ahead of them.

The trio stops at a massive gash in the road, wider than any before, filled with rushing water. Behind them, by 25 feet, a breach they just crossed grows larger. Rashawn, who’s tall and a champion long jumper, offers to make the leap across the 15-foot gap and then reach back with her long arms to pull them across. Chase worries that the hurricane winds will make a running start impossible.

Rashawn removes her poncho, then arranges Chase and Nicole spread apart with their headlamps both pointing toward her landing spot. Rashawn makes the leap between them, but the wind stops her in mid-flight, and she drops into the rushing water.

As they drive north, Cindy explains to John that she was an investigative reporter, not a weathercaster, until her research into corruption in San Francisco revealed that the TV station manager and her anchor-husband were culprits. She says, “They won. I lost” (100). Now single and searching for a way back into investigative journalism, she’s wary of news anchors and thinks Richard is a jerk. John says he noticed the tension; Cindy believes Richard will try to get her fired.

She confesses that she rode along with John hoping she’ll get footage that outdoes Richard’s team and improves her chances of keeping her job. As they approach a roadblock, John suggests they not mention the news angle, as that usually gets people turned away.

Nicole and Chase dive in after Rashawn, and they are swept out into a growing lake. In the process, Chase’s shoulder is hit by tumbling asphalt, numbing his arm. He sees Nicole’s light and swims toward her. They call out “Rashawn” repeatedly. Chase decides to swim north for five minutes, then go ashore, while Nicole swims the other way. If either of them finds Rashawn or need help, they’ll click their headlamp buttons twice, which puts them in emergency mode with blinking red and white lights.

At the roadblock, John tries to talk the police officer into letting him pass, but the officer already has turned away two FEMA vehicles and countless others. The cop suggests they visit a nearby high school shelter and wait for further news. They turn around and drive away.

John gets on the satellite phone and talks to Tomás, who’s found an alternate route. He says they’ll need a chain saw.

Chase searches in circles for six minutes, then swims for shore, exhausted. He can see Nicole’s light in the distance. Suddenly Rashawn walks up and hugs him; it hurts his damaged shoulder, but he’s delighted she’s okay. She says she was pulled under and thought she’d drown but managed to get ashore and return to the breach. When she didn’t see either of them, she feared they’d been washed away.

Chase explains that they jumped to search for her. He points to Nicole’s light, which isn’t blinking but also hasn’t moved in a while. Rashawn moans that this is all her fault, but Chase says she got them all moving forward. They climb up to the road, the wind howling, and Chase switches on his headlamp’s emergency mode and holds it high, pointed toward Nicole, hoping she’ll see it and can swim back to them.

Richard and his crew step out into the hurricane and try to get some footage for an on-scene report. As the camera rolls and the windswept rain and debris hurtle past, Richard declares that of the dozen hurricanes he’s been in, this one is by far the worst. He says he must sign off to continue the trek back to his family.

It’s a short report, and they hurry back inside the dry warmth of the high school shelter, where the producer hands them fluffy towels and pastries. Richard looks at the treats: “No sugar donuts?” (116)

John drives his 4x4 truck overland, well past the roadblock, then continues north on the highway. Tomás will meet him seven miles ahead, just past a second roadblock around which John must find a path. The truck’s windshield takes some damage from a flying tree branch. John remarks, “Well, at least we’ll be past the authorities. We’ll still have to deal with Emily” (117).

Cindy asks him about his gold lightning-bolt earring. He tells her about being struck by lightning.

Squatting down against the roaring wind, Chase and Rashawn watch Nicole’s light slowly get closer. Rashawn, worried that Nicole might be too exhausted to make it to shore, wants to jump in and help, but Chase says she should wait. If both girls are too exhausted, he’ll be unable to help them all move forward.

As they follow Tomás along the road, something slams into John’s truck, and they skid hard into a tree. The airbags deploy, and everyone’s okay, but John gets a goose egg from his head hitting the inside of the truck. He tries the engine; it won’t start.

Tomás appears at the window. They emerge and transfer equipment to Tomás’s vehicle. Tomás drives; a small St Christopher statue stands guard on the dashboard.

Nicole sees Chase’s emergency light blinking and swims toward it, but the wind pushes her backward. She decides to take another approach. Onshore, Rashawn notices Nicole’s light getting closer, then disappearing, then reappearing still closer in a pattern. Chase times the disappearances at 30 seconds and the appearances, when the light bobs in place, at 10 seconds. Rashawn is right: Nicole is swimming toward them in a pattern. He admires Rashawn for keeping a cool head and working out that Nicole is making progress.

Tomás stops the truck at a downed tree, jumps out, and retrieves a chain saw. Cindy and Mark, clinging to the truck in the hurricane-force winds, begin filming what Cindy believes will become a documentary on “The Man Who Got Struck by Lightning” (124).

John’s job is to pull branches away when Tomás slices them off the tree, but the wind whips them off into the darkness, so John guards Tomás against blowing debris. John sees Cindy crawling toward them and waves her back.

As Nicole gets close, Chase and Rashawn, cheering, slide back down the levee, wade out to grab Nicole, and help her to shore. After several minutes of catching her breath, Nicole says she’s grateful Rashawn is alive. Tears flowing, Rashawn says she worried Nicole would drown trying to save her. Crying as well, Nicole takes her hand.

Nicole explains that she realized she could make progress if she swam underwater, and she made more forward motion than she lost when surfacing for air, so it worked out. Her arms feel like noodles, so the other two put her arms around their necks to help her climb the steep levee embankment. They make three tries but keep falling back. Nicole wants them to leave her there and go for help, but Rashawn massages Nicole’s legs to remove the lactic acid and help her muscles recover faster. Time is short because the levee keeps crumbling, so Chase helps Rashawn with the leg massages.

As they work their way north, John’s group chain saws through three downed trees. On a levee road, they halt at a huge gap. Cindy and Mark notice two lights moving in the distance; Mark records them. Back in the truck, they can see the lights on the video but can only speculate on their cause. Tomás begins to drive back the way they came, but John sees bus tire tracks on the road and realizes that “[t]hose lights might have been Chase” (132). Once again, he calls Chase’s phone.

The leg massage helps, and Nicole and the others finally climb up to the levee road. They continue their trek toward Nicole’s house. Chase feels his phone buzz and answers. It’s his dad, who says he saw the kids’ headlamps, and he’ll try to find a way to Nicole’s farmhouse. The phone goes dead. Chase hurts all over, and all of them are exhausted, but they lock arms and keep trudging, sometimes through ankle-deep water.

Twelve hours after they left school on the bus, the trio reach the gate to the circus compound. It’s locked, which means Nicole’s father is out looking for her. She has a key, and they enter the grounds. Near the gate is the all-terrain quad Chase and Nicole used that morning to ride down to the gate on their way to school. Chase has trouble starting it, but finally, the engine catches, and they all climb on. Leaning into the howling wind, they work their way up the long driveway.

Partway along, the wind dies away, and stars come out. They stop, and Chase says it’s the storm’s central “eye” that’s calm until it passes and the winds kick up again. Rashawn says that, in her exhaustion, she may have hallucinated a “spotted cat” running alongside her with a monkey in its mouth. Chase and Nicole realize the leopard got out. Chase guns the engine, and they drive ahead more quickly.

They reach the farmhouse, but it lies in ruins. Nicole jumps off the quad and runs toward the wreckage, calling for Momma. Chase tells her they have to find shelter from the oncoming return of the storm and the leopard. He tells her he saw a light at the circus buildings. They get on the quad and speed toward the barn, where Nicole leaps off, runs inside, and finds her grandmother safe. They hug and cry, and Momma also embraces Chase and Rashawn.

Six inches of standing water flood the room. The wind suddenly slams against the building; the pregnant elephant pulls against her chains. Chase looks at the floor: “The water was rising” (143-44).