Loosening Up Bk. 05 Ch. 05-09

Dave had several outsiders clustered in his house, too, and he got reports from most of the other homes that they were also harboring refugee friends from Flood Zones A or B, which had been declared as mandatory evacuation zones. Lisa had joined the refugee list coming to Dave's home.

Dave tried to settle down to sleep, but the howling wind was unsettling and keeping many people awake. He'd just dozed off when a very excited Cricket woke him up. "Dave. Dave. Get up. We need you."

"Huh? What's going on? The storm?"

"No. Not the storm. Nancy. She's in Ken and Patti's bed. Her water broke. She's having the baby."

Dave found Nancy sitting on the edge of the wet bed. She said, "Sorry. I promise I'll buy you a new mattress."

On the other side of the bed, Erin lay dozing. She cranked one eye open and said loudly, "My labor started, too."

Dave cursed. There was no way to get them to the hospital. The winds were too high and the fire and police in the area stopped responding to 9-1-1 calls when the winds topped fifty miles an hour. They were obviously more than that and increasing.

Dave took a deep breath. "Cricket, wake up Lisa and get her up here. Call Grace and see if she can get over here. Get Jack to help her if she feels she can't do it without help. We need nurses. See if any of guests in the other homes are medically rated – doctors, nurses, or whatever."

Alice and Julie had come to the door of the room because they could hear the commotion. Alice chimed in, "We need towels, lots of them. Tell Grace to bring all she can." The two women hurried off to gather other help and to prepare for two births in their guest room. Alice ran off to the core to bring a stack of pool towels to the delivery room.

Lisa and Grace both arrived in a hustle. Grace checked Erin as Lisa did Nancy.

Grace announced, "Five centimeters. Water broke."

Lisa said, "We're at about eight over here. Nancy you're getting near."

One or the other or both of the women were panting through various labor pains by that point. Things were moving quickly.

Grace 'assigned' Alice to help her, and Julie to work with Lisa. Dave was asked to prepare two areas in the hallway for the babies to be cleaned and prepped after birth, and also to bring up a supply of warm water and various wastebaskets, pots, and pans to catch placentas and other waste from the birth.

Dave brought up a large changing table and a few other things from the core nursery and set them up in the hallway just outside the crowded guest room. He had at least two of everything. During one pause, Lisa ran down to the kitchen and found some knives and sterilized them in lieu of having scalpels available. Scissors also got sterilized and brought to the operating room. Needles and thread were assembled and sterilized with boiling water.

Dave created trays for the nurses to use with everything on it. He found a box of surgical gloves and those got put on by all those in attendance right after everyone did a careful washing of hands under Grace's watchful eye.

Nancy moaned deeply into a labor pain. She said, "I really want to push."

Lisa said, "On the next one, really bear down. Let's see what happens."

The next pain came in what seemed a few seconds later. Nancy pushed and grunted. Lisa pushed on the baby bump, and then caught the head as it popped out of the vagina. She moved quickly and cleaned up the baby's face from the blood and fluids around it, and by then with a second push the baby girl popped into the world. Nancy cried out in pain and cried.

Dave tied off a section of the umbilical cord and then cut between the constrictions. Julie carried the baby to the hallway to clean up the new infant. The baby was squirrelly and making healthy crying and gurgling sounds at irregular intervals. While that was happening Lisa delivered the placenta, and then held constant pressure on Nancy's womb to staunch any remaining bleeding.

Lisa said, "I never heard the final names for our new arrivals."

Nancy said in a wan tone, "Sarah Lynn Mason." She cried as Julie brought the baby back to her cleaned up, diapered, and wrapped in a light blanket. "Oh, God, she's beautiful!" Tears rolled down Nancy's face. "Oh, I love her so. She's so special. Thank you David. Thank you Universe."

A loud moan from the other side of the king bed alerted those focused on Nancy that another birth was taking place. Grace said softly, "Erin, you're fully ready now. Please push with all your might on the next pain."

Erin duplicated what Nancy had done only minutes earlier, and delivered a tiny boy with no complications. Grace and Lisa looked relieved.

Lisa asked, "The bleeding stop?"

Grace checked, "Yes, I think so. We're good."

Alice brought the baby back to Erin, who also held the swaddled child to her bare breast.

Grace asked, "And the name of this fine lad?"

"Joshua Allen Steckler."

No one was asleep in the house. Everybody knew about the births taking place in the guest room. A few women had ventured upstairs from the crowded living room to check on the progress by peeking into the delivery room. As things quieted down, they went and viewed the two women and their new babies and then made space for others to visit for a minute.

Dave and Cricket had watched everything from a corner of the room. Cricket whispered to him, "Some day I want to have your child, but don't worry; not anytime soon." She kissed him tenderly and they went back to watching.

Because the master bedroom was close, Dave and Cricket gave up their space on the big bed to Grace and Lisa so that they could stay close to the new mothers in case there were any lurking problems.

Dave went back into the core and retrieved another futon from one of the chaises and brought it to the house. He laid it out in the kitchen, and he and Cricket lay down and tried to get some sleep. Sleep was unlikely; the storm was howling all around the Circle.

While all the birthing had been going on the velocity of the wind had risen and risen. Dave guessed that winds were over a hundred miles an hour at that point. It was three a.m.

Occasionally, something would hit the house and make a loud clunk or smashing sound. Trees near the home were constantly bumping and rubbing against the side of the house, making strange noises. He was sure he heard several crunches and metal sounds from the carport area that didn't sound good.

Dave got up at six a.m. and turned on the small television in the breakfast area of the house at low volume. One local channel was off the air. The Tampa channel was reporting maximum sustained winds at Sarasota airport of two hundred miles an hour, a new record not only for Sarasota but for the state and possibly the nation. The gusts were higher.

Dave looked out the kitchen window as dawn broke. The rain was horizontal and winds howling. He realized the rain was being blown into the south side of the house and coming up the drain vents in the windows. He got a few of the still available towels to soak up the leaky mess on the window sills.

The cars had been blown into each other and were clustered up against Grace and Jack's home and their cars. Had they been in the open Dave was certain they would have blown away. He wondered how other vehicles around the Circle had fared.

Dave could see many of the perimeter trees had blown over, including all the new plantings around Circle Drive. In the distance, towards the gate, he could see other trees down.

The television reported that most of the state was without power from Key West to north of Tampa, and more damage was expected as the storm continued to trek north.

Dave went upstairs. Nancy was awake and cuddling Sarah. Erin was also awake with Joshua in her arms. They were both partly sitting against a pile of pillows.

Dave asked, "Everybody all right?"

"Doing great so far," Nancy said. "You listen to the storm report?"

Dave nodded. "The state is destroyed from Key West to north of Tampa with more coming. Inland is a disaster at least to the spine of the state. Coastal flooding and storm surge are happening as we speak and coincident with high tide. Downtown is flooded with several feet of water. Wind peaked at SRQ at two hundred. Storm is moving faster now – thirty miles an hour. We'll be through the worst of it here by noon."

"How'd the Circle hold up?" Erin asked.

"Can't tell. Our cars are smashed together between our house and the Anders. They'll be drivable, but dented from what I can see. We lost a lot of landscaping. Christian Grey Road is blocked; I can see trees down across it from here. We're without power, but on generators."

Bobbie appeared at the door. "Do you want me to see if I can do some kind of breakfast in the core?"

Dave turned. "Let me go with you and see how we fared outside the doors of this home. The winds are still very high."

Dave looked out the second story windows around the house, but the other homes looked intact and secure. He noted a couple of solar panels missing here and there. The pool was overflowing. Part of the gazebo had blown in.

Dave slipped on shoes, shorts, and a fresh t-shirt, and joined Bobbie. They very tentatively opened the back door to the enclosed corridor going to the core. Things were quiet and there was no explosion of wind.

Dave said, "That's a very good sign; at least the corridor remained secure."

The couple walked to the core. Everything was tight, but water had leaked in around a couple of the doors making the carpeting in the living room very soggy. The kitchen seemed secure, but the wind was howling through the vents for the exhaust fans.

Bobbie said, "I'm glad we have gas. I can cook something."

"Keep it real simple. Remember, we're going to be marooned here for about a week, at least. So keep the portions small. What's that old saying about trim your lamps?"

Bobbie laughed but with a worried tone said, "Trust in God and keep your powder dry. We'll live to fight another day. I'll keep it simple."

Dave worked with Bobbie until they had a small mountain of scrambled eggs, sausage patties, concentrated juice, and toast. Cricket and Julie showed up and helped, too.

Dave tried calling Mike and Clarisse's home on the landline, but the phone service was out of service and the line dead. A bad sign. He tried cellular service but that was out, too. A very bad sign.

Cricket ran around in the circular corridor and went to several homes to inform them that a breakfast was available. Despite the continuation of the winds people started to cautiously come into the core. The winds were shifting and Dave was sure they were lessening.

Cricket took two plates of food to Dave's home for the new mothers. She alerted the others that food was available and that the core seemed safe.

Bobbie estimated that she served eighty that morning. The normal Circle was about fifty. Even at that, not everybody that was in residence came to breakfast. Bobbie came up to Dave after everyone had left to go back to their homes or the homes they were camped out in until they could leave and assess the damage to their own homes.

Bobbie said, "If we have to keep feeding eighty people our food stocks will last less than two weeks. I had twenty-one days stashed, but we nicked into it this morning."

"Let's hope we don't have to resort to cannibalism," Dave jested. "We'll eat our visitors first."

"Ha. Ha," Bobbie said sarcastically. "I guess things will turn out the way they turn out."

Throughout the day the winds died down, the rain would stop and start at random intervals, and in mid-afternoon the sun started to break out between the bands swirling around the eye of the hurricane. At four o'clock Marco made landfall again just south of Tallahassee and made a beeline for Atlanta. The only good news was that the wind speeds dropped to tropical storm levels.

Despite the brisk winds in the afternoon, Ty, Dave, Dev, and Jack walked around outside in rain gear to assess the damage. Nearly every automobile had suffered damage, often from being blown into a home or other vehicles. Three cars had blown off Circle Drive and rolled down the slope towards the airport; two of those were upside down. Cricket's little VW Beetle had blown into the shrubbery in front of Dave's home.

Four homes lost their carports. The missing parts were completely gone. The carport or sunshade at the Townhouse had separated from its posts and plastered itself again the front of building, blocking entry to four of the eight units. The airplane hangar had escaped damage. Townhouse 2 had suffered some structural damage at one end of the building, but nothing too serious.

When the men reached the front gate they looked down Christian Grey Road. There was a tree down every couple of hundred feet as far as they could see before the road curved and their view was blocked. One nearby home was missing part of its roof. On another, the shingles had been stripped off the roof. On another, the siding had been ripped off and the windows were gone. Broken glass seemed to be the norm.

Jack kept muttering, "The Miami-Dade spec saved us. These are all older homes. They suffered not having been updated."

The men walked out the back gate and found the homes, trees, and road in similar condition. Several trees had crushed parts of the homes or cars.

Ty said, "What now?"

Dave said, "I think we form two work teams and try to open up the roads. I'd aim for Grey Road first because it's a shorter distance to a state numbered road. The city, county, and state will want to keep that road open for emergency vehicles, if they're even running. When we can travel that'll be our preferred exit path."

The men went back and reported to those gathered in the core. Ty led the informal meeting.

Dave grabbed all the able-bodied men and divided them into three teams since there were twenty-seven. One team of nine was to work on pulling the vehicles apart from where they'd blown and up righting the destroyed cars that had blown down the slope.

The other two teams went to attack the trees on Grey Road, each team taking a tree, a chain saw, and setting out to clear the road. As they were working a couple of residents of the homes on the street joined them. Two of those residents had chain saws that helped speed up the clearing process.

Some of the women went from house to house to be sure there were no injured survivors of the storm. Most of the homes had been empty.

As darkness set in, the tree teams had cleared about a half-mile down Grey Road with another half-mile to go. The cars had been moved, and most were still in working order despite the dents and proliferation of broken glass.

Everyone had expected it earlier, but it happened about nine o'clock the evening of Marco's departure. Everyone was sitting at the long makeshift tables that had been arranged in the core living room having dinner. The exclamation was hard to miss because the woman loudly blurted it out during a lull in the conversations.

"Oh, my God. I know you. You're Scarlett Johansson!"

To make matters worse, the woman was pointing directly at Scarlett where she sat between Dave and Cricket. Her hair was pulled back in a short ponytail, and she was wearing one of Dave's old t-shirts, shorts, and no shoes.

Scarlett smiled and waved at the woman. "Hello. Nice to meet you, too." She tried to sound pleasant, but her voice was strained.

The woman was sputtering. "But ... but ... but ... I ... You ... You're ..."

Cricket got up and went over to the woman to explain the etiquette of shutting up to her.

Dave stood and commanded the attention of the group, not so much the Circle but the refugees that had come to stay in safe quarters. "Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. Yes, our friend is Scarlett Johansson, and she is here on a short holiday with us that turned a little exciting over the past day. We ask that you not 'go public' with your discovery and that you honor the right of another to have a peaceful vacation with her friends."

The woman who had made the discovery asked, "And you all knew?"

Dave said, "Those of us that live here know her well."

A man at another table stated loudly, "I recognized her but kept my yap shut. I recognized Owen Bennett, too; but these people are in their homes with their invited guests and we should respect their privacy. We who came in here yesterday are the invaders. Let's show some respect for these friends that have helped us, fed us, and protected us."

Dave said loudly, "Thank you and thank those of you on the work teams for helping us break out of here. Ty will report on what we've picked off the media."

Ty stood, "As you know our local TV channel is off the air. The Tampa channels report that every county in the western part of the state and along the west coast has been declared a disaster zone. The president has declared Florida, Georgia, and Alabama disaster zones. The storm has slowed to a crawl and is dumping huge volumes of water on Georgia and North Carolina, in a few places at the rate of rainfall is four inches an hour. The Florida governor has banned all but essential vehicles from the roads. 9-1-1 service is in shambles across the state. Power is out everywhere. The airports along the Gulf Coast are closed with no idea when they'll reopen.

"In Sarasota, there was severe flooding all along the bayfront throughout the county. Parts of the downtown area were under six feet of water or more. The barrier islands took severe hits from wind and the storm surge. Parts of the island were totally destroyed including several high-rise condominiums. If there is a death toll, no one has any idea what it is. One Tampa TV station estimated that at least twenty thousand people lost their homes and are now displaced, and that's just for Sarasota County. They also said that ANY home that was on the waterfront suffered significant damage if not destruction."

Several men and women in the audience started to cry. The mood was very somber.

One man asked, "When will we be able to get home?"

Ty shrugged. "I don't know how they'll treat people trying to get back to their homes given the travel ban. They didn't say on the radio."

Just after Ty sat down, Cindy, Sharon, Jake, Phil, Murph, and Ron trekked into the room looking haggard and exhausted."

Dave motioned them over and they sat awkwardly between some of the others at the already crowded table. Bobbie got them food. They hadn't eaten all day.

Ron said, "We walked here from the university area. The place is destroyed – windows blown out everywhere, trees down, roofs blown off here and there. Even the bell tower blew over. I think a number of people were hurt because there were ambulances and police all over the place."

"You walked here? That's seven miles," Joan said.

"It took us all afternoon. There's debris everywhere. We couldn't drive because of the travel ban plus both Jake and Ron's cars were destroyed by huge tree limbs falling on them."

Cindy said, "We were hoping to stay here. There's nothing open and no food anyplace yet."

Dave hugged the young woman to him, "Of course. You belong here."

The Circle work crews started at six a.m. the next morning working on Grey Road, and a team trying to clear away the metal roof from the carport in front of Townhouse 1. The teams had accomplished their goals by noon.

Six of the visiting couples took their damaged cars and started to drive away with the intent of getting to their homes to assess the damage. None returned by four o'clock so a few more left. Two of the latter came back with ashen looks on their places; their homes had been destroyed and they asked for temporary sanctuary while they made more permanent arrangements. Others also left and gradually the ranks thinned to the normal Circle members and only a few regular guests.