EARTHQUAKE - Chapter 6

Early Monday morning several charter passenger aircraft were loaded with all the people in the shelter except for the group from Baker’s. A National Guard unit landed in several transport planes. They unloaded military versions of ambulances and also some Humvees. Several State policemen were flown in on a helicopter.

Karl said to the other men,

“Fellows, we are about to witness a Chinese fire drill! Mr. Henry has been in charge so far. He is the head of the Mississippi County Office of Emergency Management. Here comes the National Guard called to active duty by the Governor. Here also comes the State Police. Now these guys have had seminars with drills and mock disasters about how to play nice with one another. These next couple days we aren’t going to know who is in charge and each of them is going to be sure that they know who is in charge.”

Jack Raymond went to Mr. Henry.

“Mr. Henry, we are ready to go out. Where is the rescue team?”

“I don’t know. Let me go see what I can find out.”

When he came back he said,

“Evidently they were evacuated with the rest of the people in the shelter. The National Guard has rescue teams that are going to accompany you.”

In a few minutes four soldiers in two Humvees came toward us. I pulled out a map of the city. A sergeant approached me.

“Show me what you need for me to do.”

“Here on the map marked in red crayon are the streets that we have opened and the rescue teams have searched. I suggest that we start here and clear this street. There are some office buildings along the way, some houses, some stores, and at the end there is a factory. As we open the street, you and your men look into each house and building for anyone who is still alive. You will need shovels and picks. Our men have shovels and picks, but they go ahead of the heavy equipment to make sure that we don’t move debris or a vehicle where there is a person trapped in it.”

“Gotcha”

Jack Raymond’s group of men moved their equipment and trucks to Jefferson Street with the two Humvees following us. They began the slow process of opening the street. On this street there were more vehicles that had just been abandoned in the middle of the street. Most of them were empty. Some of them contained dead bodies. They found one in which there were a woman and two children still alive. They had been going home from the grocery store. There were milk, crackers, juice, and cookies that they ate. Debris had trapped them inside the car.

“SERGEANT.”

“Yeah.”

“There are three survivors in this car.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Call the dispatcher and tell him to send an ambulance”

He ambled over to the Humvee and fiddled around with the radio.

“The radio won’t work.”

“Then get behind the wheel and drive back to headquarters and tell them verbally to send an ambulance.”

“You can’t give orders to me. You’re a civilian.”

Karl called for Jack to come over.

“Jack, take my truck and drive back to the command center. Tell them we found three survivors and need an ambulance. Tell them that the sergeant’s radio doesn’t work so we have no means of communication and that the sergeant refused to drive back and tell them that we need an ambulance. Do you see what I meant about a Chinese fire drill?”

Jack ran back to Karl’s truck. When he came back he had a walkie talkie from Mr. Henry. It was another fifteen or twenty minutes before the ambulance showed up. Karl approached the first person who got out of the ambulance, an attractive Latina with lieutenant’s bars on her fatigues.

“Lieutenant, our instructions, up to now, have been to call for an ambulance whenever we find survivors. There is a woman and her two children trapped in that car. We can free them, but we needed medical personnel to examine them and take them to the shelter or to the airport for evacuation.”

“Thank you. You did exactly right.”

“Then would you please communicate this to that sergeant and his men. They came out to do search and rescue without shovels and with a broken radio. When I told him to drive back to the center and tell them to send an ambulance, he wouldn’t do it.”

“I’ll see to it that his commander gives all the men a refresher on disaster work.”

After they freed the woman and her children and they had been taken to the ambulance, Karl motioned to Shorty, who was operating the front-end loader, to push the car out of the way. He rolled the car over until it was on what had been the sidewalk. They shoved and rolled a half dozen other cars and pickup trucks out of the way. Then they came to a tall pile of rubble from a fallen building. They worked nearly an hour getting it hauled off, and shoved off the street onto the grass on the opposite side of the street. There were only buildings and houses on one side of the street at that point. During this time Karl looked to see what the soldiers were doing. They didn’t seem to be doing much searching and they hadn’t rescued so much as a dog! He was getting angry. They were all sweating and the soldiers were taking a smoke break.

When the huge pile of rubble was moved and the street opened, they came to a grocery store. There didn’t seem to be much damage to the store except the front plate glass window was lying in jagged pieces on the sidewalk. Just inside, Jack and Karl saw a man, probably in his fifties, maybe the grocer, holding his chest.

“Mister, are you hurt?”

“I think that I had a heart attack yesterday and I think that I am having another one now.”

Karl said, “I have some aspirins in my truck. We'll call for an ambulance on the walkie talkie. 

"Tell them it is an emergency. I’ll give him the aspirins and some water.”

Karl got angry all over again. “If those National Guardsmen had continued their search on foot instead of watching us clear away the mound of rubble, they would have found this man over an hour ago and he would already be receiving medical care.”  

When the ambulance arrived, they let the medical team take over. He was sure to tell the nurse that he had given the man two aspirins. They continued clearing the street and in another hour they reached the factory. There was a crowd of men outside the factory entrance. The factory building appeared to be undamaged. There must have been four dozen men at least. None of them appeared to have any injuries.

Jack Raymond got on the walkie talkie and reported that there were about fifty men at the factory at the end of Jefferson Street. He reported that none of them appeared to have any injuries.

Karl asked one of the men,

“Why did you all stay here. Why didn’t you go out into the town and see if you could help in the rescue efforts?”

“We figured that was someone else’s job. You can really get hurt if you don’t know what you are doing.”

Just then several men came running into the factory parking lot from the direction of town. One of them gave a thumbs up sign and yelled, “Wait until you see what we found!” When they saw our vehicles, they hushed. Karl could see several jeweled necklaces in one of the men’s hands. That was the reason they had hung around the factory. Some of them were going out on looting expeditions.

Karl climbed up in the cab of the dozer and pointed it in the direction of the center. When he got back he was going to look for one of the State Police.

He also reported what he saw to Mr. Henry.

“Karl, it is sad to say, but one of the constants in every disaster is that gangs arise to take advantage of the breakdown in law enforcement. There are probably dozens of thugs going through the town pillaging jewelry stores, liquor stores, and pharmacies. What will they do with it?”

On Tuesday morning Mr. Henry told them that this would be the last day for search and rescue. Without another word, Karl walked over to one of the National Guard officers.

“Sir, could I have a word with you?”

“Certainly.”

“I have been working here since shortly after the quake. The first three days there were firemen and EMTs doing the search and rescue work. They worked alongside of us and we found people in the ruined houses and buildings. Yesterday, we found four survivors. Our job is supposed to be clearing the streets so ambulances and search and rescue vehicles can get through. The National Guardsmen who were supposed to be working where we cleared a way, were not doing anything. They didn’t even take picks and shovels with them even though I told them they would need them. They had no motivation to find anyone who might still be alive.

“Today is the last day for search and rescue. Would you please find some Guardsmen with motivation to accompany us today?”

“What is your name?”

“Karl Cusak.”

“I am Major Fromme. Mr. Cusak, I understand what you are saying. I thank you for the sacrifice and dedication of your work these last four days. I will personally see to it that the best men we have accompany you today.”

Jack Raymond and his crew started down the last main street that was still impassable. It was undoubtedly the hardest one they had tackled but by then they had four days experience behind them.

Major Fromme was as good as his word. The men he sent worked hard and took no breaks. Their hard work produced results. They found a house with four children ages eight through thirteen. The thirteen year old was a girl who was their babysitter. Friday had been the first day of school vacation and the first day of her summer job as babysitter. The house had collapsed to one side. What remained tilted crazily to the ruined side. They were in the kitchen. The floor sloped about 30 degrees. Somehow, she had kept them alive. When the four soldiers lifted the children out of the ruined house and carried them to the street, they all broke down in tears. Their hard work had meaning.

After the children were picked up by the ambulance, they continued their search with renewed zeal. Six blocks further on, they came to an old couple. Their house was not badly damaged. They were waiting by the doorway. The old man was in a wheelchair. The woman said,

“We’ve been waiting every day for someone to help us. Men have run by our house every day, but none of them stopped to help us.”

The Guardsmen called for the ambulance again. Before the day was over they had found and rescued two other people in two other houses. Both of them had major injuries. The soldiers took serious chances in rescuing them from shattered houses.

At the end of the day Mr. Henry called Jack Raymond’s crew together.

“As you know, this was the last day for search and rescue. Tomorrow I am sending all of you to Little Rock on the plane. Karl, I bummed a tool box off the National Guard so that you can take your tools with you. If any of the rest of you have tools, you can take them with you. You will go to a shelter. I guess there will be someone there to help you find a job. I know they will give you money cards to buy some clothes and toiletries. I won’t try to guess. You’ll find out more when you get there. Be sure to keep the Red Cross informed about your whereabouts. That is your only way of eventually finding your families.”

He gave us all a big hug and a handshake.