At the Ready

“Community Emergency Plan—Public Meeting.” The announcement was across the bottom of the first page of The Tidal Times. “Bring your suggestions on Friday night to the community hall.”

The meeting was the idea of Annabelle Bell-Atkinson, lately returned from a vacation to Florida where an expected tropical storm had turned into an unexpected hurricane, sending thousands running for cover and Annabelle heading home.

Beside Annabelle on the stage was wildly unpopular MLA Jethro Wallace, who announced that due to his particular influence (“Order, please. Order!”), he had managed to arrange for the expert appearance of the second in command to the assistant of the associate deputy co-ordinator of provincial emergency services, whom he expected any moment now. “He has a Ph.D. in survival techniques.”

Annabelle recalled her own experience down south. “It was a lesson in unpreparedness for a hurricane. We should never let it happen here.”

“We don’t get hurricanes,” Evelyn Spinner said.

“Typhoon Freda, October 1962,” corrected Henry or Harvey. “Same thing. Blew Stanley Park to bits.”

“That’s my cousin’s name, Freda!” declared nurse Patsy McFee. “Coincidence, eh?”

“And if we did,” Evelyn persisted, “E & J’s B & B has more than enough rooms ready to accommodate the needy.” She winked at Jackson sitting nearby. He gave her both thumbs up.

“Earthquake, then,” Annabelle countered, becoming a bit testy. “The Big One. Lights out. No power. No water. What then?”

“The shelter!” The geeks chimed in as one.

“Oh, Christ, spare us,” Samson Spinner said, as groans echoed all about.

The geeks’ survival shelter had been under construction for the better part of a decade. The initial hole had been dug with a Caterpillar excavator that the geeks had hot-wired and borrowed one midnight from the site where the high school now stood. They had returned it before breakfast and denied any knowledge of the tractor-tread marks leading from their project to that site.

Most of the population of Spinner’s Inlet had endured a tour of the shelter at one time or another.

When the geeks had demonstrated that once you were inside, there was no way out unless you knew the code to punch in to the keypad that controlled the massive, steel-reinforced door, former community physician Dr. Timothy, a confirmed claustrophobic, had suffered a panic attack while ensuring that he was in between the geeks and the still-open door, and later needed a double Scotch to get over it.

“There’s only room for four in there,” Samson said. “Two bunk beds.”

“And only beans to eat,” added young Alun Clements.

He and Jillian had counted the endless rows of Campbell’s pork and beans on the shelves the geeks had built. The geeks had seen a case-lot sale advertised in a flyer from Nanaimo and had snagged the lot.

“Can you imagine that place closed up and whoever is in there eating all those beans?” Jillian said, and Alun broke into, “Beans, beans, the musical fruit, the more you eat the more you toot …”

“Let’s move on,” Annabelle said. “We could use this very hall, should it remain standing. We could gather here, do a head count, and see who has brought what to help us all through.”

She checked the hall clock and her wristwatch. “Our guest, the second in command to the assistant of the … thingamajiggy … seems to be running a bit late. But as I was saying, we will need …”

“Bottled water, lots of bottled water,” Gilbert Chen offered. “It’s on special this week,” he added. “At Gilbert’s Groceries.”

“We’d be looking for donations,” Annabelle breathed.

“How about toilet paper?” Jillian said. “I was just in the john here and there’s no more left after this roll gets done. Which it almost is. And it’s getting old. When I tore the last three sheets off …”

Her mother gave her the “Enough” signal.

Randolph Champion called out, “I could provide signs for the highway with arrows saying, ‘A new life this way,’ and, ‘Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses …’”

“We’re not expecting refugees,” Annabelle said. Then, “Well, not any more refugees,” with a nod to the Hanif family sitting in the front row. Ali Hanif gave Annabelle two thumbs up. Ali’s youngest child, his son, Fabian, offered a different digit signal, product of a growing affiliation with some of his peers at the elementary school. This brought a fierce glare from Annabelle and howls of laughter from the geeks, who responded to Fabian’s gesture with vigorous flourishes of their own.

Ali’s wife, Aila, having come to understand plenty of the baser elements of her new society (she had Netflix and had accidentally tuned in to an occasional rapper), missed her son’s signal, and interpreted the reciprocal responses as Annabelle and the geeks insulting her family. She rose in a snit and left, followed by a puzzled Ali, a grinning Fabian, and the Hanifs’ two daughters, Nadia and Balour, the latter blowing the geeks a loud raspberry because she felt someone should do something to defend the family’s honour, and she too was becoming familiar with local habits.

“Must have been something you said,” Samson Spinner advised Annabelle, who demanded the meeting get back to its purpose.

“Prayer sheets,” the Reverend Amber Rawlings called out. “We will need them if we are going to praise the Lord and hope for His assistance.”

“Or Hers,” Jillian murmured.

“I’m an atheist.” From the back, Erik Karlsson, great-great-nephew of the still-much-lamented Svensen.

“Bless you anyway,” Reverend Amber smiled. “There will always be room for you around our campfires, which we will surely be needing when … er, They send the Big One. We will pray and sing …”

Kiwi exchange teacher Jack Steele strummed an air guitar and broke into, “Kumbaya, my Lord …”

“Hymns.”

Most of the audience joined Jack and heartily sang the four verses down to and through “Someone’s praying, Lord …” etc.

By now the meeting had fallen apart and Annabelle announced above the noise that as it appeared that no one seemed prepared take her seriously, they might as well all go home.

Cameron Girard’s report in The Tidal Times next day said the meeting had ended on a high note but that MLA Wallace’s acclaimed Ph.D. in survival had failed to show.

This was explained to Cameron later that day with a phone call from a colleague at the Victoria Times Colonist newspaper. “The guy was at a seminar in the morning. It was titled ‘Advice to provincial government staff on dealing on-site with our outlying communities, such as Spinner’s Inlet, and their inhabitants.’ He apparently went straight home from that and phoned in sick for the rest of the day.”