own office?" He was especially angry about that.
The eleven o'clock news featured the same exact reports. That's when I got a call from Joey. He said, "I heard that a whole home ec class got buried alive in Portable 18. They're just not telling us."
"No way. Who told you that?"
"Cara."
"She's hysterical."
"Yeah. You're right. She is. I gotta go." And he hung up.
I gotta go, too. I'm wiped out. But I feel good about today.
I faced down danger today, maybe even death. When disaster struck, we all had to do something. In a way, we all had to become someone. I'm not saying I was a hero. All I did was slide around in the mud and try to pull people up. But I didn't panic and run, either.
I'm still afraid of Erik. I'm afraid of Arthur now, too. But today I wasn't a coward, and that counts for something.
Tuesday, September 12
The
Tangerine Times
printed a special pullout section on the Lake Windsor Middle School sinkhole. The photos were spectacular. They had one huge shot of the splintered walkways sticking up in all directions, like Godzilla had just trampled through there.
The newspaper ran a letter from Mrs. Gates to the parents of all seventh and eighth graders. We're all supposed to attend a special disaster meeting on Friday night at seven-thirty in the high school gymnasium. The letter said that "state and county officials are planning to attend," and that "they are currently working out an emergency relocation plan that will be presented at this meeting."
I'll bet they are. Think about it: There are 25 portables that are completely trashed, completely out of commission. Let's say there are 25 kids assigned to each of those portables. And each kid has 7 class periods a day. That's 625 kids and 175 class periods to relocate. Awesome.
I was shocked to read that the sixth graders are supposed to return to school on Thursday. Thursday! The main building of the middle school and all the buildings of the high school have been certified as "structurally safe" by a team of engineers hastily assembled by Old Charley Burns. It turns out that Old Charley was in Daytona, but now he's back. And he is "taking personal charge of the case." (I'm sure that's fine with Dad, who wants nothing to do with the case, or with Old Charley.)
The field of portables, of course, has been certified as a disaster area. The engineers condemned everything "within a hundred-yard radius of the focal point of the sinkhole," which was right under Portable 19. The condemned area includes all of the portables, of course. But to the south it also includes a corner of the soccer field and all of the baseball diamond. To the north it includes nearly all of the high school football bleachers that back up onto the middle school.
There's extra land to the south, so the soccer field can be moved. But what about those steel-frame, thirty-row-high, hundred-yard-long high school bleachers? They're not moving anywhere. They're condemned. Period. The football stadium has just lost half of its seating capacity. And Erik Fisher, the soon-to-be-famous placekicker, has just lost half of his audience.
Thursday, September 14
Dad is the new Director of Civil Engineering for Tangerine County.
It happened quickly. Channel 2 ran an
Eyewitness News
special report about Old Charley Burns last night at 6:00 P.M. Dad had Old Charley's job by noon today.
The
Eyewitness News
team really kicked butt. It turns out that in the ten-year, multi-million-dollar building boom on the west side of Tangerine County, Old Charley's department never denied
one
request for a permit. They never sent out one inspector, either. They let the developers hire their own inspectors and even fill out their own inspection reports. They let the developers conduct their own geological surveys, too—including the missing one for the Lake Windsor campus. And they maintained "the most relaxed building code in all of Florida for construction methods and materials."
So what has Old Charley been
The eleven o'clock news featured the same exact reports. That's when I got a call from Joey. He said, "I heard that a whole home ec class got buried alive in Portable 18. They're just not telling us."
"No way. Who told you that?"
"Cara."
"She's hysterical."
"Yeah. You're right. She is. I gotta go." And he hung up.
I gotta go, too. I'm wiped out. But I feel good about today.
I faced down danger today, maybe even death. When disaster struck, we all had to do something. In a way, we all had to become someone. I'm not saying I was a hero. All I did was slide around in the mud and try to pull people up. But I didn't panic and run, either.
I'm still afraid of Erik. I'm afraid of Arthur now, too. But today I wasn't a coward, and that counts for something.
Tuesday, September 12
The
Tangerine Times
printed a special pullout section on the Lake Windsor Middle School sinkhole. The photos were spectacular. They had one huge shot of the splintered walkways sticking up in all directions, like Godzilla had just trampled through there.
The newspaper ran a letter from Mrs. Gates to the parents of all seventh and eighth graders. We're all supposed to attend a special disaster meeting on Friday night at seven-thirty in the high school gymnasium. The letter said that "state and county officials are planning to attend," and that "they are currently working out an emergency relocation plan that will be presented at this meeting."
I'll bet they are. Think about it: There are 25 portables that are completely trashed, completely out of commission. Let's say there are 25 kids assigned to each of those portables. And each kid has 7 class periods a day. That's 625 kids and 175 class periods to relocate. Awesome.
I was shocked to read that the sixth graders are supposed to return to school on Thursday. Thursday! The main building of the middle school and all the buildings of the high school have been certified as "structurally safe" by a team of engineers hastily assembled by Old Charley Burns. It turns out that Old Charley was in Daytona, but now he's back. And he is "taking personal charge of the case." (I'm sure that's fine with Dad, who wants nothing to do with the case, or with Old Charley.)
The field of portables, of course, has been certified as a disaster area. The engineers condemned everything "within a hundred-yard radius of the focal point of the sinkhole," which was right under Portable 19. The condemned area includes all of the portables, of course. But to the south it also includes a corner of the soccer field and all of the baseball diamond. To the north it includes nearly all of the high school football bleachers that back up onto the middle school.
There's extra land to the south, so the soccer field can be moved. But what about those steel-frame, thirty-row-high, hundred-yard-long high school bleachers? They're not moving anywhere. They're condemned. Period. The football stadium has just lost half of its seating capacity. And Erik Fisher, the soon-to-be-famous placekicker, has just lost half of his audience.
Thursday, September 14
Dad is the new Director of Civil Engineering for Tangerine County.
It happened quickly. Channel 2 ran an
Eyewitness News
special report about Old Charley Burns last night at 6:00 P.M. Dad had Old Charley's job by noon today.
The
Eyewitness News
team really kicked butt. It turns out that in the ten-year, multi-million-dollar building boom on the west side of Tangerine County, Old Charley's department never denied
one
request for a permit. They never sent out one inspector, either. They let the developers hire their own inspectors and even fill out their own inspection reports. They let the developers conduct their own geological surveys, too—including the missing one for the Lake Windsor campus. And they maintained "the most relaxed building code in all of Florida for construction methods and materials."
So what has Old Charley been
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