left behind. “If it might break down and cause traffic delays, don’t drive it.” He asked that families stay together in one car rather than add to the number of vehicles on the road. He encouraged the use of motorcycles and bicycles, as they could cruise along shoulders and on sidewalks. And he instructed people to leave coat hangers on the front doors of their homes so police officers driving by would know they had been fully vacated.
Not surprisingly, some people seemed to lose their get-moving-now rationality in their panic. One middle-aged woman in Loveladies wouldn’t leave until she’d picked out just the right outfit. A retired man in North Beach didn’t bother telling his sleeping wife about the emergency until he’d loaded his beer-can collection into the back of his pickup truck. In Spray Beach, a nineteen-year-old high school dropout who had already told his mother he’d left the house was in fact trying to find a suitable hiding place in his rusted ’89 Cutlass for the marijuana crop he’d so lovingly cultured in their old shed for the last six months. And in High Bar Harbor—one of the highest-risk areas due to its distance from the bridge—a thirty-something couple who had already been on the verge of divorce wasted almost ten precious minutes arguing over whose car would be left behind: his Jaguar or her BMW. In the end they left separately.
Most business owners were willing to leave their wares behind, but many found the time to take copies of their insurance policies. Some had no insurance. One man who had invested almost ninety thousand dollars in a video-rental shop in Brighton Beach a few months earlier called one insurance company after another in the hopes of getting a quick policy together. He had no luck, and when he finally jumped into his car he was crying like a baby.
News of the oncoming disaster spread first through the rest of the Garden State, then throughout the northeast corridor, and finally across the nation.
America watched and waited.
Karen let the phone ring at least a dozen times. It was about ten more than necessary—Nancy picked up right away when she was home. Karen couldn’t leave a message, either, because they didn’t have an answering machine. Neither Bud nor Nancy cared for them.
She was certain that if they had left LBI they would have called her first. Where could they be?
Next, she tried to call Mike on his cell phone, knowing how early it was on the West Coast. When she got an “unavailable” message, she hung up, frustrated.
She grabbed her keys and her bag and got up. Then she paused for a moment, wondering if she should take along all the framed photos, too.
“Will the water reach where we are?” she asked no one in particular. Only Scott Tarrance, Myra, and a forty-something divorcee named Alice who’d been with the firm just a few weeks remained. Karen hadn’t even noticed the departure of the others.
“Not the wave,” Scott said. “But there could be some flooding.”
She nodded and, without further reflection, began to load her personal items into the bag. There wasn’t much beyond the pictures, and there was no time to take them out of the frames.
She froze as her gaze fell on one photo in particular—a formal posed shot of Patrick and Michael that had been taken on the observation deck behind the James J. Mancini Municipal Building. The boys were wearing identical outfits—navy blue cotton slacks, white button-down shirts, dark shoes. Patrick also had a white sweater with a navy stripe around the collar. He looked like a real Ivy-Leaguer. His hair was a little too puffy on one side and mussed up in that way it always was. But he obviously didn’t care. He and his brother were smiling in the bright, happy way some children do when they’re being photographed.
The delicate innocence captured in that image combined with the crawling reality that they might not survive fell on her like a pallet of bricks. The tears came so
Not surprisingly, some people seemed to lose their get-moving-now rationality in their panic. One middle-aged woman in Loveladies wouldn’t leave until she’d picked out just the right outfit. A retired man in North Beach didn’t bother telling his sleeping wife about the emergency until he’d loaded his beer-can collection into the back of his pickup truck. In Spray Beach, a nineteen-year-old high school dropout who had already told his mother he’d left the house was in fact trying to find a suitable hiding place in his rusted ’89 Cutlass for the marijuana crop he’d so lovingly cultured in their old shed for the last six months. And in High Bar Harbor—one of the highest-risk areas due to its distance from the bridge—a thirty-something couple who had already been on the verge of divorce wasted almost ten precious minutes arguing over whose car would be left behind: his Jaguar or her BMW. In the end they left separately.
Most business owners were willing to leave their wares behind, but many found the time to take copies of their insurance policies. Some had no insurance. One man who had invested almost ninety thousand dollars in a video-rental shop in Brighton Beach a few months earlier called one insurance company after another in the hopes of getting a quick policy together. He had no luck, and when he finally jumped into his car he was crying like a baby.
News of the oncoming disaster spread first through the rest of the Garden State, then throughout the northeast corridor, and finally across the nation.
America watched and waited.
Karen let the phone ring at least a dozen times. It was about ten more than necessary—Nancy picked up right away when she was home. Karen couldn’t leave a message, either, because they didn’t have an answering machine. Neither Bud nor Nancy cared for them.
She was certain that if they had left LBI they would have called her first. Where could they be?
Next, she tried to call Mike on his cell phone, knowing how early it was on the West Coast. When she got an “unavailable” message, she hung up, frustrated.
She grabbed her keys and her bag and got up. Then she paused for a moment, wondering if she should take along all the framed photos, too.
“Will the water reach where we are?” she asked no one in particular. Only Scott Tarrance, Myra, and a forty-something divorcee named Alice who’d been with the firm just a few weeks remained. Karen hadn’t even noticed the departure of the others.
“Not the wave,” Scott said. “But there could be some flooding.”
She nodded and, without further reflection, began to load her personal items into the bag. There wasn’t much beyond the pictures, and there was no time to take them out of the frames.
She froze as her gaze fell on one photo in particular—a formal posed shot of Patrick and Michael that had been taken on the observation deck behind the James J. Mancini Municipal Building. The boys were wearing identical outfits—navy blue cotton slacks, white button-down shirts, dark shoes. Patrick also had a white sweater with a navy stripe around the collar. He looked like a real Ivy-Leaguer. His hair was a little too puffy on one side and mussed up in that way it always was. But he obviously didn’t care. He and his brother were smiling in the bright, happy way some children do when they’re being photographed.
The delicate innocence captured in that image combined with the crawling reality that they might not survive fell on her like a pallet of bricks. The tears came so
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