The Katrina Files

Part VIII

CHAPTER 22

"Wake up Ronnie. Come on honey, time to wake up!" This was strange. How weird was this?! The snack machine they were sleeping next to, suddenly grew arms and was shaking him; telling him to wake up. In addition to that, the machine was peeing and there was water all over the lobby. And what was the deal with the machine calling him 'honey'. He hated to be called that, especially from old ladies. No one was allowed to call him that except his mom. The machine suddenly picked him up which led to a barrage of kicks as he tried to break free. "Ronnie, wake up!", yelled the machine, which strangely began to look like his dad. Wait a minute. It was his dad, and Mom was next to them carrying Steven. "You have to walk now",said his dad as he put him down. He couldn't understand why it was so dark. He heard a gushing sound coming from the front door, like waves crashing against a wall. He put his shoes on like his parents directed him to do and they picked up their belongings and headed for the stairs where police officers were directing them. Ronnie looked back as they were going up the stairs and it was hard to see in the dark, but it looked like the lobby was filling up with water. 'Pee?', he thought. 'No, flood water from the street', he concluded. They made their way up the stairs with the floodwater lapping at their heels. They made it to the second floor and the water seemed to still be rising. "Don't worry", reassured the desk sergeant, "we have a third floor if we have to use it". The windows could be heard breaking on the first floor. The windows on the second floor began rattling and the ceiling began to leak rainwater. The water was still rising forcing them to keep climbing the stairs until they made it to the third floor. Ron Sr. opened up his laptop computer and was frantically typing, trying to get his computer to work. Steven was standing next to his dad, tugging on his shirt, trying to get his attention. "Daddy", he called patiently. Ron Sr. tried to ignore his son. He continued working on his laptop becoming more and more agitated. Steven kept persistently pulling his dad's shirt saying, "Dad . . . Dad . . . Dad . . "What?!", yelled Ron Sr. looking down at his son. Steven looked up at his dad's face and coyly said, "I think our car is full of water!" Ron Sr. looked to where his son was pointing, over the railing, down from the third floor, into the lobby which was now flooded a little past the second floor. To his astonishment, there was the Haney family car, which earlier was in the parking lot broken down, now floating, partially submerged, almost within reach!

CHAPTER 23

"She's coming to get us! She's coming to get us!" That's what he kept yelling over and over as we wrestled on the ground. My flashlight had gone flying out of my hand when he tackled me. I could see it lighting up a corner of the dark room. I could tell that Nick had come to my rescue when I felt the man being pulled off of me. I got up to assist Nick who had his knee on the back of the man's neck. "You've got to get out of here! She's coming!", he yelled as we handcuffed him. We shined a flashlight in his face and got a good look at him. He was a wild looking man with long, messy, salt and pepper hair. He had a long,scruffy salt and pepper beard that matched his hair. "Who's coming?", I asked him. He looked straight into my eyes with a wild, distant look that gave me the chills. "Katrina!", he howled.

We got a call from dispatch telling us to come back to headquarters because the storm was intensifying. Conditions were becoming too dangerous, so we headed back to the office. The water had risen dramatically since we had first entered the house. It was extremely difficult to walk because of the high wind and the rising water. As a matter of fact, it was difficult just to stand up. The three of us struggled to walk to the cruiser and when we finally got our perpetrator and ourselves inside the vehicle, we were soaking wet. It was a perilous journey back to the office. The water rose up to our headlights and it was hard to tell where the sidewalks began and the streets ended. It was dangerous and scary not knowing where the canals were in relation to the street. One wrong turn, and we could wind up sinking into a canal. "There she is! There she is!" Our prisoner kept yelling this over and over as he looked out of the window. "Shut up!", Nick finally said to him after we tried to ignore him for what seemed like forever. He finally stopped talking, but he began to cry when Nick yelled at him. I don't mind telling you that I was a bundle of nerves as I drove our car through the flood waters. I expected the car to stall at any time and then we would be stuck out in the storm. I could barely see where we were going, but with Nick's help, we managed to find our way. Water began to come into the car through the floor board. Of course, this set off our 'wild man' again. He just lost it. He began stomping his feet on the now wet floor board making a splashing noise. The floor board had a few inches of water, so his stomping was splashing water all over the inside of the car. He was yelling incoherently while banging his head on the back window. Then, without warning, our car died. "That's just great!", I yelled banging my hand on the steering wheel. Suddenly, the 'wild man' stopped carrying on and got really quiet. Nick and I both looked at him wondering why he suddenly became quiet. "It feels like the car is floating!", said Nick with uneasiness in his voice. All three of us were looking around the car trying to figure out what was happening; then both Nick and our prisoner looked at me as if I had a plan drawn out on my face. I tried to open my door, but it wouldn't budge because of the water pressure from the flood waters. "We have to go out of the window", I said. I rolled my window down and watched Nick do the same. We quickly unlocked our seat belts and struggled to get out of the car because of the high wind shooting through our car. I finally forced my way out and promptly fell into waist high water. For what seemed like an eternity, but only lasted for several seconds, I struggled to get to my feet. I finally came up gasping for air, only to be met with hurricane force winds blasting my face which made it almost impossible to breathe. I looked for Nick and saw him inching his way toward me. Our police cruiser had floated and had come to a stop against a brick building. It was then that I realized, that  brick building was our headquarters! Our car had died right in front of our office. What luck! That luck didn't last very long because we were knocked off of our feet and followed the way of the car. The water had a strong current now and I found myself up against our police cruiser. My back was to the car and I saw Nick half floating and half swimming towards me. He came up beside me and we turned around to face the car because it was too difficult to breathe when we were facing the wind. We saw our 'wild ' prisoner in the backseat of the car and he seemed to be singing. "We got to get him out!", shouted Nick in my ear. I nodded, but how were we going to get him out? We couldn't open the door because of the water pressure. Nick and I had both left our windows open and waves of water was pouring into the car. We had to move fast. I got my nightstick out of the front seat and began hitting the window in order to break it. After several hits, it shattered. We reached in to grab our prisoner and to my surprise, he offered little resistance. We pulled him out and that's when we heard it. A wave of water was roaring towards us and it was pushing everything out of its way like a bunch of toys in a bathtub.  We each grabbed an arm and pulled our prisoner towards the front door. I took out my keys and unlocked the "wild" man's handcuffs. That was when the wave hit us and slammed us into the glass door. The last thing I remember was looking through the glass door at a fuzzy outline of what looked like people climbing up the stairs. That's about the time that I felt what seemed to me to be a car hitting me from behind causing the doors and windows to shatter. Then everything went black.

CHAPTER 24

The wind was blowing so hard that the window blinds were almost in a horizontal position. "Cover the baby! I'm gonna roll you out of here!", yelled Joey. The wind was extremely loud and was blowing everything in the room to the floor. Joey unlocked the wheels on Dana's bed and began to roll her out of the room. A couple of men that Joey assumed were doctors, burst into the room and grabbed the end of the bed and helped Joey wheel Dana and the baby out of the room. It seemed like the whole hospital was gathered in the hallway right outside Dana's room. Many of them were crouched down against the walls as if they were hiding. Dana and baby Katrina were placed in the middle of the hallway with the rest of the patients that were in beds. The building was being forced, by the Category 3 hurricane winds, to sway back and forth. Rain water was leaking through the ceiling and wind was blowing through the hallways. People were screaming out of fear, probably thinking that this was the end. Joey was watching this scene unfolding before his very eyes and thought to himself that this looked like something out of a Hollywood disaster movie. In the moment, Joey began to reflect over the events of the past few days. Why hadn't he gotten his family out earlier?! He should have known better. Now his family was in danger! For a split second, he hated his vending machine business. He had stayed in town as long as he could because he had 'last minute' snack machines to fill. After all, he couldn't let his clients go hungry. Idiot! Next time . . . , his thoughts were interrupted by a gentle hand on his shoulder. He was in a kneeling position and when he looked up he saw that it was Dana that had placed her hand on his shoulder. She was in a sitting position on her bed  and she had a sympathetic look on her face. "It's okay babe.You couldn't have known what was going to happen". She moved her hand from his shoulder and lovingly placed it on his face. He looked up into her reassuring eyes and thought to himself, 'what a woman!' Here she was protecting the baby with one arm, and reassuring him with her other arm. All the other women around them were screaming ( as well as some of the men), and she was calm and cool as if she were getting ready to eat dinner at home. He put his hand on top of hers, which was on his face and he marveled at how blessed he was to have a woman like her. At first, like the people around him, he thought that this might be the end. He figured that at least they were going to die together. He would die holding and loving his beautiful wife and baby. But something happened inside of him when Dana put her hand on his face. He resolved then and there, that they were going to make it. Somehow, they were going to survive and they would have a story to tell baby Katrina when she got older. He needed to be strong for his family and that's just what he was going to do.