EARTHQUAKE J.E. POWELL

EPILOGUE

EPILOGUE

It took two weeks for things to start getting back to normal for some people; those with minor damages.  The Collins family was lucky, considering.  They were eventually able to call overseas and reassure the other members of the family and apprise them of the current situation.

Electricity was also back and the cable channels were all accessible again.  The INN still carried snippets of the disaster with reports of millions of dollars of support through various organizations, governments and even fund raisers put on by celebrities, both foreign and from the Jamaican diaspora.

The loss, though, was almost immeasurable.  How could you count the cost of human life?  Many persons were unaccounted for, causing grief and despair to those families with missing persons.

The ravaged coastlines told of the missing communities, which had been reclaimed by the sea, disappeared as if they never existed. 

One day the phone rang and Phaedra picked it up.  Watching her, Zach could see that at first she was puzzled by the call.  Then her face brightened up the moment she figured out who the caller was.

“That was the lady from the car wreck.  I’m so happy she recovered, well … recovered well enough to be going home.  She got my number from Dr. Grainger because she wanted to thank us for saving her and her baby.”

“Oh, that’s great news,” said Zach ruffling her hair.

She got up to find Martha to tell her the good news.

Zach smiled.  In the midst of all the disasters there were myriads of good stories just like that.  He knew.  He had encountered a few and had even written about them. 

There was a lot of work to be done to put the country back on its legs.  Both airports were gone leaving visitors stranded for a while.  Arrangements had to be made using smaller inland airports to shuttle them to another island to meet a connecting flight home.

He thought of all the people who survived, when the situation would predict otherwise.  Like the five men they had found, hanging on for dear life onto a part of the fort at Port Royal that had not totally succumbed to the sea. 

Or the family that had survived after being washed a-sea, each one thinking that the others had died while they hung onto various items of debris that littered the sea.  Luckily, they were a family of the parents who were retired Olympic swimmers and the children had followed in their parents’ footsteps, actively competing in swimming championships.

Many stories like that embedded in his brain and recounted in his writings.  Now they were left with the mammoth task of recovery for all of them; the survivors.

“I guess there always will be survivors,” he whispered to himself.

 “Always survivors.”