Double feature: episodes 8 & 9 of the storm chaser saga...

Fiction ripped from the headlines... ©Mark H. Pillsbury

"Texas Remains a Tinderbox": http://goo.gl/R0psZ

"Wildfires cause Fatigue": http://goo.gl/hhBUi

"More Firefighters arriving by Air": http://goo.gl/7ZSqI

"Obama grants Texas appeal for Wildfire Disaster Declaration": http://goo.gl/Fzz9B

Part VIII: The Maze

Swiftly moving through the dense green maze towards another opening, Clay trudged farther in front of the storm chasers, to the point they eventually lost the link to his lead. They were not holding onto each other hand-to-fin like in Devil’s Throat, but at least there was visual connection. Smoke obstructed their peripheral vision, the searing heat and impenetrable forest squeezed the life out of them, and ultimately Clay went left and they turned right, leaving them alone in a clearing. Abruptly, they turned another chapter.

“Claaaaaay-tooarrrr!” Rick yelled forcefully more than once hearing no reply.

“God, where did he go?!” he asked Jessica.

Rick held Jessica’s hand while fleeing but somehow lost contact with his cousin for just an instant, the next thing he knew they were separated. They were devastated for losing their escort; Clay’s strength had been a lifeline.

“Should we stay here to see if he circles back?” Jessica asked.

Rick felt exhausted and confused, “Jess, let me think for a second; I don’t know what to do right now.”

“We need to find Clay, let’s go back to the spot when we split,” Rick said. Jessica did not want to return to the forest, but she understood Rick’s concern.

Retracing their steps seemed harder this time, Rick was not sure where they diverged, but he kept yelling Clay’s name, hoping for some response. Disoriented, they were lost inside of an isolated portion of Liberty County surrounded by wildfire without any viable tools to alleviate their dilemma. Circling broadly for almost an hour, becoming more depleted mentally and physically, their diving school training helped a little, but a creeping, debilitating, panicked vertigo overcame their efforts to stay in control.

“I have to stop, Rick!” Jessica pleaded. “This is insane. We aren’t going in the right direction.”

“You stay here I have to go find Clay.” Rick vowed, wild-eyed, weary.

“Rick, stay with me, puhlease!?” Jessica was in tears, insisting as she sat on a log. “Are you going crazy because of smoke inhalation?” “We cannot split up, Rick. All three of us will die alone!”

Rick and Jessica sat on a log, bereft of a response to this incredible challenge. Their relationship frayed in this crucible, fatigue reducing them to cornered beasts rather than reasonable young adults, their adrenaline-rich supply of courage used-up. For a couple that had faced huge storms, man’s oldest friend/foe brought them to their knees.

“I love you so much, Jess, I could never leave you.” “Whatever happens here, I want you to know that I love you.” Rick was crying or the smoke made his eyes water, it did not matter; Jessica buried her head in Rick’s arms and they sat defeated, but together.

Ironically, Rick wondered how all the twisters in tornado alley had not brought them closer, but now this wildfire forced them to confront their mortality, priorities, and love’s bond. All he wanted was to take care of Jessica and keep them safe. For once he yearned to live in peace as a family. As he enjoyed their close touch a fierce hot wind blew through the forest, and they stood-up immediately knowing another escape route was closed.

To their flank, they supposed from the west, all their senses told them the wall of fire was descending on them so instinctively they set off in the opposite direction. They were storm-chasers after all, and when the storm turns your direction the first reaction is to be nimble.

Going through the clearing and one more dense section of forest did not lead them to another road or passage to safety; instead they found themselves in another smoky chamber, where Jessica started to falter due to breathing too much smoke. They stopped again.

“I feel like I’m choking Rick, and the smoke is making me light-headed.” “Let’s stop now,” she said firmly.

“OK, babe, but we have to try to find a farm road again,” Rick responded, “maybe we can catch an emergency vehicle coming by, they have to be out here fighting this fire!”

Rick lost track of time, barely thinking about Clay anymore. He worried that he would have to carry Jessica out of the woods. He was exhausted, but he would do anything at this point to save her.

“Jess, let me carry you if you can’t go,” She was woozy and sitting limply against a tree. Rick gathered her up in loving embrace, going further toward what he hoped was a roadway. He could feel Jessica lose consciousness intermittently, but he continued.

In the distance they heard a faint, whirring siren and quickly moved that direction, finally reaching a narrow thoroughfare. Rick and Jessica fell into the middle of the road, not “planking,” but on one knee gasping for air. Overjoyed to see an emergency vehicle racing their direction, Jessica collapsed in Rick’s arms again. Laughing and crying together, it seemed that even though the raging fire and thick smoke were imminent, they again dodged nature’s onslaught.

“Hop in the back, we’re going to meet a supply helicopter near here!” The county fire truck was a brilliant red, with a bed full of equipment and two sooty, charred heroes in the front of the cab. Rick and Jessica did not take time to ask questions or explain, but immediately Rick thought of his cousin Clay.

“God, Jess, what’s gonna happen to Clay in that forest? It’s like hell in there!” Rick was concerned.

Jessica, too stunned to answer, could barely breathe; her normal respiration reduced to a mere wheeze. She was elated to be through devil’s throat once again.

Part IX: The Rescue

photo credit: Washington DNR

The stretch of burning trees broke for the first time in miles. As the scarlet fire vehicle pulled up, men in bright orange suits tried to ensure a gargantuan transformer didn’t burst into flames like the rest of the forest. The firefighter spoke into his walkie-talkie in order to gain clearance into the landing area. More uniformed helpers rushed over with water and aid for the two exhausted storm chasers.

The yellow rescue helicopter descended, chopping the smoky air, signalman waving wildly at the targeted destination well clear of the transformer wires.

“Hold on just a little longer, Jess. Copter’s landing and we will get outta here soon,” Rick urged, trying to motivate Jessica as the supplies were transferred off of the yellow bird. Fighting wildfires took manpower, and supplies constantly replenished by aerial support.

image: North Carolina

Chief of the Operations came up hurriedly, ordering them onboard. Rick thought it was odd that he didn’t ask them what they were doing in the middle of the smoldering Liberty County forest; nevertheless he grabbed the man at the door of the copter and told him they couldn’t leave yet. “You don’t understand Sir, but my cousin’s in the middle of that fire! You gotta do something about—” Rick was cut off by the foreman.

“Son, you either get on that helicopter now or wait for the next one, and I can’t guarantee when that will be, I will notify my men in the field to be on the lookout for your relative. Give me a description.” This put Rick in the position of having to choose between evacuating Jessica and staying to search for his cousin. He knew what he had to do.

To be continued in episode ten…

©Mark H. Pillsbury & ©Eliza C. Pillsbury (composed as a work of fiction 23 July 2011)

Texas wildfires: the escape (fiction ripped from the headlines)

Part 3: The Escape

Ironically, Gregg Allman’s sad dirge, “Midnight Rider” played on Sirius/XM® radio as Rick cranked the Tahoe’s ignition. “Outlaw Country,” Station 332 suited him fine as they wove their way through east Texas to find the ranch.

The lyrics, “I’m not gonna let ‘em catch me no/not gonna let ‘em catch the Midnight Rider,” inspired no confidence as both the weather wunderkinds focused on the red tail-lights of Clay’s truck which sped out the front gate kicking up a blinding dust cloud all the way onto the road, away from the wall of fire.

Nature’s fury has myriad forms, whether 100-feet below the ocean as a rushing current or approaching a massive tornado; Rick and Jessica knew intimately the harm that can come from the physical world in a matter of seconds. Even recognizing how fragile one holds to human life, like everyone they rarely feared imminent death; although frequently exposed to it. Nevertheless, today on a rural road in Texas, they finally took a right-turn which turned out to be a dead-end.

“C’mon Rick; catch up!” cried Jessica.

“Babe, look at the computer, and let me drive,” replied Rick, intently. “See if there is something to tell us where these fires are!” They fled at high-speed but their bandwidth for internet was dial-up slow.

image: Clint Harrington

After zooming down hilly back roads straining the capacity of the Tahoe, clinging to the contrails of Clay’s truck; they swooshed up-and-over a rise in the road finding him pulled over on the shoulder, brake lights glowing devilishly red through a cloud, like evil eyes. Rick didn’t know how far they'd travelled, only that they sped generally in a southeast direction. Both jumped out, approaching the driver’s side of the pickup.

“Can you see down toward the bottom of that next clearing?” Clay said as he looked forward through the windshield, not exactly asking a question, “I see flames and smoke rising above those trees?! Izat what you see?!”

photo credit: Idaho

“Could there be another T-intersection down there before we hit the wall?” Rick responded with panic in his voice, almost a shout; squinting a look down the path, silently agreeing with Clay’s observation.

“Can we at least try 9-1-1?” Jessica pleaded, “Maybe they could bear down on our GPS; tell us which way to turn?”

This turning point hinges on the decisions they make in the next two minutes; however each of the drivers eagerly wanted to get back behind the wheel, with itchy pedal-feet like a gunfighter fingering a holster. The traditional Chinese character for crisis (wēijī), widely abused by western motivational speakers, allegedly means the intersection of danger + opportunity. Danger is there alright, but the secondary word is more of “crucial point,” than opportunity. Crisis visits these young people through dark, hot, encircling flames, and no real exit strategy. As hard as it was to fathom, they are lost on an obscure back road in rural Texas without a credible opportunity for escape. This is the most crucial point in their young lives.

To be continued in Part 4....

©Mark H. Pillsbury (6 July 2011):
This is a work of fiction, and similarities to real individuals or other copyrighted material on cable TV or satellite radio is merely a coincidence

Fire and Rain: fiction ripped from the headlines

Audubon Magazine
Part Two: fiction ripped from the headlines...

The Fire Pounces

Rick felt at home in someone else’s bed, often he slept in the Tahoe. It was a pleasure to be unplugged and free to sleep-in, surprisingly he was dreaming about Mexico.

image credit: Mike Hollingshead, Eric Nguyen

Storm chasing was a young person’s game; it took the commitment of a professional athlete, constantly on the road, the pressure to sink the big shot, the same highs and lows of victory and defeat. An integral part of storm chasing was waiting, supplanted by quick bursts of energy and adrenaline. He loved it more than Jessica, but they both slept happily, peacefully for the first time in days. Dreamland was a bucolic scene that early morning in Texas, yet outside, roiled a fire as wild as any super-cell ever hunted, bearing down on the beautiful couple.

“Jess, get up!” Rick shook his partner. “Get up, I smell smoke.”
She was groggy, “Smoke?” Jessica was confused. “Is your phone on?” She asked.
He fumbled through his backpack; it was dead. “I think my battery is done! Damnit, all my stuff is out in the truck,” Rick responded. They were uneasy with the lingering smell of burning brush wafting through the house.

The rush to the Tahoe gave Rick no assurances, the smell of smoke was heavier, and as dawn broke there was a red glow on the horizon. Darkness cloaked the pyrocumulus cloud forming above. Jessica was already headed up the ranch road in flip-flops, Rick followed her, still waking up.

image: Garganta del diablo en Cozumel

Rick remembered “Devil’s Throat,” off the coast of Cozumel: Jessica was the first diver through the long coral tunnel over 100-feet below the surface, and heading up the ranch road seemed eerily similar; smoke formed a tunnel and at the entrance to the ranch where the trees opened into a clearing, they could see the wall of flames in the distance.

Over a million acres of dry trees fueled a “mega-fire” which burned at frightening temperatures, spawning fire-whirls spinning off tornadic winds of 80 mhp. The only hope to stop such destruction was a change in the weather; the inferno was out of control.

The smart phone interrupted. Jessica’s expensive weather app delivered three ominous chimes. Each was a warning from the previous night about wild fires raging through Texas. They could see darkness, which was the tree line in the distance, but leaping mirthfully from the tops, red sheets of fire snapped like firecrackers. Instinct dominated what happened next. Rick pivoted like a point-guard, back to the Tahoe, grabbing the laptop computer on his way to the house.

Amazingly, Clay was still asleep snoring like a black Labrador, blissfully ignorant. Jessica watched over Rick’s shoulder as he looked up coverage warning maps, reading NWS updates. During their sabbatical, wild fires encircled Liberty County; Clay seemed so surprised and sleepy they could have been showing him a foreign newspaper.

Rick and Clay shuttled back outside, as Jessica studied the laptop. “What in the hell is going on, Rick?” Clay asks.

“Can you see the shooting flames above the tree line, Clay?” Rick shot back, “I think we need to get outta here.”

They both internally inventoried their emotions at the moment, recognizing regret, ignorance, terror, flight, confusion, curiosity, and urgency, all competing for bandwidth inside the central processing unit known as their hung-over brains. “I knew there were some wild fires around Texas, but I gotta tell ‘ya Rick, this caught me off-guard, and it looks a whole lot closer than I would like! There’s just a coupla ways off this ranch and the county roads are hard to navigate,” Clay responded to the ominous wall of flame at which they both stared.

“Alright.” Rick wasn't quite listening, planning another quick exit, almost instantaneously assuming command. “Load your truck.” He said, wheeling again toward the house.

“I'll get Jess,” he was running back down the road.

“We’re burnin daylight!” Clay was one step behind, but he caught the irony of the last statement.

Photo credit: AP

##

(to be continued in Part 3)
©Mark H. Pillsbury

Part one: Fire and Rain (fiction ripped from the headlines)

Part one: Fire and Rain (fiction ripped from the headlines)

Storm chasers at work:  https://youtu.be/8jWOq3lWvz0

©Mark H. Pillsbury (2011)
[Some material may be deemed inappropriate for less mature audiences]

They were storm chasers, but the spring tornado season was so active with over 100 tornadoes in June, they were looking for a change. After dating a year and working together almost two, Rick and Jessica often finished each other’s sentences. They were Sooners, trained in meteorology in one of the finest departments for weather in the country, schooled in the heart of tornado alley, Norman Oklahoma.

image: Tegtmeier, NSSL

“Jess, why are you so quiet? Aren't you happy to take this cruise?”

Jessica was tall, thin and sweet. She liked the rainbows better than the thunderstorms,and on weekends at FOX25 she “did the weather,” indeed, she was proud during the broadcast when underneath her name sat the big word: Meteorologist. She wasn’t big like that girl in Dallas so many years ago who could block out most of East Texas by turning sideways, however when they split a big royalty check from the Discovery channel for video of the big twister in Millbury Ohio, she did sneak away that summer and get some work done on the second floor, so to speak. Rick loved it, and all her small-screen associates assured her good looks were the way to rise through the ranks, as long as you had talent to team with the girls.

Rick, the hard-charger of the group, founded Tarleton & Associates (or TNA like he loved to snicker when he used initials to name his company) right out of OU. He minored in business, but wanted to chase the biggest storms each spring, film them up-close and hi-def, sell the footage to networks and Cable shows that specialize in high tension reality-TV.

“I only see my cousin one weekend every couple of years, babe; can you try to be nice to me? This is an expensive date we are going on next week.” Jessica had no idea where Liberty County was; maybe she would feel better once they cut through the blue water of the Caribbean Sea.

Even though they had only a Chevy Tahoe and a satellite link to their laptops, Rick usually rode the waves of instability first, and that is where he earned his money. He arrived early at the boundary separating hot, dry air to the west from warm, moist air to the east, known as a “dryline,” and like a wildcat driller, he molded an opinion how the next cloud would play; he then drilled down into the data on the laptop (for which he paid a fortune in subscription fees) in order to back up his gambler hunch. Rick seemed to know instinctively which way to run. Jessica lingered on the idea that despite her love of weather, indeed because she understood them both, her man would have to retreat from the dangerous mistress twisters had become.

His training at OU quickly focused on what produces “meso-cyclones;” an area founded by Ted Fujita more than a decade before Rick was born. Fujita, a Japanese-American scientist, invented the recycling hypothesis of “tornadogenesis” including the spotting of RFD (rear-flank downdrafts) which showed-up clearly on radar as “hook echoes.” Rick read radar as an oil man reads 3D seismic imaging from the Gulf of Mexico; watching the bright hues of his laptop change as the data crunched through his Pentium processor. He used the cell phone to chat with other storm-chasers only when he felt behind in the race, but Rick was usually a front-runner.

Rick’s "Christmas shopping season” was between April and June, and usually the hours of operation were between 4 and 9PM, when big storms heated up. Classic stormchasing occurred in Tornado Alley, an area in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and South Dakota where the proper atmospheric conditions existed in abundance during that time of year. At 10 he watched the movie Twisters, and he was 13 when Doppler radar recorded the fastest wind speed ever measured, 318 miles per hour, in a tornado that hit the suburbs of Oklahoma City, OK, on May 3, 1999. He remembered that storm like a kid remembers how many trophies Michael Jordan collected with the Bulls.

“Why do you squeal like a school-girl when we hit the gas heading up one of those dirt roads? [toward a storm]” Jessica was ribbing Rick, because she knew he loved tornadoes more than she.

“I do not?!” Rick said.

They were headed to a cousin’s ranch in Liberty County to do a little four-wheelin, cat-fishin, and hanging out in the country as they travelled toward Houston’s new cruise ship terminal to jump on a boat. This would be a great opportunity to relax with Jessica and talk about their future. Not surprisingly, he had some very specific plans.

“Maybe it is the adrenalin rush, but when I look across the prairie and see one of those huge grey elephant trunks reaching down out of a supercell,” Rick was excited even in this retelling, “I’m not trying to joke, it pulls me closer!”

“Remember when we dove last year off the wall of Cozumel?” Rick asked Jessica, “The deep blue of the abyss was calling in a way, wasn’t it?”

“Like hell,” Jessica snapped.

“You didn’t see it?” Rick responded. “No,” said Jessica, “I mean it reminded me of the depths of hell and I wanted to go up; I didn’t like it at all.” She continued warily, “if we do this storm thing much longer Rick, it is going to be the end of us.” Jessica went silent, knowing somehow what she said had multiple facets.

Rick was lost in thought. He remembered filming at Millbury and feeling like the trap had ensnared him once, only to thrust through the howling winds back to the truck as Jessica peeled out at a 90 degree angle away from the storm path, fleeing down an anonymous country road.

They pulled up to the ranch house in mid-afternoon, and the mercury was flirting with the century mark. Both of them knew innately that the dewpoint and the air temperature were sticking too close for comfort. Rick piled out their bags and went inside to drink in cold air and maybe an adult beverage, his throat was dry from a long day in the saddle.

His cousin Clay was very different than Rick. He was older, taller, more direct, fearless, graduated as a Texas Longhorn, a Christian, and he usually made a quick shot across the bow to put you off-guard, nevertheless, Rick thought of him as a brother, and was delighted to see him.

After big back-slappin hugs, and Clay popping the tops on chilled Coronas, they settled down on the couch and turned on the satellite television. Rick hoped that Clay would ask him about what was playing on Discovery Channel, but instead he got right to the point, “How long ya’ll been dating?”

Rick and Jessica sort of grinned as they looked at each other like doubles partners in tennis, sending silent messages to each other: "You take-it!"

“Coupla years, Clay, why do you ask?” from Rick. Jessica just chuckled and sipped the cold beer.

“Trip like this almost seems like a honeymoon?” he said sardonically.

“Nope. Just getting away after a busy spring chasing dollars.” Rick was not defensive, but he did not want to get into any of this with anyone but Jessica.

“Do you think what you do together is as dangerous as bullfighting?” Clay continued, unabated.

“What do you mean ‘what we do together?’ Clay?” Rick replied cleverly, still parrying with his cousin.

“Getting right up close to a tornado, is that like snake-charming or Russian roulette?”

photo credit: Reed (1909)

"Many entertainers, pilots, sports stars, explorers, journalists, cops, Marines, nurses, drivers, have to go in harm’s way to make a living, but the natural disaster that is most accessible, shocking, loud, and violent, is the tornado. It does more in 5 minutes than any army. People want to look at it up close, just like they go to the zoo. They pay to stay at a distance," said Rick, continuing, "Aren’t we meeting market demand? There are hundreds of storm-chasers in Tornado Alley?!"

“Does the number go down every year?” Clay sipped as he grinned. “Will you guys, put a car seat in the Tahoe when Junior rides along after the twister?” Jess lit up.

That one went a foot slightly outside the boundary line, but Rick was used to this kind of joking. Most of the time he dished it out more than took it.

Most biting humor is equal parts truth and jocularity.

Eventually they changed into cooler clothing and went down to the little pond at sunset, fishing (casting), talking and drinking; nothing much happened until the sun went down.

Fortunately, Clay brought frozen pizzas from CPK, and plenty of cold-longnecks. There was no more talk of relationships, storms, cruises, business, or Houston. It was time for youthful socializing, talking sports, family gossip; and Clay getting to know Jessica.

Considering all their rustic reminiscing, back to nature fun, listening to music, and staying up late into the night, they were remarkably “unplugged” for their generation. They did not know that burn warnings were up in all the counties around Liberty, and the NWS was under high alert for wildfire. They had no idea that bearing down upon their little chunk of the woods, was a ten-mile wide wall of flame.

This menace did not rain, hail, or spin. Considering how few roads went away from the ranch, even in their wildest nightmares, neither of these kids would be ready for this inferno. It was as if all the devils in hell showed up in southeast Texas, and they were flying in high and hot…

(To be continued… in Part 2)

photo credit: Red Cross