Flood
Chapter 2: “Prevention”
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TWO WEEKS PRIOR TO THAT MOMENT ON THE RIVER, MONICA sat in her boss’s office, chewing the cap of her pen. A month of service had come and gone, and it was time for a standard thirty-day review with the Emergency Manager.
For Monica, this meeting needed to be anything but standard.
She sat and waited, gnawing the plastic covering and rehearsing her request in her mind. The purse strings around here were tight, but there had to be a way to loosen them. It was the only way to save lives.
She peered out the narrow window where the well-mown lawn of the park headquarters grew soft and lush under the morning sun. Highway 441 lay beyond, a black-topped strip choked with cars. Monica tried to ignore its blight upon the green tranquility, and she smiled as a chipmunk skittered across the grass, pausing to nibble a tiny morsel in its paws before darting away to the safety of the overgrowth. It was so peaceful, so serene. Yet that apparent peace masked the reality of a wilderness fraught with risk, and many of the Park’s guests seemed ignorant of the danger—
The drawl of her boss’s voice echoed through the hall, bouncing off the World War II-era cinder block. Monica took a long, slow breath, bit down into the black cap with a snap, and pulled her gaze from the beauty beyond the window.
“Mornin’, Monica!” the man said as he entered.
Mike Ownby bustled through the open door to his worn cedar desk, a cup of coffee wobbling in his hand. The Emergency Manager plopped the mug on his desk calendar and black liquid dribbled over the lip, sliding down the white ceramic.
“Good morning,” she replied.
Ownby leaned back in his chair and crossed a leg. A handsome Appalachian man of fifty-five, Ownby spoke with a pleasant accent seasoned by a lifetime of living in East Tennessee. He smiled, his eyes bright blue, and said, “You feel like you’re gettin’ to know the park well enough?”
Monica nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Ownby jerked a thumb toward the window. “Blaze said she took you ‘round in her truck the other day. You two hit it off pretty good, right?”
“We had a good time sharing stories,” Monica said. “It’s nice to click with someone so quickly.”
Ownby grinned. “She’s quite the spitfire. We love the energy she offers.” Then he leaned forward and added, “I have no reason to think we won’t get the same from you.”
Monica felt her cheeks flush. “Thank you, sir.”
Ownby nodded. “You’re welcome. What did you think of our park?”
“Oh, I’m quite familiar with the Smokies, sir,” Monica replied. “I grew up here.”
Ownby snapped his fingers. “That’s right! This is home for you. Your father’s Cherokee, right?”
“Half, yes.”
“Y’know, my great-grandpa was Cherokee himself,” Ownby said. “There’s a whole exhibit about him in the museum over in the Qualla Boundary.”
Monica nodded, but her smile was falling. She wasn’t here for the small talk.
“Did you have a chance to read my proposal, Mr. Ownby?” she said.
“Please, call me Mike,” he said, pursing his lips together. “As for your proposal, I gave it a good look. I’m sure you know that we’ve been underfunded for decades now. Our visitor numbers are through the roof and–I’ll be honest with you, Ranger Greene–we’re barely able to keep our facilities up to standards as it is. I went ahead and forwarded your paper to D.O.I., and we can pray that maybe they’ll come to their senses and send a few of those taxpayer dollars our way. But,” he said, cocking his head with a sad half-smile, “I wouldn’t bet on it.”
The pen had found its way back to her mouth. Her teeth had dug a series of grooves in it. She lowered it, a bit embarrassed of her childlike habit.
“I know money is short,” Monica said. “It always is. But people’s lives are at stake here.”
“I understand,” Ownby said, his hands adjusting the items on his desk, “and the park does the best it can. It’s always been this way, and people know the risks.”
“I don’t think they really do,” Monica said.
Ownby frowned. “Is that so?”
“Yes,” she said. “We put too much faith in common sense these days. God bless the families that come here, Mr. Ownby, but these people, even the parents, don’t realize what they’re getting themselves into.”
“We have plenty of warnings in place,” Ownby said, shrugging. “I trust you’ve seen the signs at each major waterfall.”
“They’re not enough,” she said. “This August a man drowned in Big Creek, despite a sign about the risks. Just last week, the backcountry search and rescue team had to carry a family out of Forney Creek simply because they didn’t pack any water, got confused at a trail junction, and went three miles in the wrong direction.”
She paused to take a breath and Ownby’s fingers began to cradle his freshly-shaved chin as if in deep thought.
Perhaps there was a chance.
“I think,” she continued, “we need to assume that most of our visitors, more than ever perhaps, don’t know what they’re getting into. They watch something on the internet, or think that because they ran a 5K in Orlando last month that they can tackle Mt. Leconte on a July afternoon. With their children.”
“I know,” Ownby said. “But people are still free to make their own decisions, Monica.”
“We need to help people make better decisions,” she countered. “Besides, we’re going to spend the money either way.”
“Either way?” Ownby said, an eyebrow flicking up.
“Either we spend it on prevention, or on a dangerous search and rescue.”
Ownby drew a long breath through his sizable nose and exhaled. “You’re not wrong, Ranger Greene,” he said. “Not wrong at all.”
A flinch of hope tugged at her cheeks, and Monica wanted to smile. But Ownby lowered his head, shaking it slowly.
“Here’s my fear,” he said. “We can invest in all kinds of prevention. Heck, we already do. But we’re still gonna be out there, hackin’ through the forest to find some poor soul who lost their way or couldn’t make it to camp before dark. It’s just going to happen. And we have to be prepared to pay for it, no matter what.”
Monica crossed her arms. “When we pay for rescue, we don’t pay just with money. We pay with human lives.”
“I know that,” Ownby said, nodding. “And I know about what happened at Grand Canyon last year. I’m terribly sorry about those rangers of yours—”
“I think I’ve made my point,” Monica interrupted, and with a burst in her legs she stood and turned to go.
“Wait a minute, now,” Ownby said. “I hear you.”
The words caught her like a lasso and she paused, turning back to him. “Do you?”
“Yes, I do,” he said. “Now please sit.”
“You said yourself there’s no money. What else is there to talk about?”
“Monica,” Ownby said, his pitch rising, “do you really want to start your time here like this?”
She stopped, guilt churning in her middle.
He’s right.
She turned back to him, head bowed. Ownby was looking at her with a face that seemed to exude nothing but goodwill, and Monica sensed the furious air leaving her body. She placed her hands on the chair back and leaned against it.
“I’m–I’m sorry, sir,” she said, stammering. “When everything happened out west, I almost quit. I don’t—I can’t—go through that again.”
“I dare not imagine it,” Ownby said. “There’s nothing worse.”
“No, there isn’t,” she whispered.
“Now, about your proposal,” Ownby continued. “Nothing you’re saying is wrong. It makes perfect sense. But something unique about us here at the Smokies is that we don’t charge an entry fee. We never have, and never will, thanks to some bylaws. Now, there’s a chance we can generate some revenue through a parking pass system, but that’s years off. We have to do our work in an imperfect system, and we have to make the best of it. That’s all I’m tellin’ you.”
“Okay,” she said.
“I’m sorry, Monica,” he said, his voice raspy. “It ain’t like out west here. You’ll have to get used to a few things, but they aren’t all bad. But please understand that it’s not personal, or careless, when the answer’s gotta be ‘No.’”
Monica nodded, her face still warm with rushing blood.
“I understand,” she said. “And it wasn’t all rosy out west, either. I just thought that the Smokies, being the most frequently attended national park, would have access to more resources.”
At this, a laugh popped out of Ownby and he immediately covered his mouth as if he’d sneezed.
“I’m sorry!” he cried. “That wasn’t you. Just—just the idea of us gettin’ a little extra love from Washington—well, that just tickled me!”
She frowned, unable to hide her annoyance with his folksy approach to all of this. Hadn’t she made her point clear? This wasn’t a hypothetical. Backcountry accidents were claiming lives, including those of rangers. The evidence was more than sufficient: the public had to be brought onboard with a sensible approach to enjoying the raw beauty of the wilderness. That meant a campaign, and that meant funding.
Her phone awoke with a vibration and ear-splitting ding. Glancing at it, she saw a simple, poorly written message:
Hurry they’re trying to kill me!!!
Monica swallowed as hot bile shot up her throat.
“I have to go, sir,” she said.
“Anything wrong?” Ownby said.
“My father needs me.”
“Is he okay?”
She nodded even though her phone was vibrating again.
“He’s fine. He just—he overreacts to his doctors.”
Ownby crossed his arms. “Caring for family can be quite the stressor.”
Monica kept her answer simple, in spite of the flood of emotions. “Yes,” she said, her voice weakening. “It can.”
“Before you go,” Ownby said, hoisting his cup of coffee and taking a sip, “I’ll make you a deal. Why don’t you print off some waterproof signs and post ‘em at the major trailheads. I don’t know if you’ve heard the forecast, but some tropical storms are brewing in the Atlantic that might come our way.”
Monica allowed a frail smile to work its way over her face. “Thanks. What’s my budget?”
Again, Ownby laughed.
“Just make sure you do it on the office copier.”
Monica nodded. “Will do.”
She turned and marched through the door, down the hall toward the parking lot. Once again, the phone shuddered as more messages poured in.
But she didn’t read them. Instead, she pushed the building door open, stepped into the bright, beautiful sun, and whispered, “Give me strength.”
She lowered herself into her small sedan and started the engine. Peeling out of the parking lot and racing up the highway toward Knoxville, she whispered a prayer and asked God for the power to endure whatever trials were about to come.
She was going to need it.
