Wave (37 page)

For all intents and purposes, the intersection of Long Beach Boulevard and Route 72 was history. The road was still there, but the traffic lights, the gas stations, and the businesses were all gone. The Eckerd Pharmacy, a modern structure of reinforced concrete, still stood, but its interior had been gutted. The Quarterdeck, which began to crumble during the third strike, finally went down.

The last wave gobbled up cars like candy. It clustered them together and used them to pound the Causeway. At first it appeared the bridge would survive the beating, bending and flexing beyond its engineered limits in order to compensate. Then, at exactly 12:14, the first cracks appeared on the eastern side. After that, piece by piece, the bridge began to crumble. Giant hunks of concrete, steel strands curling out of them like stray hairs, fell away. Cars and trucks fell with them. Those who had been lucky enough to survive until now found that their luck had run out. Some chose to dive off the bridge before it disappeared beneath them in a bid to swim to the mainland. Others kept running. The last wave reached for all of them, flattening the infamous “clam shack” in the process and putting to rest once and for all the question of who really owned the damn thing.

Eventually, the last of the Causeway bridge—a striking feature of LBI—fell away. Once it was gone, the fourth wave—as if destroying the bridge was its central objective all along—departed as well, carrying with it the spoils of its victory.

The
footage of the Causeway first swaying and then crumbling was played and replayed across the country on every major news channel. The cameramen who’d filmed it had been forced back by the National Guard for their own safety, but not so far that they could not record the harrowing images of cars and trucks tumbling into the bay like toys.

While being interviewed on CNN, Dr. Daniel Kennard pointed out that a tsunami wave reaching more than ten feet in height was considered unusually powerful, so this one would make the record books. “Considering the destructive nature of such a giant wave and the fact that there was only one way off the island, it’s a miracle more people didn’t perish.” He added that this one was more than twice as large as the one that struck Newfoundland in 1929. It was, without question, the most devastating oceanographic disaster ever seen along the eastern seaboard.

The damage extended well beyond the boundaries of Long Beach Island. In Atlantic City most of the boardwalk was destroyed along with nearly two hundred small businesses. Most of the casinos—modern structures with reinforced steel running through the concrete like veins and arteries—survived with only cosmetic damage. The relatively new parking garage at the Claridge Hotel and Casino, however, crumbled for the second time in five years, killing two people and leaving a pile of rubble that would take nearly four months to remove. North of LBI, waves reached as far as Point Pleasant, nearly fifty miles away, pulling tiny beach houses into the sea that had previously survived gales, hurricanes, and other forms of nature’s wrath since their construction in the booming postwar era.

As the nation followed the story on TV and the Internet, details began dribbling out about the “accident” that caused it. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the al Qaeda mastermind of the 9/11 attacks who had been captured in Pakistan in March of 2003, revealed to CIA interrogators that Sayed Zaeef was carrying out his plan to detonate a dirty bomb from a commercial airliner as it landed in Washington DC. According to Sheikh Mohammed, he had lost touch with Zaeef prior to his arrest and assumed he had been captured at some point, too. He insisted there was never a plan to create a tsunami, but he said he was “warmed” by the idea and hoped, now that it had happened, that operatives still in hiding would consider trying to precipitate similar natural disasters. He praised Allah for his “bountiful justice” and theorized that attacks gone wrong but still resulting in the deaths of Americans provided proof that God was on the side of his cause.

Shaken by this latest sign of continuing life within the terrorist organization, American society responded in a familiar way. By mid-afternoon the Dow had fallen more than 300 points, the NASDAQ by more than 80. The President, eager to calm jittery nerves and maintain an economy that had finally begun to bloom again, gave an impassioned speech from the Rose Garden. Working from early intelligence reports, he pointed out that the wave resulting from the downed airliner was not part of an al Qaeda design, but in fact the unfortunate result of an otherwise heroic effort on the part of the plane’s crew to thwart a larger and more sinister plan. He reminded the nation that the majority of the terror network’s infrastructure had been dismantled, and that its leader, Osama bin Laden, was dead. Only a handful of isolated individual terrorists remained, the President said, but they were still dangerous and needed to be rooted out. He promised with characteristic conviction to hunt them until every last one was captured or killed.

Back in New Jersey, Atlantic and Ocean Counties were declared federal disaster areas, which opened the floodgates for relief funding. Meanwhile, FEMA began sending critical supplies to the area—food, water, generators, cots and blankets, and so on. Governor Jim Mayfield ordered the rebuilding of the Causeway to begin immediately and earmarked nearly $75 million in state funds for the purpose. In the meantime, all boats in the area—private and federal—were required to ferry residents back and forth so they could begin cleanup operations and tend to their personal affairs as soon as it was safe to do so.

No one seemed to know when that would be.

Thousands of now-homeless LBI residents were packed into the Home Depot parking lot on Route 72. Lights swirled above ambulances and police cars. Blankets and drinks were handed out. Some people were given oxygen, others sedatives. Dozens of doctors and nurses were on the scene, many of them from Southern Ocean County Hospital. Others were nearby residents wanting to lend a hand. People with clipboards were taking names, trying to get a rough head count. At one point a sooty old bus with a Philadelphia Eagles logo on either side groaned in and parked. The driver, a devoted fan and veteran tailgater, quickly set up two long grilling tables and began cooking. As it turned out, he was also a wholesale butcher and ended up giving away more than four thousand dollars’ worth of ribs, chicken, beef, hot dogs, and hamburgers. He would later receive a personal commendation from the governor for his actions.

About an hour after arriving, BethAnn Mosley spotted a pay phone. It appeared to be one of the few that were working, as about thirty other people were waiting to use it. With nothing else to do, she went to the end of the line. She had managed to escape what she quickly decided were a bunch of religious loonies and possibly an unpleasant foray into the dark world of gang rape. She’d sat on the floor of the van, smiling and nodding until they passed the Home Depot, then feigned what she believed to be a pretty convincing epileptic seizure (she’d seen a few on TV through the years and had the gist of it). The moment the van came to a halt, she’d thrown the door open and rolled out. The other passengers started squealing like little girls (although they were all male, and pretty young at that), and one had managed to get a hand around her ankle. She pulled it free and hit the pavement chest-first just as the driver gunned the motor in an attempt to scare her back in. Without looking back, and certain she would be chased, she ran faster than she ever had in her life. Now, an hour later, still physically drained from the incident, she was anxious to call her friend Sharon in Forked River to come get her.

Carolyn King got in line next, her makeup and clothes still perfect, looking every bit the upper-class woman she was. She crossed her arms and gave BethAnn a quick appraisal, then just as quickly looked away. In that singular instant she had summed up the girl and made her judgment—white trash.
Something my kids will never be.
BethAnn caught the look and wanted to say something, but decided not to bother; a few hours from now she wouldn’t have to worry about that shitty little island or the people who’d lived on it ever again.

Carolyn needed to speak to her husband, let him know what was going on. She also wanted him to contact that psychiatrist friend of his. She was certain Jennifer was going to need a lot of therapy to get past this. It would change her, she had no doubt, but with a lot of care and attention she’d be okay. As Carolyn waited, she glanced over at her daughter, sitting on a blanket with another one wrapped around her, still red-faced and occasionally crying. A policeman, a friend of the King family, tended to her. He was on one knee with his arm around Jennifer’s shoulder, trying to be comforting. She didn’t seem to notice.

Next in line was an older couple looking haggard and stressed, along with two young boys clutching their backpacks tight against their chests and continually surveying the chaos that surrounded them. They had been dropped off by an older woman who had offered them a lift to Tuckerton. Neither of the boys had spoken much in the last few hours beyond an occasional “Where’s Mommy?” Bud and Nancy kept reassuring them that she’d be along shortly. But now, truthfully, they were beginning to wonder. The current plan was to get to that phone and try her cell number again. Worst case scenario, they’d try to reach Mike in San Francisco.

Bud had asked the police on the scene if they had any information about Karen, but there was no news of her. Now, as they stood in line, an officer came up and asked if they were the Ericksons, and if the two boys were Patrick and Michael Thompson. The officer was young and serious, and he spoke in the steady tone of one who has been given the unpleasant task of delivering bad news. Nancy began crying immediately, no longer able to maintain the “everything-will-be-okay” facade for the boys. When Bud confirmed their identity, the officer calmly informed them that the boys’ mother had been found in a small motorboat that crashed into a moored rescue boat along the mainland. She was unconscious—probably from the collision, he said—and had suffered an injury to her right foot. But she was going to be all right. Nancy squeezed the boys with all her might and continued to sob openly as the officer led them to an idling squad car that would take them to the hospital.

When the Ericksons left, Tom Wilson moved up in line behind Mrs. King, hands in his pockets. He wanted to call his parents up in Brielle to let them know he was okay. Then he’d put in a quick call to his on-again-off-again girlfriend Melanie, who lived in Staffordville.

After that he would try every number he knew in an attempt to contact the man he had spent years worshipping. There were almost a dozen possibilities—offices, residences, even the home of his estranged wife who was now living in Ringwood, in North Jersey. Between calls he would stand in the parking lot, amid the crowd and the chaos yet somehow feeling alone at the same time as he scanned the skies for Harper’s helicopter. It wouldn’t be until much later that the pilot who’d left Harper at the Forsythe Refuge recognized Wilson and told him what had happened.

Numbed by this news, Wilson found a quiet spot behind the Home Depot, sat down with his back against the building and cried. He cried for the man who had given his life in an attempt to save another, and for the loss of a modern hero in an age when heroes were as likely to be vilified as celebrated. He wept for the loss of a friend, one who was most certainly flawed, who had committed his share of sins, but was willing to acknowledge his shortcomings and regret his transgressions. He had made the ultimate sacrifice, and for that his sins would be forgiven.

Tom Wilson felt certain of it.

That
first night, thousands watched from the fringes of Route 72 as the vacant island burned on the horizon. Every now and then the steady orange flames would be interrupted by the explosion of a propane tank or a gas line, and many commented that it looked like a scene from Hell. By the third day the fires were under control, thanks not only to the valiant efforts of fire companies from thirty-two different communities, but also those of the U.S. Air Force, which sent a dozen C-130s into the area to drop nearly eight-thousand gallons of a pinkish fire-retardant chemical used to snuff out woodland blazes, colloquially known as “Sky Jell-O.”

By the end of the first week, 204 people were assumed missing or dead. Two days later that number dropped to 183, and by the end of the second week 154 bodies had been recovered. That left a total of 29 individuals unaccounted for, including Mayor Donald J. Harper. The general theory was that the waves had simply pulled them out to sea, a common occurrence in tsunami scenarios. For the families of those 29, there would be no closure, no bittersweet assurance. They would have to live with the nightmarish thoughts of their loved ones’ bodies slowly decomposing in the open waters until, finally, they became a part of the food chain, courtesy of whatever life forms were lucky enough to encounter them.

While few could imagine anyone remaining on the island and surviving, several miraculous stories emerged. A professional diving instructor, who had spent nearly his whole life on LBI and most of that in the water, chained himself to an old wreck a few hundred yards offshore and waited until the waves subsided. He later sold his story to
SCUBA World
for ten thousand dollars. A very lucky woman in her early twenties was found unconscious in her 2001 Volkswagen Beetle, atop a pile of rocks somewhere near what used to be the Causeway. She was at a complete loss for an explanation, as her last memory was of waiting in a slow-moving line of traffic on Long Beach Boulevard. Then there was the unconfirmed report, by the pilot of a fire-fighting plane, of a man walking on the beach near the Forsythe Refuge less than an hour after the fourth wave had subsided.