Deluge (The Best Thrillers Book 2) by James Best (top romance novels txt) 📗

dam failures. After a synopsis, he said that none of the thousand other dams presented an immediate problem, but that they were all being monitored carefully.

The state had been divided into six regions for disaster response purposes. Regions III, IV, and V, which represented the Central Valley, had been the most severely affected. Region II, stretching along the coast from Monterey to the Oregon border, was the next most severely injured, due to flooding of the Delta. These regions had suffered substantial damage, with no forecasted relief from rainstorms for at least another five days. The economic impact would last for years. Gleason added that the state had already lost an estimated twenty percent of its population to Mexico, Arizona, Oregon, and Nevada. People were fleeing California in every direction but west. Gleason added dismissively that despite the San Diego, Los Angeles, and Santa Ana rivers overflowing their banks, Regions I and VI had suffered negligible damage. Santa Barbara County was in Region I.

Walsh wrote NOW! on a tablet and shoved it toward Evarts.

“Excuse me,” Evarts asked. “Are questions allowed?”

Gleason’s upper torso, displayed on the screen, went stiff.

“Who said that?” he demanded in a harsh tone.

“Chief Evarts, Santa Barbara. I’m also the designated Operational Lead for Santa Barbara County.”

“Well, you’ve already impolitely interrupted me, so what’s your question?”

“Two of the six dam failures occurred in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, causing untold death and damage. Why do you dismiss our suffering as negligible?”

Evarts watched Gleason take a deep breath. “I apologize for the inadvertent use of that term, but … everything is relative, and compared to the northern regions, your level of emergency is not nearly as critical. Now … we’ll have a Q&A at the end. May I proceed?”

Evarts refused to be put off. “The Cachuma Dam failure washed away major sections of three towns, and then the survivors were pillaged and worse by marauding gangs. Solvang felt like it had been raided by honest-to-goodness Vikings. Despite aggressive police action, gangs have brazenly taken advantage of the chaos caused by the storms and infrastructure failures. The Castaic Dam failure wiped out numerous towns and destroyed a major share of the state’s citrus crop. Every home in my region is housing your evacuees, and they are stretching our public services to the limit. I personally have four families sheltered in my home. Region I insists on being treated fairly.” Evarts hesitated for a heartbeat. “You may proceed, but I’ll be returning to this subject.”

As he finished, Walsh drew a happy face on her pad.

Gleason scowled. He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Closed it again. Then he cast his eyes downward to his notes and returned to a monotone presentation of conditions around the state. He droned on another thirty minutes, making it sound like rain had beaten the Central Valley and Bay Area into pulp.

He closed by saying, “Okay, let’s take questions and comments by region, starting with Region IV.”

Region IV was mid-Central Valley, which included Sacramento, Gleason’s hometown. For forty-five minutes, local officials alternately ranted and whined about the utter devastation in their region, or cajoled and begged for aid and relief.

Next, Gleason called on Region II, which included the Bay Area. The more populous region required even more time to go through the same litany. Evarts looked at his watch, and Walsh drew a frowny face. When Gleason announced he had only five minutes before another meeting, a cacophony of voices tried to make themselves heard. Evarts didn’t bother.

When the teleconference signed off, Evarts turned to Walsh and said, “I don’t think I helped our case.”

“You didn’t hurt it,” she said. “The state’s like a foldable ping pong table that’s closed halfway. Everything’s tilted toward the center. This was a skirmish. The big battles are ahead, and we fired our first salvo. That’s all we can do for now.”

Evarts’s phone rang. He answered, assuming it was his department. It was Paul Gleason.

“I see where your wife learned her trade. The two of you like to use public forums to apply pressure on me. Ask your wife how well that worked out for her.”

He hung up.

“Salvo returned,” Evarts said to Walsh. “He remembered who I’m married to. Appears Trish and I are both on his shit list.”

He expected an angry reaction from Walsh, but instead she laughed it off. “I’m already in communication with FEMA. The state’s got nothing … nothing to give, nothing to take away. I’m working directly with the feds. If the governor wants support from Washington, he picked the wrong director for emergency operations. They hate Gleason … and they’re not enamored with the governor. They’d rather go around them and work directly with local government.”

Evarts smiled. “As always, one step ahead of the supposed big boys. What do you want me to do?”

“Me? What do I want you to do?” She laughed easily. “Rethink your position, Greg. You’re Operational Lead for the county. Tell me what you want from me.”

With a twinkle in her eye, she added, “Just remember, I’m the one who set up FEMA support while you were out galivanting around your new fiefdom.”

Chapter 46

Baldwin placed a plastic bottle under the spout and turned on the faucet. Nothing happened. Not ten seconds later, the lights went out. Not good. Wilson’s flat had a small window in front and an even smaller one in back. That was it. When the electricity failed, the brightly lit apartment took on the ambience of a well-appointed cave. Oh well, practice maneuvering in the dark might be useful. If things kept going in the same direction, society might be thrown back to the Stone Age.

“Now what?” Ashley asked.

“Now we hunker down until the rain stops,” Baldwin said. “We’re dry, warm, and we have a couple days of food and a little water. It’s not the end of the world.”

Wilson looked up from her computer. “I’m not sure about that. The USGS thankfully hasn’t extended the duration of this storm, but it has