Whirlwind

13

Dallas, Texas

Stiff from five hours of hard sleep, Kate woke with adrenaline pumping through her. She sat up and switched on the TV news.

Still live with wall-to-wall coverage of the storm.

While watching, she checked her phone for new messages. Nothing. Again, she came to her photo of Jenna Cooper searching for her baby. Could I help her find him? Again, Kate felt like she had been punched in the gut. It had only been a few hours since Dorothea Pick dismissed her desire to follow Jenna’s tragic story.

Why is she sidelining me and not the others? I need this job as much as they do. I can’t sit here until three in the afternoon to work in the bureau when one of the biggest stories in the world is happening all around me.

Kate showered, dressed and bit into a stale bagel for breakfast as she went online and searched the long list of emergency shelters across the Metroplex. After making notes on those located near the flea market, she went to her car, determined to deliver a solid story today.

I’ll prove that I’m as good as the others.

Early-morning traffic was manageable. Thankfully she was familiar with her destination. First, she went to the flea market, where she’d learned that security had been tightened. For safety reasons, access was now limited to officials and media with valid accreditation.

After Kate showed her Newslead ID, she headed across the debris-covered grounds to the Saddle Up Center, concerned that she was not going to find Jenna and Cassie Cooper here.

Amid the barks of dog teams, search-and-rescue efforts were still continuing before the operation evolved into debris removal, Fire Captain J. B. Langston told her.

“We’ve been going all night and we haven’t recovered a baby so far. We’ve extracted more injured survivors and fatalities. Several children and more adult victims, but no baby,” Langston said. “You know that people were swept up into the winds. I heard our guys found one of the center’s vendors in a tree, seven miles from here.”

“Yeah, that was terrible. I read that in an Associated Press story,” Kate said. “Captain, do you have any idea where shelter survivors and their families were taken?”

“Try Rivergreen Community Hall. There are a few others but Rivergreen’s your best bet.”

It was a short drive, some two miles south. The community hall, a square one-story building, had been designated an emergency shelter for the area.

Emergency vehicles, buses, news vans, along with trucks delivering food, water and other aid, filled the parking lot. Clearly, this shelter had been operating nonstop through the night, Kate thought as she entered.

Inside, the hall droned with activity. Banners from a Retirement & Appreciation banquet, planned for last night, waved like a memory over rows of cots and mats occupied by people recovering from the storm. They filled the large central area. Some were sleeping, some were huddled comforting others. Some were reading government application forms or talking on cell phones. Although spotty, there was service.

Tables staffed by emergency workers, aid agencies, church groups and other volunteers lined the walls. They offered medical help, advice on insurance claims and counseling. Signs pointed to showers, extra toilets, laundry facilities, toiletries, towels, clothing and toys. There was a station to donate blood. At one end of the hall, people lined up for hot food. Several large TVs were turned to storm news and there were computers with internet service donated by local companies.

Kate came to a heartbreaking sight in one corner: a Missing/Displaced Persons sign. Under it were a few dozen photographs of women, children and men of all ages hastily taped to the wall like a patchwork quilt of hope. A few had little notes with contact information attached to them.

The effort was run by the Missing Person Emergency Search System-MPESS-a national agency based in Washington, D.C. When Kate arrived, several staff members at three tables were using laptops, maps and cell phones as they took information from anguished people.

A bleary-eyed man in his late forties with salt-and-pepper hair turned to her. He was wearing a navy MPESS polo shirt. The ID tag hanging from his neck said Frank Rivera, Supervisor.

“Sure, I got a minute,” Rivera said after Kate had requested someone with the group speak to the press. “What do you need?”

She asked for a rundown on the search system, how it was helping to find missing people, because she’d thought that the process was already being handled by local relief workers.

“That’s correct,” Rivera said, “we’re helping local groups and the Dallas Police Department and Sheriffs for surrounding counties. We’re coordinating their ‘missing persons’ work and their database. We’re an experienced national nonprofit agency, with expertise in this area of crisis response. We’ve got retired cops, federal agents and investigators. The federal Justice Department and FEMA arranged for us to come. Once they got the airports running, most of our teams flew in overnight from all over the country. We’re set up at emergency shelters at all the hardest-hit communities.”

Rivera sipped from a large cup of coffee and said his group dealt with all types of situations where people are disoriented, lost or still trapped. Families get separated or a member may have been helped by strangers and taken to a facility without their family knowing.

“We list every detail on anyone reported missing, photographs, names, descriptions, clothes and their situation when the storm hit-were they at work, school, church, shopping, visiting from another city, state, that kind of thing. It all goes into the database. Then it’s cross-referenced at hospitals and shelters with descriptions of deceased who are being processed by teams from the various Medical Examiners’ offices.”

Rivera said the database was growing and being constantly updated online. There was also a toll-free twenty-four-hour help number. In cases requiring identification of the deceased, nothing was posted and family members were notified for next steps.

“Our analysts are also hitting the ground, going into hospitals and shelters to collect information on people, children who’ve been displaced, separated, rescued and transferred to a different location. All people reported to the system are considered missing until law enforcement, fire, paramedics and the M.E. confirm them as recovered, reunited, or deceased. And the clock is ticking on those still trapped in the rubble.”

“Can you give me the status of a case I’m reporting on?” Kate asked.

“Certainly, if it helps to clear it. Our goal is to reunite families and we need the press to help us.” Rivera went to a laptop. “What’s the name?”

“Cooper, Caleb Cooper, C-A-L-E-B. Cooper is common spelling.”

“Sounds familiar,” Rivera said.

After entering the name in the database, he took a moment to read the file. Then he summarized for Kate that Caleb’s mother, Jenna Cooper, reported her five-month-old son missing from the Saddle Up Center, along with two unidentified adults.

“It’s still open,” Rivera said. “Nothing has surfaced on this one.”

“What about the adults, anything at all on them?”

“Nothing. We’ve got very few details on them but we’ve been cross-checking the information we have.”

“What about the M.E., anything from the temporary morgues?”

“Nothing.” Rivera shook his head, rubbed his chin then he saw a note in the case file that he’d missed.

“Hang on a sec,” he said, turning to an analyst working near him. “Ellen, take a look at this case. You had this one open not long ago.”

The woman whose ID badge said Ellen White stood and read the screen over Rivera’s shoulder.

“Yes,” Ellen said, “for a reporter with Newslead. That’s the news service which reported this case, right?”

“That’s right. Why, what’s going on?” Kate asked.

“You tell us,” Rivera said. “You’re the second Newslead reporter to ask us about it this morning.”

“The second?”

“That woman was here earlier.” Ellen White indicated a woman walking along the rows of cots, glancing at her cell phone screen and those in the community hall, as if she were looking for someone.

Kate froze when she recognized the woman. Mandy Lee.