40,000 Cubic feet by Evelyn Vegas

Noah had made his way through the tangled roads laid along the smoky mountains for hours, warning the locals that the dam upstream would break and that they would need to evacuate immediately. They mostly did, many having relatives nearby and, knowing the risks of either decision, made their choice without much fanfare. The horror of a 100 foot wall of water destroying everything until the river gorge widened 5 miles downstream had worked its way into the collective sphere of common nightmares for the residents like cancer or car crashes. When the call came some helped evacuate others, some stayed behind waiting to see if the dilapidated New Deal era dam would actually fail, and others grabbed their kids and rushed off into the mountains, spending the night amongst the dead hemlocks killed by invasive parasites, which were scattered along the ridgelines like cemetery obelisks.  

Noah pulled into the gravel parking lot across the street from a small whitewater rafting company, arriving around 1am after forgetting to hit this building earlier.  Around 15 people lived and worked on the property, living in the same large barn which primarily stored the company’s equipment, and he knew the reaction he would evoke would be much stranger.  These seasonal workers had a vulgar lifestyle and were used to acts which couldn’t be performed by anyone integrated into a stable community. A life spent running away from something imposes a dangerous austerity onto those who live it. A handful of workers were out drinking on the wooden bench running along the front of the largest building which handled the retail section of the business. Noah brushed up on his warning in the truck.  There was currently 40,000 cubic feet of water per second, the workers would know this as CFS, running through the dam and over the spillway that was already showing signs of collapse, and another 40,000 CFS was headed towards the Dam. If it hit, and it was likely to hit, the Dam would break and in 7 minutes all of this would be reduced to splinters.  If they were lucky they’d lose everything that wasn’t in their cars, which, admittedly, wasn’t much. That is, if the alarm worked which Noah believed it wouldn’t. Noah wasn’t terribly worried about them not following his instructions, it was more of a legal liability in his thinking anyway. Under the dim porch light he could see the workers staring confusedly at his car which sat at the base of a hill overtaken by kudzu. They didn’t know.

Noah removed the name tag from his fluorescent yellow vest. It was useless to those who’d known him all his life and made him look absurd being called Noah on the eve of a flood. He would need to rely on the facsimile of a uniform bought at Walmart covering his otherwise untrustworthy appearance that he feared might look too hickish and therefore stupid in the eyes of out of towners. It was the uniform that could tell these people that the Dam was failing, that in a few hours their lives would be destroyed, and that they wouldn’t have a home or job if he was right. He pulled himself out of his car and began walking towards the porch, still too far away for a proper greeting and draped with that ghastly uncertainty that surrounds late night visits from strangers. He didn’t know how these people would survive if the dam broke and, to quell the rising unease, he pulled at a few loose threads around his waist, a movement that gave him the look of a nervous child. A man with a short well kept buzz cut and bushy beard sat up on the porch, regaining an air of authority through the gesture of straightening his posture and called out when Noah was close.  

“Can I help you with something?”

“I’m Nick. I work at the dam and we just got word that 40,000 CFS is coming our way and… well… there’s a good chance it’ll rupture which means…you have to evacuate.”  Noah spoke in the hushed embarrassed tone of a stranger bringing the news of a family member's death.  He felt himself an unworthy messenger for this event.  Years of nightmares and dulling fireside talks had foreseen this moment and now, in a few uneasy words, all of their fears were brought into reality. The crowd, which had remained a mass of people in Noah’s eyes, began to form into a few distinct parts. 

“Immediately?” The Leader spoke with a resigned familiarity.

“Yes.” Noah responded.

The Leader tightened his jaw taking a deep breath as if that would return him to a state of sobriety. A hulking mass of drunken flesh slumping in a folding chair near the Leader smiled a dumb blind smile and grabbed his tight alcoholic belly starting to try and stand up.  On the other side of the leader was a group of three, a horrified butch woman, a slender hippie type who couldn’t understand the moment, and an impish young man. They all turned towards the one who had spoken. The Leader placed his hand on the young man's thigh, holding it firmly and lightly jostling it before speaking with a careful reserve that showed he had thought about this moment often.  

“Wake everyone inside. Tell them we’re sleeping in the Walmart parking lot tonight.”

“Got it.” The young man responded and crossed the lawn towards the barn, almost skipping and chanting to himself that “The end is nigh.” in a youthful joyous tone.  

The leader repeated himself louder as nobody else had moved. “We’re sleeping in the Walmart parking lot tonight. Get your shit right now and go. I’ll meet you there in the company van.  

He spoke much better than Noah had, calm and authoritative, clearly more experienced with this kind of authority than Noah who, sensing his point had been made, began to turn away when the large man finally fell up in his chair.  

“Well what if it doesn’t break?” The large man slurred out, surrounded by the largest pile of empty beer cans. 

 Noah bit the inside of his cheek.“It’s an evacuation. I’m telling you that you have to leave.”  

The large man stood up all the way, proudly displaying his height and swaying with the wind. “And what if we don’t want to?”

“We’re leaving right fucking now and if you don’t leave you’re fired tomorrow.  No home, no job, done.  No discussion.”  The leader stood up, clearly shorter but confident in the power that backed his words.

“Well… I mean… Logically… Like whats if the dams doesn’t breaks?” The large one slurred again.

“I don’t care, I’m not playing this game. I’m in charge when the owner’s not here.  If you’re not with us in the parking lot you’re fired. If you stay you’re trespassing and we’ll kick you out.”

“Oh so you’re just gonna make me homeless then?  Huh?” The large man swayed over to the leader but as he did a hairy rough looking man appeared from behind the building, taking a swig from a bottle of whisky before slamming a folding chair for effect.  

“We’ve wanted to kick you out since you got here, Bob. You’re annoying, a fucking liar, and you keep fucking going after my fucking girl. Go fuck yourself you fucking stupid motherfucking fucking fuck.” The words broke into a high pitched crack and the man grew too angry to contain himself, falling into a teary eyed blathering. He quickly grew embarrassed at his body's betrayal and sulked away towards his car, crying and cursing. Everyone on the porch ignored him, aware they could succumb to a similar fate.

“Right now.  Are you leaving?  Yes or no. Answer.”  The Leader spoke.

“I mean. I don’t have to. You know nothing's going to happen.”

“Fuck you, you’re fired and if you don’t leave here tomorrow I’ll escort you out.  Only the first shots’ snakeshot Bob, the rest’ll kill ya.” The large man protested but the Leader ignored him and turned back to Noah. For a moment there was a silence filled with the strangling wet stench of kudzu and the distant roar of the largest flood the valley had seen since the early 30’s.  

“Thank you Nick.”

“Thank you sir.  Best of luck out there.”

“You too.”  Noah felt that he was no longer needed and turned back towards his truck.  He had to turn the key twice to start the vehicle and as he left he saw a few panicked workers burst out from the barn, holding various dogs and backpacks. They had woken into a nightmare.  

Noah’s headlights cut through the winding thickly forested mountainside roads, driving by houses, some abandoned, some enjoying a final meal in the company of family, until he arrived at his own worn down house. He opened the unlocked door and put on Townes Van Zandt’s self-titled album. He poured himself a double whiskey and finished up the remnants of a 7/11 sandwich he’d forgotten to bring with him on his rounds. The lamp shade had darkened from years of smoke and threw a bile yellow light out over the room. 

He didn’t feel he had the strength remaining in him to restart his life if the dam collapsed.  He’d seen people torn apart by the disasters they’d survived, in Asheville, Whitesburgh, Louisville and all along the stretch of Appalachia he traveled through. The mining companies had leveled the mountaintops to suck out the marrow and left behind the ruins of a previous world and a land far more prone to floods than before. The people who did fight often fought alone and lost. He liked to think of himself as a fighter but even he had his limits. The country had given up, allowing the forces of decay to rust out what was left. There wasn’t a fear or pain or pleasure or any of the innumerable dramatic responses one expects at the thought of suicide, rather, Noah felt a gentle numbness engendered by a quiet sense of duty that was directed at nothing and therefore was unable to be satiated. He eyed the barrel of his revolver, wondering if he’d have the strength to kill himself if he heard the sirens. He finished off the whiskey and set his alarm for 4 hours from that moment when he’d have to make his morning round of repairs at the dam and along the river.  

At some point in the night the water crested, not much higher than it had been. The extra 40,000 CFS had flooded a small paper mill town upstream from the dam with over 100 still missing. Noah didn’t feel the relief he expected from survival.  He went to a morning meeting at the Dam where they discussed the failures of the night's evacuation. A whole section of town hadn’t been notified quick enough and learned the news through an exaggerated chain message they didn’t believe and therefore they didn’t evacuate when they were told by the Dam authorities. Noah, having been assigned the country route, kept silent about his own failures during the meeting, agreeing when it was required. There would be a lot of overtime ahead and while some of the equipment along the river had been deemed too expensive to replace, Noah would still be able to afford new tires and a new starter for his truck. He might even buy himself a bottle of celebratory good whiskey instead of the swill he usually settled for.  

Before Noah went into the field to work, he stopped by a small cafe near the river that had avoided the flood by about 6 feet. When he entered the wife and husband who owned the place were talking to another local couple. Both went silent at his arrival. He ordered his Iced Mocha, exchanging pleasantries and apologetic glances with the people. They needed him anyway, he thought, the dam provided power for the town and provided water for the booming rafting business that then provided customers to the cafe and if the Dam failed, or perhaps, more accurately, when it failed, they’d all be fucked. He drank his coffee outside, washing down the little orange pill that would push him through his shift and watching the rushing streams of broken lives wash aimlessly in little clumps of refuse through the sunken trees along the flooded shore. Where the water had already receded, in a patch of barren muck, he saw the remnants of wedding china that would never be replaced, the previous owners having potentially been swept away with their possessions. He felt that they all lived too small of lives to suffer a true apocalypse, that there would only be a string of unrelated disasters, untethered from god’s plan, or any other plan for that matter, and he too would be inevitably washed away as the yet unnumbered few had been washed away last night, desperately gasping for air, his fears remaining impotent, endlessly deferred towards an absent apocalypse.

Evelyn Vegas is a writer from Chicago.