Jorie mouthed something at Dionis.
We’ll be ready.
“You wanted to see me, sir?”
Bob Pocock never lifted his eyes from his computer screen. Merry counted to seventeen before he said, “Seen today’s weather report?”
“Not yet. Sir.”
The chief’s lips quirked. “I’d have thought the anxiety of a weekend wedding would have you on constant internet refresh.”
She was tempted to tell him that she’d ordered a tent for that very reason—so she didn’t have to worry about rain or sun in the few hours of freedom he’d granted her before Saturday—but Merry stayed silent. Goading Pocock was pointless.
“National Weather Service has issued a hurricane warning,” he murmured. “Could make landfall south of here by Thursday.”
Damn. That was when Peter’s family was supposed to arrive. “I see. Landfall where, exactly?”
“Rhode Island. New Bed. Either way, we’ll get serious rain and wind. Storm surge, undoubtedly. The streets near the wharves will flood.”
The lower end of town was increasingly awash during nor’easters, as the climate changed and weather grew more extreme. On multiple occasions during the previous year, Merry had waded through water up to her knees, as though the island were part of the Venice lagoon. She didn’t remember that happening as often when she was a child. Erosion of the island’s Atlantic beaches was a constant threat during extreme storm events, too, with the foundations of vulnerable houses undercut by massive surf and entire dunes washed out to sea. But hurricanes were exponentially worse than nor’easters. She tried to recall the last one that had struck the islands—Bob, wasn’t it?
“Are they talking categories, yet?”
“It’s just a Cat Two at the moment. Could be a Three, however, by the time it reaches us. That means wind speeds between roughly a hundred ten and a hundred thirty miles per hour.”
Good lord, she wouldn’t even be able to put up a tent, with that kind of gale blowing—
“I’ve put Scott Tredlow on alert”—Scott was the Nantucket Police Department’s emergency management coordinator—“and I’ve placed some calls to my opposite numbers at the Fire Department and Public Works,” Pocock added.
“Are you planning to call an Interdepartmental Preparedness Meeting, sir?”
The chief’s flat gray eyes drifted up to hers. “I already have, detective. It’s in twenty-two minutes. I am, after all, the emergency management director.”
His tone was sarcastic, but Merry had learned that Pocock turned snarky only when he felt insecure and defensive. He was a Chicago native who’d come around the Point—as Nantucketers referred to those who moved full-time to the island—barely six months before. Did he know that Nantucket had been the first town on both the Cape and Islands to win a “StormReady” designation from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency because of its high level of emergency preparedness? Was Pocock dialed-in enough to understand which neighborhoods were designated zone A in a major storm event—priority evacuation targets—and others zone B, Merry wondered? On an island, it might seem obvious that the coastline and Nantucket Harbor were vulnerable to massive flooding. But so, too, was everything around Madaket Harbor and Hummock Pond, on the southwest end of the island. And all of Tuckernuck, Merry knew, was zone A—an evacuation priority.
Tuckernuck. Was anybody even still living out there this late in September? And how, short of sending a police launch across the water to check, would they know? Tuck was private property. The police only set foot on it if called to a crime or accident scene. Merry made a mental note to ask Scott Tredlow if he’d contacted any Tuckernuck caretakers. The people paid to safeguard the smaller island would have their fingers on its pulse.
“I realize relief ops aren’t your responsibility, detective,” Pocock was saying, “but you’re a native who’s seen a few decades of island weather. I want you at this meeting.”
“Of course, sir.” She hesitated, then said, “Sergeant Tredlow has briefed you, I assume, on Nantucket’s key vulnerabilities?”
“I would guess they’re much like any coastal town’s.” The chief lifted his brows as though waiting for her to wow him.
“Yes, sir. With a few added quirks for good measure. Our power sources are distinctly vulnerable to storm surge—”
“Because the electrical substation is located in a flood zone,” Pocock finished sarcastically. “Yes—I think the whole town is aware of that.”
“And two fairly old undersea cables connect the substation to its actual source of power,” Merry persisted, “which is thirty miles across the sound, on Cape Cod.”
“That’s why we have backup generators.” Pocock hunched closer to his screen, as though shielding himself from her words. “On higher ground.”
There were two backup systems—one, an ancient diesel generator, and the other, a state-of-the-art Tesla battery array. “Those function best, sir, as stopgap assistance if one of the cables is disrupted. If both cables are damaged by storm surge . . .”
“We’ll be without power for some time,” Pocock concluded.
“Which will affect certain services most. Medical care, for one—”
“They deliberately built the new hospital with its own propane backup generators,” Pocock objected.
“—and assisted living facilities, for another. But I’m sure you’ll be talking about all of this at the interdepartmental meeting, as well as the potential for toxic sewage resurgence from drain flooding throughout the streets of town.”
Shit on the cobblestones. There was a brief pause, as Pocock debated possible retorts. All he said was, “Anything else, detective?”
“Boats.” Merry kept her eyes trained on the window beyond the chief’s head.
“Meaning?”
“There are a lot still moored in the Boat Basin, Children’s Beach, all over Polpis and Monomoy . . . and at the Town Pier. Probably out at Madaket, too. I assume the harbormaster will be at your meeting—but we should send a pair of uniforms to each of those dock areas right now, to walk the slips and warn anybody living on board their vessels. They’ll need to get themselves and their boats out of the water.”
“We can use Ping alerts for that,” Pocock said. The Town of Nantucket had adopted an app for texting emergency information to islanders’ cell phones.
“That should work, for those who’ve downloaded the app.” Of course, this infuriating man—patronizing, chilly, and in Merry’s opinion, misanthropic—would rely on a tech solution to handle human suffering. It would be easier to blame an app than himself for any failure. She quelled the impulse to grasp Pocock’s shoulders and shake him; if her father were still chief, he wouldn’t be able to sleep at night with a hurricane bearing down. “Of course, any off-islanders here for overnight stays in the Basin won’t get those warnings. We should assume a number of itinerant boat owners may be blindsided and trapped.”