Story Behind the Song
This episode contains the second part of the hurricane and the rising flash flood and the rescue attempts. It's the climactic scene. And very much an autobiographical description of my experience of Hurricane Paulina striking Pina Palmera and Zipolite, Oaxaca, Mexico
Lyrics
INT. CLINIC DAY, HURRICANE FULL FORCE
The Water rises inches per second around them. The people in the patio initially are in shock and silent. The water continues to rise. The Winds are now blowing the opposite the direction from the first part of the storm, and now are directly in the faces of those in patio. The water reaches to their knees.
JOSH encounters ISABEL and they embrace.
JOSH
We need to get tables and chairs so people can up out of this flood.
He and ISABEL force open doors to the various rooms and retrieve furniture and pull it out to the patio. They grab kids and the older women and put them on top of them.
ISABEL
We need to check on the kids in the doctors office!
They try to force open the door but cannot.
EXT. CLINIC LATE AFTERNOON. DARKENING
ISABEL wades into the dirty water and moves around to the outside wall and smashes the screen of the window, which implodes inward into the room. She pulls tries to pull herself in, but the swirling water pulls at her. The volunteers reach for him and with their combined strength pull her in.
INT. DOCTORS OFFICE, DAY.
The room is full of water about the waists of the children in wheel chairs. The cabinets of medical supplies are floating and things like needles and bandages and other equipment are making movement dangerous and difficult. The kids and volunteers who can talk are screaming. A couple of the more severe kids stare stoically about them. Just another day in a difficult life.
ISABEL pries open the door as JOSH pushes from the other side. JOSH takes the kids out that ISABEL pushes to him. He pulls them from their wheel chairs, which freed from their weight tip over and float away.
JOSH kicks them away off the patio and into the churning water. They pile smaller tables on top of the other, which now are covered. People are screaming and panicking. The children who have been in the lifeguard program are calm. The cabinet of rescue equipment tips over in the water and the floatation devices begin to float away. Some of the JR. Lifeguards grab them and put them on themselves and on the severely disabled kids. JAKE has his Reed Float and gives it a young child who holds on tight. The ones who are not on tables float and hold on to each other as if awaiting rescue from the Titanic.
The lights of TORCHES shine on them. Across the way they can see some men trying to cross the stream with a rope. MARIA and other kids are on the opposite side, holding ropes and hoses tied together feeding the man who is crossing. JOSH and ISABEL try to wave them off.
JOSH
Stay where you are! Its too dangerous to cross.
FIRST MAN
Well get the kids out of there, just hang on.
He tries to cross with several lengths of hose that are tied together. A Volkswagen bug floats down and collides with him and he disappears. Another man on the other side enters the water and follows the hose and pulls on in, but comes up empty. He now tries to walks towards the Clinic.
JOSH
Stay where you are. Were OK. Just wait.
JAKE
Look everyone, the water looks like its beginning to go back down!
On the posts holding the roof, the mud that has splashed up begins to leave a larger ring, like a bathtub. The water does seem to be receding, but imperceptibly.
ISABEL
The river must have broken through to the sea. If we can just get everyone to hold on and wait; well be able to walk out of here like Moises!
However, the others around continue to try to flee. The ABUELITO, the one that JOSH had spent the first part of the hurricane with enters the water and fights half way across the distance to office and finds the floating hose, which with the receding water has begin to flow the opposite direction, back to the river. He takes it and makes it back to the Patio.
JAKE takes it from him and ties it to the post.
Other men walk across to Clinic. JOSH and ISABEL argue with them.
JOSH
Just wait, the water is going down, please, youre just panicking people.
SECOND MAN
We have to get these kids out of here NOW!
ISABEL
Listen you idiot. We dont need heroes here. I dont know who you are, but part of rescuing is knowing when to wait.
SECOND MAN
Shut up you Cowards, These people want to get out of here, you can wait and drown if you want.
SECOND MAN turns to the group of people.
SECOND MAN
Who wants to get out of here with me?
A young Indian woman who has been screaming forces her way past the rest of the folks and clings to him. They both turn and enter the water and move down the ramp, which is obscured by the water. The water now flowing toward the river and the sea has increased its flow, even though it looks not nearly as deep as before. The current knocks them off their feet, and carries them away, amid the debris towards the river and they disappear.
The survivors continue to cry, and embrace each other, but settle down and wait for the water to go down. They watch as adobe walls of the building collapse and cars and vehicles settle down upon fallen palm trees, looking like Noahs Arc resting on Ararat.
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