The storm was called a “bombogenesis.”
On February 8, 2013, a blizzard and a hurricane simultaneously hit the East Coast with a fierceness not seen in a century. People flocked to a Cape Cod emergency shelter for warmth and food. They needed electricity to run their oxygen concentrators, their feeding pumps, and their CPAP machines. But the food never arrived and at the height of the storm, the power shut down. People shivered under army blankets for warmth. Then a woman disappeared.
This story is told by the award-winning author, Terri Arthur, RN, the Red Cross nurse who was assigned to the emergency shelter to manage the medical clinic. Arthur gives an account of good intentions, erratic bosses, mounting surprises, and unforeseen consequences swirling out of control. “I pondered that I might have failed in some way,” she writes. “Years later, this still haunts me. I continue to wonder what else I could have done.”
Presented by the Independent Press Award, IndependentPressAward.com
