Excerpted from THREE SURVIVORS:
Later in the growing heat of morning I heard words that chilled me. A fragment of an English weather report jumped out of the static and whining whistles. The man’s voice was authoritative, one of those trained speakers who suggest emotions as they talk. This voice smiled, “Good news, Floridians. The storm is moving out to sea.”
Storm? True, at any given moment two thousand storms rage at sea, but what storm had developed and where on the long Florida coastline had it been threatening? Probably south Florida, I thought, but given our location, the broadcast could also be from halfway up the coast. Where was the storm now? And, moving out to sea? Which sea? I bent my head close to the speaker in the manner of Luis the radio operator on Cozumel. I was ready to fix place names in my mind, to commit to memory coordinates and times. But what came next was sports news about a football training camp, and racing, and then the signal was gone.