The air was a sweltering 105 degrees Fahrenheit all day everyday for about a week and it hadn't rained in over a month. The trees were getting crunchy, the upper dam was running dry, a campfire ban was in effect across the entire area. Then things started to break; the boardwalk, the ice machine, the freezers, our will to survive... All the fixings for a typical Refuge cove work day, except it was hot as a wort hog's backside.
One evening of that hellish week there was a birthday gathering on the upper deck of the cafe. Most of the Cove's inhabitants attended the non-air conditioned celebration, though perhaps a bit reluctantly due to the puddles forming in various bodily crevasses. It was a lovely happy hour style party and at some point someone even brought ice to share, but it was all too quaint for such an auspicious occasion as Miss Meg's birthday. It seems something dramatic happens every anniversary of her birth and this year was to be no different.
We were all getting ready to return to our respective sanctums of cool habitation when auntie Di came running out of the store and down the dock ramp with an entourage of bucket carriers. We all jumped to our feet only to see smoke rising from the generator shed. The little wooden shack that houses the machine that generates electricity for the docks, all of downtown and most of the homes on the island was on fire.
While brother helped on the roof dodging hot wires and avoiding falling through, I helped connect hoses together to reach the flames. Of course no one thought through the fact that all the water pressure relied upon the generator which was not functioning. So the bucket brigade began. We had buckets all the way down to the sea and the passing line was very efficient. The backup generator was turned on to try to get water pressure back but all it did was spray soot everywhere and on everyone near. We looked like street urchins from Oliver Twist. After not too long we had a working hose with sufficient pressure up to the roof and the blaze was put out.
Looking back at the incident we all could see how bad it could have been. Had the fire been spotted a few minutes later we would have easily had a forest fire on our hands. Had there been fewer people downtown at that moment, Refuge Cove might not have survived.
Now there are plans to install a longer hose and a water pump that does not rely on the generator.
Thankfully, that was the most dramatic story of the summer.
