Chapter 4 — Climbing Through the Storm

At seven o'clock in the morning, the wind had dropped to level 6 or level 7, enough for the operations team's service pickup truck to roll out of the material yard, weaving through broken tree branches lying across the road like the bones of a giant animal that had just been skinned.

Thắng sat in the front seat, holding a walkie-talkie, his eyes continuously scanning both sides of the road where each corrugated iron roof was overturned, each low-voltage electricity pole was tilted, and a broken pole was folded in half across the red dirt road, forcing the car to go around the fields.

"Twenty-two hours left for the hospital," Cả Xuyên spoke from the back seat, looking at an old wristwatch with scratched glass. "Since Dr. Thục first reported."

"I know," Thắng replied, not taking his eyes off the road ahead. "We need to get to column 42 within four hours so we can assess and plan repairs before dark."

The car turned onto the road leading to the coastal area, where the row of casuarinas that once stood in a row to block the wind now only had a few loose roots, most of which had been uprooted or broken across their trunks. Sand flew blindly even though the wind was much weaker than last night, covering everything with a layer of white like fake snow.

Khánh Thi sat in the last row with Hứa Duy Vọng, both wearing full protective gear even though they did not know what their specific job would be today. She looked out the glass window and saw a house with a corrugated iron roof stripped off, leaving only a wooden frame. A man standing among the ruins looked up at the sky with a blank expression.

"There it is," Cả Xuyên suddenly spoke, his voice changed.

The car slowed down, then stopped some distance away, because the road ahead was blocked by the very thing they were looking for.

Column 42 lay broken in half, the upper body collapsed, broken porcelain beams were scattered all over the sand, and aluminum cables as big as a wrist lay curled on the ground like dead snakes. The base of the column is still standing, but tilted to one side, revealing the uprooted concrete foundation, exactly where Thắng once measured and recorded in his notebook.

No one in the car said anything for several seconds. Thắng opened the car door and got out first, his rubber boots sinking into the wet sand. He went straight to the collapsed column foundation and knelt down to look closely at the fracture.

"Right here," he spoke, his voice lacking any gloating "I said it first" tone, just pure heaviness. "The foundation broke at the same spot where I measured the erosion last year. If it had been reinforced, it might have been able to hold."

Cả Xuyên walked over, put his hand on his shoulder for a moment, without saying anything, because there are times when words of comfort only make everything more empty.

"Re-measure the condition of the wire." Thắng stood up, his voice immediately changed to business mode, because standing still would not help the hospital restore power. "Vọng, check if the wire from pole 41 to here can still be reused or if it needs to be completely replaced." Vọng nodded, carrying the toolbox towards the broken wire, using an insulation meter to clamp each remaining cable segment. Khánh Thi stood next to Thắng, looking around the scene, trying to remember every detail the way he taught her in theory lessons.

"How did you know the nail would break in this exact place?" She asked, looking down at the concrete crack that revealed the rusty rebar inside.

"It's not about knowing in advance, it's about measuring it," Thắng replied, kneeling down and pointing to a line of sand of different colors on the nail. "Do you see this line? It's the level of rainwater that has accumulated over many seasons. Each time it recedes, it carries a thin layer of sand around the base of the foundation. For three years in a row, the base of the foundation has been exposed nearly twenty centimeters more than the original design. No need for magic to guess, just come out here every year to measure and record the number."

"So why doesn't anyone believe those numbers?"

"People believe." He stood up, brushing sand off the knees of his protective pants. "But believing is not enough to have money. That's the difference between knowing the right thing and doing the right thing, Ms. Thi. Remember, because you will encounter this many times in your career," Echo called back from the broken wire, his voice was a bit softer than usual.

"Mr. Thắng, the wire from pole 41 to pole 42 can still be reused, the insulation is still satisfactory. But the wire from pole 42 to pole 43 is completely broken, it must be completely re-connected, about one hundred and thirty meters."

"So how much is missing compared to the four hundred meters I have?" Thắng asked.

"If we only do the priority section for the transformer station, that's enough," Vọng replied after quickly calculating on paper. "But if you include the connection to the residential area behind, it will be nearly a hundred meters short."

"So do the priority section first, the residential area later." Thắng decided immediately, without hesitation. "The hospital can't wait. Residential areas can still run generators or use kerosene lamps for another day or two."

Cả Xuyên walked around column 43, lightly tapping the hammer on the exposed foundation to hear the sound, an old technique that he still trusts more than modern measuring machines.

"This column can still stand, but if it leans a little more, it will probably follow column 42." He concluded. "You need to be temporarily anchored by a steel cable before turning on the power, otherwise the next gust of wind will cause it to fall while the power is running, double the danger." Thắng nodded, wrote quickly in his notebook, then looked at the clock again. Seven forty-five minutes. Twenty-one hours and thirty minutes left.

"How far apart are columns 42 and 43?" She asked, looking towards another pillar that was also tilting about a hundred meters away. Although not broken, it seemed shaky.

"About one hundred and twenty meters," Thắng replied, still looking at column 43. "That column also needs to be checked carefully. If the foundation is similarly eroded, we must temporarily reinforce it before rebuilding column 42. Otherwise, after erecting this column, the other column will fall." He pulled out the backup satellite phone, because regular cell signal had not yet been restored, and called the dispatch room to report the situation.

"Column 42 completely collapsed and needs to be replaced with a new one. Estimated time to erect the column is six to eight hours if all materials are on site," he spoke in a clear and decisive voice so that the listener on the other side could take notes. "Column 43 is tilted, needs further evaluation, and may also need urgent foundation reinforcement. The wire section from column 38 to column 50 is estimated to be about sixty percent damaged, most of it needs to be replaced."

On the other side of the line, the voice of the shift leader rang out, a bit hesitant.

"Mr. Thắng, I must warn you that the branch's reserve warehouse currently only has enough spare steel pole of the appropriate type and about four hundred meters of aluminum cable. If more is needed, it must be brought from the warehouse of the neighboring branch, more than fifty kilometers away, but the road is currently flooded and fallen trees are blocking many sections."

Thắng closed his eyes for a second and calculated mentally. Four hundred meters of cable is not enough to replace the entire damaged section, and if you have to wait for supplies from another branch, the time will increase significantly, possibly exceeding the hospital's thirty-hour limit.

"So use the backup poles and existing cables to prioritize restoring the section from the transformer station to the nearest section point that can supply power to the hospital first," he spoke, his voice already calculating the plan as he spoke. "There is no need to restore the entire line immediately, just one branch supplying power to the district center area is enough in the first phase."

"But column 42 is blocking the middle of that section, Mr. Thắng." The shift leader replied. "If we don't rebuild pole 42, there is no way to get electricity through. There is no other detour on the line."

Thắng opened his eyes and looked towards column 42 lying broken in half on the sand. The morning sunlight after the storm shone down, making broken pieces of porcelain sparkle like broken glass.

"So we have to rebuild it," he said, simply as an unavoidable fact. "Today, if possible."

He hung up the phone, turned back to look at his team, his eyes passed by Cả Xuyên who was checking the grounding kit, by Vọng who was winding up the broken wire, and finally stopped at Khánh Thi, who was standing still looking at the fallen pillar with an expression that he couldn't immediately read as fear or determination.

"What do you see?" He asked her, surprised.

Khánh Thi was startled and turned around, then looked back at the pillar again before answering.

"I see a pillar," she spoke slowly. "But I thought of eleven ventilators." Thắng looked at her for a long moment, saying nothing, then nodded once, briefly, as if that answer had just confirmed something he had been pondering in his mind since morning.

"Get in the car," he said, turning and walking toward the pickup truck. "Go back to report, mobilize more manpower, and get the backup column out here. We're less than twenty-two hours away." On the way home, no one in the car said much. Cả Xuyên looked out the window, still holding the nail hammer in his hand, occasionally unconsciously tapping his thigh. Vọng sat next to Khánh Thi, for the first time since morning there was no longer any disdain in his eyes when he glanced at her, instead there was a silence that was hard to name, almost like respect.

"You said that well just now," he spoke softly, as the car drove past a rice field completely destroyed by the storm. "About the eleven ventilators."

"I'm not trying to say it well," Khánh Thi replied, still looking out the glass window. "I just thought so."

"I know." Vọng nodded, turned away and looked out the front of the car. "So that's worth mentioning."

Behind them, the sun had risen higher, shining down on the sand strewn with electric poles and broken tree branches, and far away, offshore, the last clouds of storm No. 11 were drifting north, leaving behind a sky so clear it almost mocked what it had just caused.