//------------------------------//
// Gilda 
// Story: Report From Rescue Company 1 
// by BRBrony9 
//------------------------------//

Gilda built herself up in ferocity over the course of the afternoon, battering Manehattan with powerful winds and lashing rain. The storm surge rose higher and higher, starting to flood outlying communities, but true landfall wasn't going to happen until after dark. Though the eyewall was miles away to the south, the strength of the storm over the city was not exactly slack.

The MFD was inundated with calls. Trees blocking roads, flooded basements, power outages, loose signage and building facades, medical calls. One thing there were few of was car accidents; hardly anypony was outside now. Even if they hadn't listened to the official advice, one look out of their windows now would make them reconsider. Rain wasn't so much coming down as it was being hurled horizontally along the streets and avenues. Water bubbled from every drain cover, pooling in the gutters where they were clogged with leaves and twigs and other debris.

Only fools were braving the weather; fools, and public service workers, who had no choice in the matter, for they had signed up to help the city no matter the circumstances. Ambulances, police cars, fire trucks, utility companies, the Department of Parks, the Water Department and the Department of Environmental Protection provided the majority of vehicles that were still on the streets, for they all had tasks to perform.

Beep-Boop.

'Engine.'

'Box 5062, West 48th and 12th Ave! Medical!' Oak Wood called.

'Again?' Striker shot Ember Dawn a look as they trotted to the rig. 'That's the same box from this morning.'

Out they went, into the appalling weather. Rain pelted the windshield, the wipers working overtime to try and keep visibility at an acceptable level. The street was awash with water in many places, where drains were clogged or it was pooling in low-lying areas and potholes. They headed west to 12th Avenue. This time, the water was well up over the edge of the river. Indeed, several of the piers along the river were underwater, only the buildings constructed upon them being visible. It was already getting dark, and the headlights of the Engine could still only pierce a short distance into the gloom ahead. The red and white flashing lights of the rig reflected off of the surrounding buildings and the raindrops like a crazed kaleidoscope. 

When they reached 12th Avenue, they were halted by a large area of flooding. 'Where's the patient?' Coppertop asked, peering through the murk. 'Engine 25 to Manehattan. Do you have a 10-7 for box 5062? We're at the intersection and we don't see a patient, K.'

A 10-7 signal was a request for more information about the call. It was usually obtained by one of the dispatch staff calling back the number which had phoned in the alarm and asking for more details, or relaying anything of potential use which was not included on the original ticket, the information send over the data terminal in each vehicle that listed the location, address, and nature of the call.

'Engine 25, all we have is a pony lying on a bench there, K.'

'Engine 25, 10-4...' Lieutenant Coppertop exchanged glances with his crew. 'It's not that same mare...surely to Celestia she's moved on by now?'

'Can we even get to that bench, Lieu?' Dark Flash asked. Deep Blue shook her head.

'Not in the rig. Water looks too deep. I don't wanna flood the engine. Last thing we need is fleet services taking the piss out of us as they tow us away.'

'Alright, let's get out and take a look around. Everypony be careful, don't lose sight of each other. Take a Hoofigan or a hook and probe ahead of you to check the water depth. Blue, stay with the rig. Dawn, grab the medical gear.' At Coppertop's command, the fireponies jumped down from the rig. Immediately they were pounded by vicious winds that nearly took the doors off. Rain peppered them like buckshot. Dawn opened one of the rear compartments and grabbed the medical bag, following the others into the flood water. The wind, now coming from their backs, nearly carried them forward like bowling pins being scattered by the ball. Deep Blue, the chauffeur, remained in the heated cab of the Engine as the others waded forward. 

The water was up to their carpal joints, almost a foot of it covering the riverside roadway. Through the rain, they could see a dark lump on the bench. It was the same mare from before, wrapped in the same blanket, sodden through and unmoving.

'Hey, ma'am? Ma'am, can you hear me?' Coppertop called, shaking her gently. 'Ma'am? Fire Department. We were here earlier!'

The mare didn't respond. 'Is she breathing?' Dawn asked, offering up the medical bag.

'I'm fine...' the mare mumbled, half-incoherently. 

'Yeah, she's breathing...' Coppertop replied with a sigh. 'Ma'am, you cannot stay here any longer. This whole area is flooding. If you stay here then you're gonna drown, do you understand?'

'I said...I'm fine...please...' she replied weakly, shivering from the cold.

'Ma'am, we can't leave you out here,' Coppertop frowned. 'Engine 25 to Manehattan! Do you have an ETA on the bus for box 5062, K? We located the patient. She's possibly suffering from hypothermia, K.'

'Engine 25, EMS cannot give ETA's due to the storm, K,' came the reply. 'They assigned a unit twelve minutes ago.'

'Engine 25, 10-4. Advise EMS there is significant flooding around the area. Do not travel up 12th Avenue, it may be impassable...' Coppertop looked around. There was water all over the place. 'Fuck it...' he grunted. 'Ah, Engine 25 to Manehattan, you can cancel the bus. We're going to transport the patient ourselves, K. To, uh...to Meadowbrook Memorial, K.'

'10-4, Engine 25.'

Fire units were not supposed to transport patients. That was for the ambulances, the buses in Manehattan slang. But this was an exceptional case. The storm was tying up resources all across the city. EMS, like every other agency, was overstretched to capacity and beyond. The ambulance that was assigned to them could be better used elsewhere, and might find it couldn't even reach them anyway. Meadowbrook was only ten blocks away.

'Ma'am, you need to come with us,' Coppertop informed the victim. 'We're going to take you to the hospital, alright? You need to get treated, to get someplace warm. Why didn't you go to one of the shelters we told you about?'

'Because I'm fine...' the vagrant mare answered, though that was clearly not the case in numerous ways. Staying out here, so close to the river, was a death sentence for a homeless pony, but perhaps that was why she had chosen to remain on the bench.

'Come on...' Coppertop grunted. 'Flash, Striker, help me get her up.' Together, the trio of fireponies lifted the mare bodily, over a string of weak complaints from her. But she was too tired, too cold, too wet to offer any physical resistance, and they were able to get her off of the bench and back to the Engine, sliding her onto the back seats. She looked extremely disheveled, weak and pathetic. But she was a pony, like any other, and whether she had a home or not, she deserved to be cared for. Fireponies never discriminated. They cared not for the victim's social class or whether they had somewhere to live. They didn't care if a victim was an earth pony, Pegasus or unicorn. They didn't care if the victim was a pony, a Zebra, a Griffon, a Diamond Dog, a Yak, or any other species. They were not there to judge a victim's origins or their circumstances. They were there to help, and that was exactly what Engine 25 did.

With little room in the back, Dawn and Dark Flash rode on the running boards, holding onto the door handles outside the cab, a practice that used to be routine in the department, but which had long since been outlawed under normal circumstances due to the danger it posed, and the fact that all apparatus now had enough space inside for the whole crew. But it was a short ride to Meadowbrook Memorial, where the half-incoherent mare was handed over to the overworked emergency room. They had done their bit for the poor mare, and now, they had to get back to the firehouse to be there for other ponies, too.

'Engine 25 to Manehattan, K?'

'Engine 25.'

'Engine 25 is 10-8 from Meadowbrook hospital. We handed the patient over to the emergency room, K. Make our box a 10-37 Code 3,' Coppertop informed the dispatcher, a signal that meant Non-Fire Related Medical Incident, Non-Life Threatening.

'10-4, Engine 25, I have another run for you. Box 0645, that's at 610 Marestrom Avenue at West 69th, reporting a flooding condition in the basement, K.'

'Engine 25, 10-4,' Coppertop replied. At a time like this, with Gilda bearing down on them with full force, it never ended. The calls simply never stopped coming in.




Beep-Boop.

'Rescue.'

'Again? We only just got back!' Flagstaff complained with a grunt. Her mane and coat were soaked through by the rain. 'I can't even take a shower?' she grumbled, reversing course back to the apparatus floor, where Rescue 1 had just backed in after returning from a scaffolding collapse down on East 10th Street.

'Rescue goes again!' one of the recalled fireponies from another shift called, having taken over the housewatch duties when Oak Wood had been out on the call. 'Box 1160, Spring Street and LaPonette Street. Debris falling from a building!'

Off they went again, into the howling gale. Darkness had fallen as Gilda edged ever closer to landfall. Spring Street was way down near the bottom of Manehattan island, below the 4th Street cutoff where streets stopped having numbers and started having names. It was quite a long way to run for a call where the Rescue wasn't even needed, but that was what happened. An old, partially rusted fire escape had come loose from a five-story brick building, and clattered to the street, crushing a parked car. But there were no pedestrians around, nopony in the car, and nopony in the building was hurt. The Rescue had almost arrived at the scene when they were turned back.

'Manehattan calling Rescue 1?'

'Rescue 1, K.'

'Are you available?' the dispatcher inquired, almost politely.

'Rescue 1 is available, K,' Grey Spike informed them.

'Alright, Rescue 1, take in box 5011. Celestia Drive at South Street. Reported to be multiple cars trapped in floodwater, K.'

'Rescue 1, 10-4, we are responding.' Grey Spike shook his head. 'Don't ponies ever learn? Why would you drive around the edge of the island when you know it's gonna be flooded?'

'Maybe ponies really are that stupid, Cap!' Fairway suggested, as he swung the rig around to head south again. 'Maybe it's like that windsurfer that Rescue 4 had to get from out in the bay earlier. They just want the thrill.'

'Then go skydiving or something!' Grey Spike muttered. 'Don't drive into floodwater if you can't see how deep it is. It's just common sense. Tell me I'm right, Fairway.'

'You're right, Cap!' the chauffeur responded, getting a chuckle from the other fireponies. It was, of course, but ponies had a predilection- almost a fetish- for finding new and stupid ways of getting themselves into trouble. Silver Streak had shown that earlier in the day, by climbing the radio mast in the teeth of a howling gale. Now, other ponies were reinforcing that fact by apparently driving into floodwater in regular cars, not even a vehicle somewhat adapted to wet conditions.

It took a couple of minutes to get down to South Street and the Celestia Drive, right at the southeastern tip of Manehattan island, not far from the ferry terminal. Here, an underpass took the Celestia Drive below another surface street, and this was where ponies had run into difficulty. The underpass had flooded to a considerable depth, at least three feet, and yet remarkably some half a dozen cars had contrived to drive into it, apparently blissfully unaware of the danger.

Despite Engine 4 and Ladder 15 being quartered literally less than one minute's walk from the scene, Rescue 1 was actually the first fire department unit to arrive; that firehouse, like all those in low lying areas, had been evacuated, their vehicles and personnel moved to other stations inland. The nearest units were tied up dealing with a flooded basement a few blocks away, and the only emergency presence was a single police cruiser on the other side of the flooded underpass. 

The flooding would only get worse. Seawater from the bay was lapping over the edge of the roadway even at street level. 'I thought they were gonna close the Drive down?' Flagstaff muttered.

'They did,' Grey Spike replied. 'But only the raised sections. This part wasn't covered by the shutdown. It's basically a surface street at this point.'

'Yeah, apart from the underpass,' Flagstaff replied as they dismounted into the rain. Spray was driving in from the East River as the wind whipped across its surface. On a normal day, the river would be busy with vessels; barges, tour boats, ferries and water taxis. Now it was empty, a grey, undulating expanse of churning water. The borough of Hooflyn, on the other side, was no longer visible as the spray and rain battered the city.

In the underpass, two ponies were already on the rooves of their cars, but unable to proceed any farther due to the water. Neither of them were Pegasi. The other vehicles still contained their drivers, who were in dangerous positions as the water levels were still rising. The higher the water got, the harder it would be to open the doors of the vehicles due to the pressure on them from the outside.

'Alright! Oak Wood, High Line, go grab those two,' Grey Spike ordered, gesturing to the ponies sitting on top of their cars. 'Blaze, grab a rope and tie it off to our bumper. Flagstaff, gear up with an immersion suit. Fairway, call dispatch with an update. Tell 'em we'll operate with whatever units they have assigned, and then grab the tools in case we need them.'

Blaze grabbed one of the strong rescue ropes from the rear of the rig, while Flagstaff went into the rear compartment. Grey Spike entered to help her don the restrictive but protective immersion suit, a thick and well insulated neoprene garment that would protect against the low temperatures of the open sea, originally designed, just like the rocket line gun Blaze had used earlier in the day, to help survival after shipwrecks. Flagstaff was going into the water, and it was water from the bay and from the river in late autumn. More than a few minutes' immersion in such water, without suitable protection, would be to invite hypothermia, and Flagstaff would likely have to cover multiple cars, which would take time.

Fairway returned to the cab to grab the radio. 'Rescue 1 to Manehattan?'

'Go ahead, Rescue 1.'

'At our box we have a total of six vehicles in floodwater in the South Street underpass. We are putting a rescue swimmer in the water, K.'

'10-4, Rescue 1. You have Battalion 6, Ladder 10 and Engine 6 responding. Do you require any additional resources, K?' the dispatcher asked.

'Rescue 1, negative. We'll go with that assignment for now, K,' Fairway informed them. Battalion 6 was quartered a fair distance up town, evidence of the huge strain the storm was putting on fire department resources. The three closer Battalions, 1, 2 and 4, were evidently tied up at other incidents, and while normally a Chief could be dispatched over the bridge from Hooflyn, either conditions had worsened such that the bridges were now closed to even emergency traffic, or the nearest Chiefs over there were also busy already.

With Flagstaff suited up and the rope in place, Blaze tied the end around her waist so that she would remain firmly attached to the Rescue rig while she was wading through the water. It was hard to tell if the cars were resting on the bottom or if they were floating. The lighting in the tunnel had gone out, fused by the water. Fairway turned the Rescue's headlights up to full beam and raised a spotlight from the roof for added illumination, providing Flagstaff enough light to see where she was going.

The two Pegasi had rescued the easily accessible ponies, flying over and picking them up from their rooves. Ladder 10, its side emblazoned with a large decal of an Equestrian flag, pulled onto the Drive behind the Rescue. Grey Spike quickly filled in their officer as to the situation, and the truck prepared to put their own swimmer into the water. Flagstaff carried a small, flat rigid-hulled boat from the Rescue. It was unpowered and designed for situations like this, where the rescuer had to get somepony out of a flood and keep them dry if possible.

She waded into the water, Blaze keeping control of the rope to make sure it didn't catch on anything hidden under the water. Once she reached the first car, she spoke with the driver, and used her magic to add extra strength to her efforts to open the door. She managed to wrench it free, and water washed into the driver's compartment, but this car was only partway into the flood. The driver climbed out into the boat, and Flagstaff walked her back to the edge of the water, where Grey Spike and Fairway helped her out of the boat. Ladder 10 didn't carry a boat of its own, but their swimmer was able to free one of the other drivers and carry him out on his back; only the driver's hind legs got wet as a result.

The other two cars were deeper into the water, and the water had risen much farther up their doors. Flagstaff reached the first one, but couldn't get the door open due to the depth of the water. Instead, she advised the driver to turn away and cover their eyes. She then lowered her horn and it glowed, acting like a saw as she touched it against the edge of the window and traced all around the perimeter. The glass then fell outward as a single piece, splashing into the floodwater. The driver was able to scramble out to freedom aboard the small boat, and Flagstaff took him to safety. That left only one driver remaining. The swimmer from Ladder 10 had been unable to get her out, and Flagstaff joined him at the unfortunate vehicle. It was riding low in the water, but Flagstaff was able to repeat her trick of cutting the window out. The final driver was rescued and on relatively dry land before Battalion 6 even arrived on the scene.

The crew packed up their gear, turning the patients over to the paramedics who had arrived for a quick check for any injuries. As soon as Rescue 1 signaled 10-8 and available, they got another run.

'Manehattan to Rescue 1, respond to box 5018...'




Beep-Boop.

'Engine.'

It was the height of the storm now. Gilda was laying waste to the eastern seaboard, having made landfall some half hour ago. Engine 25 had been in quarters for a little over twenty minutes after returning from a stove fire. The Rescue had barely made it back at all over the last few hours, pinballing around the borough on half a dozen different calls. The reports on the department radio from southern Hooflyn sounded particularly troubling. A large number of units were battling valiantly to save ponies from an apparent hellscape. An entire neighbourhood had been almost totally flooded, and yet somehow a huge fire was also burning there, with reports of up to fifty buildings involved. Whether the cause was a ruptured gas line, the spread of oil across the water's surface, shorting electrical systems or something else, things seemed to be very bad indeed. The flooded streets meant no apparatus could hope to get close enough to extinguish the blaze, and the hurricane winds were fanning the flames and turning them into blowtorches. With no hope of extinguishing the fire, efforts instead focused on rescuing ponies who were trapped in their homes before the fire could spread.

'Engine relocation! Going to the quarters of Engine 206 in Hooflyn!' the housewatch pony callled out.

'Relocation...huh, I wasn't expecting that,' Striker muttered to Ember Dawn as they boarded the engine. 'Figured it'd be another flooded basement or something.'

'Hey, it probably will be as soon as we get over there,' Dawn replied, as they set off into the rain. Opening the door of the apparatus bay to the exterior sent a strong gust of air into the firehouse, blowing papers and loose items all around and causing a hailstorm of complaints and angry shouts to be hurled after the departing company as ponies scrambled to secure the paperwork before it blew away.

It was a long and lonely ride down to the Hooflyn Bridge. The streets were deserted. Even the cops seemed to have given up for the night and gone home. Celestia Square, the beating heart of both the borough and city of Manehattan and one of the biggest tourist draws, was almost totally empty, with just a couple of foolish ponies wrapped tight in see-through plastic rain gear braving the elements to take selfies. We survived Gilda!

Once they turned onto the bridge, the oldest of the structures that spanned the East River, Engine 25 found itself immediately buffeted by heavy winds. The taut wires of the old suspension bridge hummed and sang as the wind whistled through them, but the strong, sturdy stone structure wasn't going to let a little hurricane damage it. The streets of Hooflyn were just as empty as those they had left behind.

The quarters of Engine 206 were in a fairly old building, not quite on the historic register but not far off. It housed just the single Engine Company, which was tied up operating at the major incident in Poneway Beach to the south. Deep Blue backed the rig in, and the crew settled in to their new, temporary, home. Unlike their own firehouse, this one was suffering from a lack of television signal, meaning they could not keep up so well with the unfolding situation around the city as Gilda continued to batter them. To further annoy the new tenants, the break room had a large window, against which rain would constantly pound in an irritating litany of staccato splashes. But it was dry, at least, and warm enough, and there was at least an ample supply of magazines to be read.

At one point, the lights flickered, and then went out. It only lasted a moment, and then the firehouse's backup generator kicked in and illuminated them once again. The department radio channels were monitored for anything that might affect them, and that was how they first learned of the 5th Alarm being transmitted for the Poneway Beach conflagration.

Beep-Boop.

'Engine.'

The call came just a few moments later. It had seemed inevitable, and sure enough, they were being summoned. 'Box 9940, staging area at Beach 73rd Street and Poneway Beach Boulevard! 5th Alarm multiple structure fire and water rescue!' Dark Flash confirmed, reading from the housewatch teleprinter.

'Figures...' Striker grunted.

'Hey, it's not a flooded basement,' Dawn pointed out.

'No, not just one,' Striker replied. 'Hundreds of them.'

The Engine crew pulled on their gear, mounted the rig, opened the firehouse door, and rolled out of their temporarily co-opted quarters to brave the storm again, but this time they were going right to the edge of not just the city, but of the entire Equestrian continent. They were going south to do battle with ponykind's two oldest and most voracious enemies; fire, and the sea.