“Yes, I'm in my truck stretched out across the front seat … no, it's not that cold because all this is moisture coming up from the Gulf of Mexico and so the storms are relatively warm and 'fanatically' wet as my contact in Public Works says … I'm curled up under my big coat and comfy … the sound of the rain is so soothing, and now that I can hear your voice, everything is as good as it can be right here.”
Captain Lee was talking with his fiance, Maggie Thornton, on his cell phone.
“Yes, I saw the nine-o-clock online, but it was forecast earlier on as well … I had to threaten a few people, but yes, I have requisitioned and already received hail guards for all the precinct vehicles, and we're going to just cardboard up our personal vehicles that we can't get under cover tomorrow...
“Yes, it was part of my recommendations to Mr. Legree, but, you know how that was going to go … yes, I would love it and I thank you for reading to me out of the Psalms at the end … I will surely sleep if you do that … thank you, my love, because I have to get that sleep.
“Oh, I would have my choice of nightmares … that last moment with Mr. Legree … but tomorrow offers even more … even though it is in the forecast, it is one of those things I can account for in my plan in terms of knowing it may well occur, but nothing else.
“It's like something borrowed from the book of Revelation and its judgments on the unrepentant at all levels of human society, on a city that won't just close up the roads in advance at least as far as I know right now, and on those that are going to go against all available warnings … thinking themselves secure in their cars and that they'll get up the ridge eventually in all that howling wind and pouring rain, not knowing nor believing that big cold front tomorrow is likely to bring golf ball-sized hail.
“It doesn't matter unless the city officials get up in the morning and close the roads before 6:00 – any later and there will be hundreds of cars climbing up and trapped by the time the weather finally gets to the point of forcing the issue.
“So, there they will be, with golf-ball sized hail breaking their windshields, and with golf-ball sized hail and shattered glass and pouring rain now on their person, inside their cars, potentially shorting out their cars' electronics. Depending on where people are, a slurry of shattered glass, smaller hail, little stones, and mud will be coming down from roads above and also pouring into their cars. Death by a thousand cuts – glass wounds, hail wounds – will be possible. Death by hypothermia will be possible and likely, because the high temperature tomorrow will be ten degrees cooler than it is right now.
“Yes, my love … a cold way into hell, for there can be no temporal escape. Between a rock and no place – there is simply nowhere to go in a traffic jam on those mountain roads on a pretty day in the summer, much less a day like tomorrow. Helicopters cannot fly in that kind of weather, and even all-terrain vehicles have only so many access points. Even if there is a clearing later in the afternoon as some forecast models predict, there is no getting around the reality that cars trapped on a mountain road are trapped indeed.
“Yes, my love, we have been praying together and not knowing it … for the Lord to do what He does best and show mercy tomorrow … the challenge is that all the forecasts and word and warnings have gone out. All those who believe will be saved by virtue of not going out there, and that will be a proper reception of God's mercy.
"I pray that more people have their hearts prepared to receive the mercy already available, and also that the Lord send that hail elsewhere as well … yet even in a clear blue day after all the rain we have already had, or even a clear blue day in the summer, 12,000 cars on those roads are on a roadmap to disaster … still, the disaster can be mitigated by the Lord or removed if He wills it, and I would love it if we could pray together about that.”