Father of the Bride - All Systems Down

Dad goes into hero mode and no hurricane, no barricade, no live power line is gonna stand between him and his daughter’s wedding day. Father of the Bride Dad goes into hero mode and no hurricane, no barricade, no live power line is gonna stand between him and his daughter’s wedding day. Thank you David Jones and his daughter Elizabeth Marquez for sharing their story! David is a performance excellence coach and consultant for businesses and the founder and president of the Excellence Advisory. https://theexcellenceadvisory.com/ Produced by Bo Walsh, edited by Anna Sussman, original score by Nick Marks, artwork by Teo Ducot. Reservoir Panic As a violent wildfire heads toward the town of Twisp, Andrew Denham realizes he’s the guy responsible for making sure the town has enough water for the firefight. But there’s a big problem... there are only two well pumps to get water to the reservoir... and one of them isn’t working. Thanks Andrew for sharing your story! Produced by Shaina Shealy, original score by Dirk Schwarzhoff. Join Snap+ https://snap.supercast.com/if you aren't already a member! Get bonus eps, an ad-free stream and more. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:51Glynn Washington?

  What happens when every single thing falls apart?

• 1:56Glynn Washington?

  Welcome to Snap Judgment's All Systems Down. Now you're about to meet David Jones. And David Jones has been counting the days until his daughter's wedding. All week, the rain had been coming down hard, but David had a plan. Friday evening, he'd drive from his home in Boiling Springs, South Carolina, up to East Tennessee. Two and a half hours. Easy peasy. The wedding's Saturday morning. David just needed to be at the church by 10 a.m. sharp, because when those doors opened, David had one job: walk his daughter down the aisle. Snap Judgment.

• 2:33Speaker 02

  I'm not known for one who's always on time. It's a challenge for me, and I wanted to make sure I was on time for Elizabeth's wedding. A woman's wedding day is one of the most important days of her life, and it was really important to me to honor her by being on time. Would you say you had a reputation? My daughter's known me well enough to tell me the time that I need to be there ahead of what the actual time is, so that I will be there on time for the way things work. So the wedding was at 11:00. They told me to be there at 10:00 for photos.

• 3:13Speaker 03

  Hi, everybody. I'm live here in the Weather Center with another update on Hurricane Helene. Now a Category 4 hurricane getting closer to landfall in Florida. The latest advisory has the winds at 130 miles per hour sustained, gusts even higher than that, and it's moving north, northeast.

• 3:32Speaker 02

  I've lived in the southeast for more than 40 years, and I know from experience that whenever hurricanes get this far inland, that they've pretty much fizzled out by then. I think that was kind of what most people were thinking, is, yeah, we've had this before. No big deal.

• 3:50Speaker 03

  And that's where we're verging on right now. So here it comes. You're next up for some of those intense winds.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  The real concern in my mind wasn't just the storm, but my daughter's wedding. I'd been looking forward to her wedding for years.

• 4:17Speaker 02

  I had always envisioned walking my daughters down the aisle on their wedding days. I have three daughters. Elizabeth was the oldest. She's the first to get married. I don't know why. I've just had this vision in mind for many, many decades, in fact, that this is one of the great privileges of fatherhood. I know we've got this storm bearing down on us. Like, okay.

• 4:41Speaker 03

  And it kind of meanders around here through Friday afternoon, Friday evening. Some of you are asking, kind of, where does it go after that? It kind of rains itself back out over Tennessee.

• 4:55Speaker 02

  After the storm, the cellphone coverage was spotty. Hey, Elizabeth, it's your dad. The track of the storm after it left us was to go through western North Carolina and right up through east Tennessee, where the wedding was going to be. Occasionally, I would be able to get something. Most of the time, I couldn't. And I was able to text her. And she said, as far as she knew, the wedding was on. The plan then was for me to head on up to our other house, which was in Johnson City. You know, with all the weather and all that stuff, you never know. But love you, sweetie. If you've got any questions, call her back. Thanks, bye.

• 5:44Speaker 02

  I left around five or six in the evening. It's just two hours on a normal day from Boiling Springs to Johnson City, right up Interstate 26. When I started out to get to the interstate, the roads weren't very crowded. And I'm thinking, this is great. I'm going to be there by dark. Traffic was light. And then I came over this hill. And there I saw a long line of parked cars. Nothing but brake lights ahead of me. And I thought, oh, no. What is this about? What's happening here?

• 6:30Speaker 02

  We're talking hundreds and hundreds of cars. Anxious, everybody anxious.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  It took three hours to go 10 miles. I'm thinking about the timing of everything. I'm keeping an eye on my watch to see, you know, at this rate, will I make it on time or not? And at that point, the answer was no.

• 7:03Speaker 02

  The added complication to this, though, was no cellphone coverage. So I couldn't call and tell anybody, "Hey, this is the situation. This is the scenario," because there was no way to communicate with them.

• 7:17Speaker 04

  At any point, did you wrestle with turning back? And going home?

• 7:23Speaker 02

  The only time I thought I would go back was at the beginning. And that was, you know, if I get to an impassable situation, then I'll have to go back. As long as I'm moving forward, I still have a chance. Again, it's not that far. It's just 120 miles. I just have to keep going.

• 7:48Speaker 02

  At this point, it was dark. It's late. It's probably between 11 and 12 at night. I'm about 40 or 50 miles into a 124-mile trip on a normal day. There was no way through.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  Part of what's going through in my mind is, I can't make the situation change. I have to figure out a way to change what I'm doing, find a way to get through.

• 8:22Speaker 02

  There were huge trees that were laying down and still blocking one of the lanes. So very careful, driving around these down trees.

• 8:34Speaker 02

  Each time I cleared a hurdle, it was like, okay, there's that much more behind me. What's next? What's ahead? And sure enough, when I got to exit 43, the road was blocked again. Everybody was being funneled off the interstate.

• 8:57Speaker 02

  So I went down the exit ramp and there were a group of state patrol cars there, all their lights flashing.

• 9:09Speaker 02

  And the troopers were out of their car and they were meeting. This was a little before 2:00 in the morning. And I walked over and sort of inserted myself into the group. And one of them turned to me and said, "Sir, can I help you?" I said, "Yeah, I need to get to Johnson City." He said, "Well, sorry, the roads are closed. You can't get there." I said, "Well, my daughter's getting married at 11, and I'm gonna be there to walk her down the aisle." He said, "I appreciate your position, sir, but you can't get to Johnson City from here."

• 9:50Speaker 02

  In my mind, I'm thinking, "Surely, there's a way to get through." He says, "The bridges are gone." So I said, "Okay, what about the backroads?" He said, "No, we're not letting anybody drive on the backroads." I said, "Okay, how about on foot?" And at this point, I had exceeded his tolerance. And he said, "Sir, the best thing for you to do is to go back to your car and wait until morning. Maybe we'll have more news by then. Maybe we'll be able to open the road by then."

• 10:23Speaker 02

  So I got the message. I understood. I backed away, went back to my car, reformulated a plan.

• 10:33Speaker 02

  And I thought, "All right, if I can't go forward from here, then I'm gonna have to backtrack and go back around."

• 10:43Speaker 02

  I looked down at the gas gauge and I thought, "I don't have enough gas to make the rest of this trip." And there wasn't a gas station open where I was in East Tennessee, so there's no place to stop and get gas. So this isn't gonna work.

• 11:00Speaker 02

  There was a volunteer there who was friends with one of the state troopers, and he was just helping the people there that were also stranded, because there were a lot of cars parked there. He had a map on his cellphone, and he showed me the path. If I were to walk, here's the path that will get you to Johnson City.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  It was 2:00 in the morning, and I had to be there at 10:00. So I've only got about eight hours to make this all happen. I knew enough about the region to know that I was about 20 or 30 miles from Johnson City, somewhere in that range. I'm doing the math in my head. I can do it walking if there's no major difficulties along the way, but I gotta get going right now if I'm gonna make this happen.

• 11:59Speaker 02

  The volunteer there, he said, "There's four bridges into Irwin. Three of them are washed out. One of them is still standing, but they're not letting anyone cross because they're not sure how stable it is. This is my only option. I'm not gonna sit here in the car and hope that's not gonna work. And I know, I can't look my daughter in the eye and say, "I did everything I could to get to your wedding. If I didn't do everything I could to get there, my only option is to go."

• 12:46Speaker 02

  At this point, I'd made up my mind. I'm walking, and I'm gonna leave my car here. I have a black Ford Explorer Platinum Edition. I love this car. And at that moment, I could care less about that car.

• 13:03Speaker 04

  Did you feel like you were making up for anything? Was there like, I gotta do this to prove something? Or?

• 13:11Speaker 02

  I didn't feel like I had anything to prove, but I did feel like I had the dad's privilege to uphold. And the only way I could do that was to be there on time. I went to the back of my car and I took a quick inventory. What do I need? I've got in my backpack, opened the suitcase. I grab my shaving kit. I need some underwear, change of socks. I've got a suit and shoes there and I have to decide, do I really want to carry these? Is this really going to be possible? I got 20 or 30 miles to go. I don't know if I can do it. I've got an old suit and shoes at the house in Johnson City. I'm just gonna wear those. They'll do.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  So I get all this together, close up the car, lock it, took one last look at it. I hope you're still here whenever I get back. And off I went. When I headed out, I was wearing cargo shorts and tennis shoes and a fishing shirt. And when I got out to walk, then the only thing I added to that was a ball cap and a windbreaker. And I'm off to, you know, fight the elements. I turned on the cell phone light. I started down the old highway.

• 14:37Speaker 02

  Got a couple hundred yards in and it occurred to me that this cell phone battery might not last all night. I had it on the charger all the way. So I was at 100%. So I thought, I'm gonna turn this off and see if I can walk without it. There was no moon. The moon wasn't out. There were no lights, of course. I turned it off. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. I couldn't see the road. I couldn't see anything. It was pitch dark.

• 15:16Speaker 02

  It was also eerily quiet. There's no traffic. There was no noise at all. Once in a while, a barking dog somewhere in the distance. That was it. So it was eerie quiet, eerie dark. And I'm going down this road I've never been on before, trying to find my way to Irwin.

• 15:55Glynn Washington?

  The journey is just getting started. Will Hurricane Helene keep David from walking his daughter down the aisle? Find out after the break. Stay tuned.

• 16:16Speaker 01

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• 16:50Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap's All Systems Down, the father of the bride episode. Before we left, David's plan of driving up to Tennessee for his daughter's wedding hit a dead end when destruction from the hurricane shut down the roads and highways. It's 2:00 a.m. He stranded nearly 30 miles away with no other options but to abandon his car and try to hike the distance on foot. Snap judgment.

• 17:19Speaker 02

  So I'm marching along, and there are bears in this area, coyotes, raccoons, who knows what.

• 17:33Speaker 02

  So I found a branch, it was a pine branch, it was a whole pine branch that had lots of sharp, pointed, smaller branches sticking out from it. And I thought, I'm gonna, I'm gonna carry this for protection if I need it.

• 17:51Speaker 02

  About a mile or so in, a car was coming in my direction. It turns out, it was the incident commander, back at the end of the off-ramp, who had told me to go back to my car and spend the night there.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  He stopped and rolled his window down, he said, "So, you decided to go anyway?"

• 18:15Speaker 02

  I said, "Yes, sir, I did." Not knowing, you know, if there was going to be sudden consequences here. And, he said, "Would you like a ride back to your car?" I said, "No, thanks. I'm moving forward. My daughter's getting married at 11 in Johnson City, and I'm gonna be there to walk her down the aisle." And he smiled, he said, "Okay." And then he leaned out, and it was sort of a stage whisper, said, "I think if you can get to the bottom of the hill, and get up onto the interstate, you should be able to get to Johnson City from there. The interstate's closed to traffic, so you shouldn't have any problem."

• 18:57Speaker 02

  I thanked him, and he said, "Well, good luck." And he drove off. So I kept going.

• 19:03Speaker 05

  Well, here I am, walking to Johnson City after Hurricane Helene. The interstate, you should know by now from the news, the interstate is completely blocked, bridges wiped out, and nothing will get through there for weeks, if not months, or years. And so I was forced to park my car. And about 2:00 in the morning, I decided, the only way I was gonna get to Elizabeth's wedding, was to start walking.

• 19:44Speaker 02

  So I'm about three to five miles in and the road had been clear up until this point, but now there's mud and puddles and all that and can't be avoided. It's completely covered the road and my shoes are getting wet. My feet are getting wet. I started to encounter more downed power lines, debris of every kind. The mud was slippery, was slick, but I just have to deal with it. I just have to keep moving forward and keep the light shine down where I'm stepping so I don't step in a hole or step on a sharp branch or a live wire or something. So I'm continuing to put one foot in front of the

• 20:26Speaker 02

  other and to keep moving. My daughter's getting married at 11 and I'm gonna be there to walk her down the aisle. I kept rumbling around in my mind. It just kept rolling around over and over again. My daughter's getting married at 11 in Johnson City and I'm gonna be there to walk her down the aisle. I was still focused on what's next? What's the next thing I have to overcome?

• 20:53Speaker 04

  I mean, was there ever a thought that it might be reckless to put yourself in harm's way and potentially put your life at risk doing this?

• 21:02Speaker 02

  There was never a thought that I was being reckless in what I was doing. When I came across hazardous areas, I was very careful, but that possibility always existed. I didn't dwell on it. I just knew I had to keep one foot in front of the other, in front of the other as safely as I possibly could.

• 21:22Speaker 04

  Did you ever think about like what you would have to tell Elizabeth had something happened to you?

• 21:28Speaker 02

  Elizabeth would understand. My girls know me well enough that they would say, "Yeah, that's Dad. He did everything he could to get here, including, you know, whatever happened."

• 21:44Speaker 02

  So around 3:00 or 3:15 in the morning, I saw some lights kind of up ahead around a bend, shining in the trees on the sides of the road. And I thought, alright, there's something going on up there. And as I got closer, I could hear it was heavy equipment. It was machinery. And when I came around the bend, there's a bulldozer and a backhoe clearing the road.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  They're working furiously, back and forth. The bulldozer's backing up and pushing stuff off to the side. The backhoe is spinning around, scooping up and spinning around the other side and dumping it off. They were really going at it.

• 22:26Speaker 02

  And it was clear to me, there was no way that I could sneak through there, you know, get past these guys.

• 22:40Speaker 02

  So I'm waving my cellphone light at the bulldozer. Eventually got his attention. And he stopped and I walked up to his cab. And he was startled. And I said, "Excuse me, I'm trying to get through here. My daughter's getting married at 11 in Johnson City. I want to get there so I can walk her down the aisle." He said, "I don't think you can. The road's completely blocked." And I said, "Well, I gotta try." I said, "How can I get past the backhoe over there?" And he said, "Well, let me radio, see if I can get him to stop and let you through." Which he did. And he turned around, he said, "Alright, he's gonna park it and he's gonna let you scoot on by." So I did.

• 23:29Speaker 02

  I got about 30 or 40 yards past the backhoe. And the road was completely blocked with debris. It was like a wall of debris, six, seven, eight feet high. I mean, it was taller than me. And it went from side to side. It's trees, it's mangled branches, it's mangled parts of fences, it's farm implements and equipment. And all twisted and tangled together.

• 24:04Speaker 02

  So I thought, I'm gonna try and climb over this pile of debris. But it was completely unstable. It wouldn't hold me, and I couldn't move it. It was just a mess, a tangled mess.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  If I can't go over it, maybe I can go around it.

• 24:29Speaker 02

  So I walk around the end of the debris, and I step into mud, and it goes up to my ankles. And the next step, shoo.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  I just sunk right down to my knees, like quicksand. And I can't move. I'm stuck.

• 24:57Speaker 02

  By now, the backhoe has started going again, scooping, spinning. And every time that light flashed by, I thought, he can't see me. Sooner or later, he's gonna finish that pile he's working on, and he's gonna come for this one. I'm in trouble. I've got to do something.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  And I'm tugging on my leg to get my leg out. And I managed to get my right leg up, but the suction of the mud pulled the shoe off. And I knew I wasn't gonna be able to make this trip barefoot or on one shoe. So I had to stop and reach down in there and try and find my shoe. And pulled it out, full of mud. I'm looking for another way past this pile.

• 25:56Speaker 02

  There was a gap underneath it. I thought, maybe I can crawl through this. And I throw my shoe over to the other side. I need to free my hands to get through this debris pile. I'll get the shoe when I get there. I gotta get through this debris pile. I gotta get away from these guys. So I get down to my hands and knees. I started crawling into the debris pile.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  I'm in the dark. The backhoe light is sweeping through. And I'm crawling in this debris pile, over and under and kind of around and bending on things. It was really shaky. I was afraid it would tumble and the whole pile would collapse. There was all kinds of rocks and debris and sticks and it's all poking straight through. It was painful. And I crawled a little farther and found a gap and went out the other side.

• 27:04Speaker 02

  Now I'm past the debris. Take a breath. I'm far enough away from the backhoe that I don't have to worry. I find a nice, what looks like a clear puddle. And I wash my shoe off, get all the mud out of it, put my shoe back on and continue walking. Still pitch dark, still eerily quiet. But I feel good about getting through this set of dangers. And now maybe, just maybe, the rest of the way will be clear.

• 27:42Speaker 02

  And everybody I met along the way, police tried to talk me out of it, state troopers, people clearing the roads. And I told them all, my daughter's walking down the Eleven this morning and I'm gonna be the one walking it down.

• 28:05Glynn Washington?

  The trail is long and how much longer can David keep putting one foot in front of the other? Stay tuned.

• 28:21Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snaps All Systems Down, the father of the bride episode. My name is Glenn Washington. I'm ready for the break. During the middle of the night, our father, the bride, David, was last seen hiking through mud, crawling through piles of debris, barely escaping being clobbered by a bulldozer. His daughter's wedding is set to start in just a few short hours and the clock is ticking. Snap judgment.

• 28:52Speaker 02

  Another several hundred yards, maybe a quarter mile up the road. And sure enough, there was the on-ramp. So I went up the on-ramp onto the interstate. I'm thinking, all right, I'm gonna make it.

• 29:09Speaker 02

  And I get to where the bridge was and both lanes of the interstate, the bridges were completely washed out. And it was like wartime destruction. It was completely gone.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  So I'm looking down over the edge. I can see some mangled concrete and wires and steel and guardrails and trees and just knowing that I can't go any further here. I have to turn around and go back.

• 29:49Speaker 02

  Now I'm a little frustrated that I've wasted this time going on this path.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  And at that point is when I started to have that lost night of the soul feeling, where I'm running out of options. To me, despair comes when you run out of options, and I was getting close. It's 3:30 or 4:00 in the morning, so I've been up almost 24 hours now. I'm starting to feel tired. A little bit of exhaustion is creeping in. At that point, I had a slight notion to just sit down on the log and take a breath.

• 30:37Speaker 02

  And I thought, no, I'm running out of time. I gotta keep going. The only option I had left that I knew of was the unstable bridge that they were not letting people cross. So now my plan is to find that bridge and see if I can talk the troopers into letting me cross the bridge somehow. So I worked my way back down the interstate, back off the ramp, onto the road, and sure enough, it wasn't too far.

• 31:21Speaker 02

  And there were two state trooper cars parked there on this side of the bridge. And my first thought was, maybe they won't notice me. So I went over to the cars, and they were empty. Their lights were on, but there was nobody in the cars. So I look around, and there's no, you know, as far as I could tell, there's nothing keeping me from going across this bridge. So I scooted right across. I'm like, all right, this is my chance. Here I go. And so I made it.

• 32:03Speaker 02

  And now I'm on clear roads, and I'm heading into the town of Irwin.

• 32:14Speaker 02

  Maybe another half mile or mile in, another state trooper pulls up and he stops and rolls his window down. And he says, "Sir," are you the one that's trying to get to his daughter's wedding? And I kind of sheepishly grinned and said, "Yes, sir, I am. How did you know?" And he said, "Well, we're all talking about you." And I kind of chuckled and I said, "Okay, I hope it was good talk." And he said, "Yeah, they all said you're determined." And I said, "Yes, sir. My daughter's getting married at 11 in Johnson City.

• 32:58Speaker 02

  I'm going to be there to walk her down the aisle." And he sort of chuckled and he said, "Would you like a ride?" And I said, "Oh, boy, would I. If you weren't so ugly, I'd kiss you right now." And he said, "I'm going into town and I can take you that far." And it ended up being about a two-mile ride. We pulled up to the Irwin Town Hall where I hopped out, thanked him, and off I went.

• 33:34Speaker 05

  So here I am, about 12 miles out. It's about 6:00 in the morning. And I should be in Johnson City by 9:00. And if it looks like I'm going to be late, I'll call somebody for a ride. But at this point, I want to be that guy that walked 20 miles to make sure he was at his daughter's wedding so he could walk her down the aisle. Out for now.

• 34:14Speaker 02

  I am starting to slow down a little bit. And I'm beginning to get a little concerned about whether I'm actually going to make it. I'm doing the math in my head. I'm cutting it pretty close here. But I have cellphone coverage. Let me call my brother and see if he can come get me now. So I call him and I get his voicemail.

• 34:38Speaker 05

  Chris, this is your brother Dave. I need a favor. When you get up, when you get this message, please call me right away. I, uh, don't tell anybody, because they'll all be worried. But I had to park my car on the side of the road, and I've been walking since 2:30 in the morning to try and get there, and I just don't think I'm gonna make it in time. And I wanna be on time. So if you could come get me, that would be fantastic.

• 35:13Speaker 02

  Well, I never heard from him. So I just continued walking, and I came across a truck. It was a white pickup truck that was pulling out from a crossroad. And he stopped, and he let me by. And then I hear, "Hey, would you like a ride?"

• 35:36Speaker 02

  So I turned around, I said, "Yeah, I think I would."

• 35:43Speaker 02

  And he took me right to my house, pulled into the driveway. It was about 7:30, and the sun was up now. And I sighed this big sigh of relief, like, "Hmm, I'm here."

• 36:06Speaker 02

  Well, I made it. I got lucky. Caught a ride outside of Unicoi. And he gave me a ride the last eight, nine miles on in. So I made it. I'm gonna get cleaned up. No power here. It's all very quiet in the neighborhood.

• 36:26Speaker 02

  And I'm gonna get cleaned up and get over to the wedding.

• 36:32Speaker 02

  I'm not done yet, but this, you know, I know now I can get to the wedding on time. It's 7:30 in the morning, and the church is about a mile from here. I have an old car in the driveway, an old Explorer, uh, old, old blue. And I just gotta get cleaned up and dressed and get to the church on time from here.

• 36:54Speaker 02

  My body wants me to lay down, but I'm afraid that I'm gonna fall asleep. And after going through all this, there's no way I want to show up late. So I keep myself up. I find my suit, I get that out, get the shoes ready. There's a shirt I can wear. There's no hot water with no power. And I'm trying to wash and get the mud off of me and sort of wake myself up with this cold water. And I finish that and I get dressed, get in the car and head over to the wedding. I'm gonna get there right at 10.

• 37:44Speaker 06

  The first thing I did that morning was check my phone. I saw that my dad had texted me at 3:51 in the morning. It's okay. That confused me. Like, what did he go through? What did he experience?

• 38:03Speaker 02

  I parked the car. I go on into the church and the first two I see are my daughters Ava and Susan, Elizabeth's younger sisters. And they say, "Oh, Dad, I'm so glad to see you. Are you okay? Is everything okay? How was the drive up?" And at that point, I just lost it. I was physically and emotionally drained. I just started crying. And they're looking at their dad, who's crying, wondering, "What happened?" And I tell them the story. And their eyes just got wide and their jaws dropped. And they're listening to the whole thing and they're hugging me and holding on.

• 38:46Speaker 02

  But then I told everybody, I said, "Please don't tell Elizabeth. I don't want to spoil her day. This is her day. Let's just hold off."

• 39:01Speaker 06

  I heard multiple times people comment to me, "Your dad's here. He's in the chapel. He's waiting for you." And so that stood out to me because so many people mentioned it so many times. And I don't know if they were just so impressed that he got there on time or got there early.

• 39:18Speaker 02

  They called me out for Dad's first view of the bride. And I was instructed to stand with my back to the church and wait for a tap on my shoulder. And the photographer was staged to get this whole scene.

• 39:36Speaker 06

  And I placed my hand on his shoulder. And then they say, "Okay, now David, you can turn around."

• 39:44Speaker 02

  There was a tap and I turned around. And the most beautiful bride in the world is standing there right in front of me.

• 39:52Speaker 06

  As soon as he turned around, like split second, he's just absolutely burst into tears, like burst into emotion.

• 40:02Speaker 02

  And she hugs me. And says something to the effect of, "Don't make me cry, Daddy. I ruined my makeup." We're just laughing and crying. She has this bag. She hands it to me, this gift. She says, "Go ahead and open it." And I open it and inside a little box are these little pictures of me and her when she was a child.

• 40:40Speaker 06

  It's a sticker that goes inside your tie. And it had a phrasing about, "You've always walked with me. Walk with me in this step two in this journey. Thank you for being my support and for always being there for me."

• 40:54Speaker 02

  So I peeled the back off of it and I stuck it in my tie. And we hugged again. And she had to go on and finish getting ready.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  And so I'm just hanging out, waiting for things to start. And my sister and her family come along. She comes up, gives me a hug. And she looks at me a little funny and she said, "Bro, what's that in your ear? Looks like you've got mud in your ear." And there was a little spot of mud that I missed in the cleanup process. And she said, "Where's that from?" And I said, "Oh, I'll tell you later. It's a long story." Now, the power was out in Johnson City. So Elizabeth's sisters kicked into high gear, gathered up candles and the right kind of decorations to have a candlelight service.

• 41:55Speaker 02

  So when it came time to walk Elizabeth down the aisle, of course, we were in the back, kind of, you know, out of sight. I couldn't see into the church at that point until they opened the doors. And we walked in and it was just this beautiful candlelight scene. It was like a reminder of, hey, this is not only a special day, but it's under special circumstances.

• 42:25Speaker 02

  Then it was about time for the ceremony to start. I raised my elbow for her to take my arm.

• 42:37Speaker 02

  When the music started and it was time for Elizabeth and me to walk down the aisle, all of those envisioned scenes in my mind were coming true. All sort of crashing in all at once. The lifetime I've had with Elizabeth, plus the night, you know, getting here. This is everything I expected it to be. It was the privilege that dads have to get to walk their daughters down the aisle. What that would be like. This was all of that and more because of my experience getting there. It was like, oh, this is so worth it.

• 43:38Glynn Washington?

  A big, huge thank you to David Jones and to his daughter Elizabeth Marquez for sharing their story with the Snap. Congratulations. David is a performance excellence coach and consultant for businesses and the founder and president of the Excellence Advisory. You can find the link at snapjudgment.org. Original score for this piece was by Nick Marks. It was edited by Anna Sussman. The story was produced by Bo Walsh.

• 44:07Glynn Washington?

  And our story takes us to the central Washington town of Twisp, population 1,200, where Andrew Denham, the Public Works Director, was driving to Town Hall, the Northern Cascades.

• 44:25Speaker 05

  It's a bluebird, beautiful, sunny, hot, dry, central Washington day.

• 44:32Speaker 04

  And then his phone rings. It's the police chief, warning him of a windstorm just five miles west of town. When wind gusts had suddenly doubled, it turned a small, containable fire into a large and violent one.

• 44:47Speaker 05

  And the smoke was so thick, some firefighters drove off the road. And consequently, operations to fight the fire ceased, and the fire was unabated, straight down towards town, very, very rapidly, pushed by heavy wind gusts. So I knew that the highest priority that I would have as the Public Works Director would be to provide water resources to the firefight. And to do that, I needed as many wells as I could operating.

• 45:24Speaker 04

  Andrew has two wells supplying water to the reservoir. But as the flames grow, the reservoir levels are dropping. The pumps are off. A tree branch had crashed into a power line. The entire town is now dark, cut off from

• 45:40Speaker 06

  Power.

• 45:42Speaker 06

  Andrew's only chance at getting well number one to start pumping water is to switch it from electricity to a diesel generator.

• 45:49Speaker 05

  Keep in mind, I had never operated this external power source for this well because I'm only nine months on the job.

• 45:58Speaker 06

  He'd also just had surgery. One of his arms is in a sling.

• 46:02Speaker 05

  This stress of like, I have to get this well running and I, oh yeah, I've got one arm and I'm trying to operate something I've never operated before.

• 46:13Speaker 06

  But somehow Andrew's able to get the diesel engine running. All he has to do now is hook it up to the pump.

• 46:19Speaker 05

  And I try to engage the diesel drive, thinking at that point that it's going to run and I'm going to have a pump running and it locks up. It's like, it's not gonna, it's not turning the well.

• 46:34Speaker 05

  I'm feeling the weight of every resident in town on my back because if I fail at this, like if I can't provide water for these apparatus, it's just not a place I want to be in.

• 46:49Speaker 06

  He double checks the pump, makes sure it's decoupled from the electric motor.

• 46:53Speaker 05

  Yep, it's, I'm ready to go and try to engage it again and it's locked. It's seized. My heart's jumping out of my chest. I'm like, what's going to happen if I can't get this well operating? There was definitely a sense of urgency at that point of, you know, now we're without power with the one remaining well.

• 47:21Speaker 06

  In the meantime, the evacuation order leaps to level three, mandating every resident to leave town immediately. Most leave the sprinklers on in their front yards as they leave. In the reservoir, it's draining.

• 47:36Speaker 05

  Probably only have.

• 47:39Speaker 05

  I'm guessing four hours before a pump needs to come on.

• 47:45Speaker 06

  Four hours before the entire firefighting operation would be out of water.

• 47:52Speaker 05

  The clock is ticking and it's like, I can't spend hours working on one well if it appears like this one is not going to operate.

• 48:02Speaker 06

  At this point, Andrew sees the fire coming toward town.

• 48:06Speaker 05

  You could actually see the flames. We have large forest trees and when the fire hits that, it engulfs it and it almost looks like they explode and it's just one after another after another. I mean, it moves so fast.

• 48:23Speaker 06

  The air is thick with smoke.

• 48:25Speaker 05

  The wind is blowing the fire directly into town. I don't have any more time. It's like I have to move to Plan B and I have to move to Plan B really fast.

• 48:36Speaker 06

  Andrew calls it. Well one is out. His only chance of getting well two to work is to hook it up to this one really old backup generator he had.

• 48:46Speaker 05

  I remember feeling like, you know, this is it. This is where, you know, it's make or break.

• 48:54Speaker 06

  The town electrician meets him at well number two.

• 48:57Speaker 05

  We'd never had hooked it up before. We had it wired in probably 40 minutes and then we threw the switch and crossed our fingers and hoped and prayed and it's like, please run this pump. And the pump took right off and started pumping.

• 49:15Speaker 06

  The pump whirs loudly and Andrew drives down to the reservoir. He measures the water level with the measuring tape.

• 49:22Speaker 05

  I'm barely potentially moving up, but I'm at least maintaining. I'm not losing ground on my reservoir. By that time, we were in full firefight, dozens and dozens of apparatus in town. Fire coming directly at us, only a couple of miles away by that time, blown by heavy wind.

• 49:45Speaker 06

  And the pump generator. It starts overheating.

• 49:49Speaker 05

  It was too small of a generator to operate for more than about hours at a time. And then we'd have to let it sit for an hour or two and let it cool off.

• 50:00Speaker 06

  Andrew runs the generator for four hours at a time with a one hour rest break in between, straight until 10:00 PM. And he's able to maintain the water levels that whole time. And then that night FEMA came with more resources. By 1:00 in the morning, Andrew had hooked up the well to a proper generator. He got about an hour of sleep that night on a couch in town hall.

• 50:24Speaker 05

  The next morning, the wind died down and the fire crews backburned this hillside, which literally saved the town.

• 50:31Speaker 06

  The Okanagan Complex fire burned over 12,000 acres in less than 24 hours.

• 50:38Speaker 05

  I remember standing there, you know, I'm nine months on the job, one arm in a sling, knowing just how close we came to losing,

• 50:50Speaker 05

  who knows what? I mean, businesses, downtown, residential areas. And I actually just prayed and like, it was a miracle. I mean, it was incredible, but we very easily could have lost a big part of town. And we didn't.

• 51:17Glynn Washington?

  Big thanks to Andrew Genom, who still works for the town of Twisp since the fire a decade ago. He and his team have replaced and renovated the town's entire water infrastructure system. That story was produced by Shaina Shealy.

• 51:42Glynn Washington?

  The news. It is not over, snappers. Snaps, All Systems Down series continues. Take a moment, right now, subscribe to the Snap Touch Podcast to make sure you don't miss a moment. KQD in San Francisco is Snap's Orbiting Hall of Justice. And the bigger news, at long last, is that Snap Plus is now available. Subscribe for bonus Snap episodes, behind-the-scenes looks, special Snap meetups, more Snap Plus at snapjudgment.org. On Team Snap, the union-represented producers, artists, editors, and engineers are members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO, Local 51.

• 52:27Glynn Washington?

  Robots and people cosplaying as robots. Please note that no Snap Studios content may be used for training, testing, or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission. Snap is brought to you by the team that would walk 100 miles just to be with you. Except the producer, Mr. Mark Wristich, who would like to. He really would like to and everything, but you know, you know how it goes. And there's Nancy Lopez, Pat Massey-Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Goryo, John Facio, Sheena Shealy, Taylor Decott, Flo Wiley, Beau Walsh, Marissa Dodge. And this is not the news. No way is this news. In fact, you've just barely escaped being run over by a bulldozer when crawling on

• 53:10Glynn Washington?

  your hands and knees through the muck and you would still, still not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is BRX.