Outbreak Chronicles: Lock In
By: Trish Tatman
Tags: Interview, Fiction, Short Story

Outbreak Chronicles: Lock In

Interview with Jeremy Poderine

Jeremy works as a youth coordinator for Angel City Church in downtown Los Angeles. During the outbreak he turned the church’s basement into a sanctuary for any locals to take refuge from infected persons.

All interviews are video recorded and transcribed for accuracy.

Outbreak Chronicles Interviewer: Hello Mr. Poderine —

Jeremy Poderine: Please, call me Jeremy. I always get so awkward when people call me mister. [Laughs.]

OCI: Right. Thank you for meeting with us so late.

JP: Oh, well, it’s not a problem. It sort of works out, right? You wanted to ask about the lock in’s, and here we have one tonight.

OCI: Yes, very serendipitous. So it was October 2nd when… what would you call the people attending your church?

JP: Parishioners is a general term, but we call them Angels. Because of the name, you know?

OCI: How many… Angels… were originally scheduled to show up to the lock-in?

JP: We had 25, some adults, but mostly children. But 78 showed up on the 12th, and more came the next day. We had a packed basement, and some folks were staying in the chapel area, sleeping between pews.

OCI: When did you first realize people weren’t planning on leaving the building after the lock in was complete?

JP: Pretty quickly. Normally people bring sleeping bags, stuffed animals, games to play, some snacks. This time people brought much more. Suitcases packed with clothes and some belongings. A lot of people brought those fold up mattresses… I don’t remember what they’re called. They have them in Japan.

OCI: Futons?

JP: Yes, that’s it. A lot of those. Books, games, for the kids, I suppose. By the end of it, we had 113 people staying in the church when eventually we had just hit capacity.

OCI: What did you tell people that came seeking shelter?

JP: That we’d try to make room, and we did, somehow. Eventually people were sharing the areas they had sort of… staked out, I suppose. I’m quite lucky we have such good Angels among our congregation. People were more than willing to share their supplies, bedding, whatever, with people who were coming in with practically nothing.

Everyone was confused, scared, but very kind and generous. I wish I could say that was the norm across the city, but if it was, I don’t think so many people would have come to call.

OCI: You hit a supply shortage towards mid-October, is that correct?

JP: Yes. People were shook up at first. Rationing isn’t something most Americans have ever had to do, but we had some first generation immigrants within our congregation, and they were absolutely instrumental in explaining some of the finer points of survival.

We also had a few volunteers to do what we called “supply runs”. A woman named Maggie and her boyfriend Francisco took whatever bags they could and rummaged through any abandoned food shops nearby. We were surviving on snack cakes and granola bars and dry cereal for the last few days before the army came in.

OCI: Much of the city was out of power for a few days or weeks. How did the church fair in that regard?

JP: Luckily the church has a backup generator, and Quentin was able to set up a… weird pulley device thing. I’m not sure what he did, honestly, but we could crank it for energy. If there was one thing we had in large quantities, it was people with nothing to do.

OCI: What were some of the more difficult things you had to do during the outbreak?

JP: Keeping the children and older kids occupied was hard. Kids are so curious, you know? They’ll only sing and color in books for so long. Eventually we put them to work on little things like counting out rations, or helping Fran figure out menus.

The older kids were a godsend for the kitchen. They would mix soups, bake bread, break eggs, chop vegetables. It’s not easy feeding that many people. That was probably the other thing that was tough. Making sure everyone got fed.

I’d been apart of food drives and I’ve volunteered at the soup kitchen of course, but we knew going into those how many people we were looking at, you know? For this… we simply couldn’t tell how much to make. It took a few tries before we got it right. Mr. Shuyazuki was really helpful in that. He’d been in one of the Japanese camps when he was young.

Really, we just simply wouldn’t have survived without everyone pitching in, doing their part. It’s a great group of people, our Angels.

OCI: How did you make sure nobody infected came in?

JP: Oh, it sounds naive to say it, but we simply didn’t. If someone started to show symptoms, we put them in the office space upstairs- it’s one of the areas of the church with a locked door. We only had two people succumb to the infection, thankfully.

I thank Jesus and everyone else every day that we didn’t have more causalities.

OCI: You mentioned you’ve been spearheading improvements for the church since the outbreak, as well?

JP: Oh yes. Better back up systems, and some bunk beds down in the basement. We’re also building a larger kitchen area, just in case. It’s been really nice for the lock in’s, even if nothing else happens.

OCI: Do you think there might be another outbreak?

JP: I sure hope not, but… well, you can never really know what the Lord’s plan is for us all, right? Best to be prepared, any which way it all shakes out.

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Outbreak Chronicles is a daily series interviewing survivors from the 2017 rabies epidemic in Los Angeles County. A new report will be posted each day in November in the Outbreak Chronicles publication on Medium.