The Yellowstone Conundrum

by John Randall

  Why did I take that job in DC?

  But, he knew the reason. Dr. Nancy was his love and his entire life. That sweet woman was the reason he existed on earth. She had said it was OK; that they’d see each other soon and I love you, darlin’; we’ll live apart for a while, ‘til I catch up with you in D.C.; besides, that’s why they make airplanes. Everything will be all right.

  Maybe it would be all right, but not right now. Something terrible had happened. Robert listened for a few minutes. The ground shook softly now. Rumble rumble rumble. The elk were gone. What happened to the road? Robert headed toward the road, maybe thirty feet away; the YOU’VE LEFT THE FUCKING DOOR OPEN sound from his car was annoying even the sagebrush.

  Robert was amazed. The road was split asunder as the Bible said. Asunder was one of those great Bible words. The trembling started to stop, like listening to the advancing thunderstorms and saying it’s a little less like the end of the earth than it used to be a minute ago.

  Mission oriented, Robert went back to the rental car with the GPS lady with a corncob up her ass and tried to make a call on his cell phone, which had slipped into the coffee holder between the seats.

  beep beep beep like little bo fucking peep went the phone.

  All circuits busy.

  You’re six miles past West Jeezbutt. What do you think you’re going to get?

  Robert turned back to the car but he stopped just as he was to get back into the driver’s seat. What’s that? He asked himself. I’ve never seen that before. In the far distance a black cloud rose from the horizon into the blue sky of the morning in the southwest. Robert O’Brien wasn’t a dodo. He wasn’t born yesterday or the day before yesterday; massive earthquakes. Cell phones were out; the road split asunder. Something is happening at Yellowstone.

  Oh shit was all Robert could mouth. Back in the car he was pleased then engine turned over. Yes, it’s back on. Yes, I have ¾ of a tank of gas. Can I get back to the (highway?). He slipped the Explorer into 4x4, slowly got traction, dodged several tumbleweeds and came back to the broken pavement. Ahead in the distance was the huge 134-mile expanse of Fort Peck Lake.

  Robert steered the Explorer south on the county highway. He could feel the ground still trembling. The sausage egg McMuffin was doing flip-flops in his stomach. He tried the radio. He let it search two cycles on AM, then FM without a hit. The Explorer’s GPS screen was blank; at least he wouldn’t have to listen to that annoying woman again. Ten years ago he’d been the Power Control Manager as part of his fast-track management training, a government program that spotted good managers and got them assigned to jobs that emphasized both the importance of the bureau they worked for and the problems they encounter.

  Robert knew the roads in Eastern Montana were like driving on packed ice, even in the summertime. All it took was a slick of rain and the relentless wind did the rest. When it rained roads were difficult even to walk across, much less drive 60 mph; in fact, 40-45 was about tops for speed.

  The dam itself, completed in 1943, was the largest earthen dam in the world and at one point was more than a mile wide. Four huge tunnels, 24 feet in diameter constructed of steel with three feet of concrete on the inside, connected the two sides of the dam. Two of the tunnels passed through the twin powerhouses downstream on the Missouri River side, while the other two allowed water to pass directly through the dam from Fort Peck Lake to the Missouri. In the power plants the water turned turbines which magically transformed the energy of falling water into electricity.

  Ft. Peck Dam looking from the southeast; photo from the US Army Corps of Engineers; Robert O’Brien escapes to the bottom of the photo.

  Are we OK? Robert thought, then glanced to the black blob in the far horizon to the west. Probably not was his realistic evaluation. I need to call Nancy. She’ll be worrying. Phones weren’t working. GPS wasn’t working. Radio wasn’t working.

  We’re probably not OK. He deduced.

  US Geological Survey

  Geologic Hazards Science Center

  Golden, Colorado 6:30 AM MST

  Unlike Hoover Dam in Boulder Canyon on the Arizona-Nevada border and its upstream twin Glen Canyon Dam, massively overbuilt structures constructed of concrete and rebar, the upper Missouri River dams were all constructed using the hydraulic-fill method, a decision which the US Army Corps of Engineers made as America went into WWII. The Hoover Dam project, the eighth wonder of the world, was simply too expensive to replicate. It took nearly ten years to complete. The earthen hydraulic-fill dams on the Upper Missouri took three years to build.

  The 11.2 Earthquake at Yellowstone was felt in Chicago, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Dallas, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Phoenix and Minneapolis. It was “extra felt” along the fault lines of two ancient land masses. Called the Wyoming Craton, it is a land mass encompassing the southern Rocky Mountains that over the millennia has adhered itself to the North American Craton, which is the stable land mass of the North American continent. On the eastern side of the boundary line is land with stable tectonic activity, land that has no inclination to go anywhere; west of the boundary land masses are tectonically active, everything wants to rock and roll.

  Nancy screamed into John Temple’s ear, dropped the phone and did what you’re supposed to do in an earthquake and you’re trapped in an office building; get under a desk so you’ll have a shot at living when the building you’re in starts to collapse. As she scrambled for cover she saw in the corner of her eye across the bullpen her I/T Director Herb Probst also dive for cover; sometimes the early risers get the worm, sometimes they get the bird.

  The strength of the massive Yellowstone earthquake reverberated like the point of a tuning fork along the ancient fault lines of the Wyoming Craton; on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, it nearly followed the path of I-90/I-25 from Billings to Albuquerque. On the Western side of the mountains, the strength of the quake traced the path of I-15 from Butte, Montana to Las Vegas, passing heavily through Salt Lake City.

  Destruction was most severe between either edge of the Wyoming Craton because the land mass was solid rock, one great big piece of rock; vibration moves through solid rock much better than it does through fragmented material; to the west, toward California with hundreds of fault lines in Utah, Nevada and California, the effect of the earthquake was less. The overall land mass of the western US wants to move to the west and south. The earthquake in Yellowstone greatly encouraged the contest between the Juan de Fuca and North American Plates; with the Juan de Fuca, a 300-mile long ridge of undersea mountains which are continually

  From upper left: James W. Sears, University of Montana; file from Wikipedia Commons, public domain from the USGS; USGS 1999, modified 1995; Public Domain US Geo Survey

  trying to go under the North American Plate in a process called subduction.

  As Nancy scrambled for cover, death and destruction had quickly arrived in Salt Lake City; the ancient fault line ran straight under the University of Utah. The 11.2 earthquake ripped through the city, destroying the façade of the Morman Temple and caving in the city’s sports arena, the Salt Palace. Within seconds there was massive destruction in the beautiful city. The computer and phone links from young Danny to Dr. Nancy were disconnected.

  In Denver, on the eastern edge of the Wyoming Craton, the effect of the earthquake was more devastating because greater Denver had a population of nearly two million while greater Salt Lake had a population of 350,000.

  Nancy screamed straight through the rumbling horror of the two minute earthquake, which was followed quickly by four more quakes of lesser magnitude. She screamed as she felt the USGS building shake, then begin to shed its exterior panels; ten-by-twenty sections of pre-fabricated fake stone, panels that fell off with a ripping sound, followed by a loss of pressure, then another rip, pop and a subsequent smash below; which was immediately followed by an intake of very cold outside air into the building. The air whipped through the building, sweeping up papers and anything loose and light, sending the
debris into a whirling dervish; whoosh and the debris smashed around the office, then finding an exit on the opposite side of the building, rushed through the floor like it had exuberant life.

  I’m alive! I’m alive!

  It was a full four minutes before Nancy felt comfortable getting out from underneath her desk. The lights in the office were out; power was out everywhere. It was still dark outside; dawn wouldn’t arrive for another twenty minutes.

  Then the silence crept in like death. All that could be heard was the creepy sounds of the wind rustling what papers it could still find.

  This is bad Nancy thought.

  Fort Peck Dam

  Fort Peck, Montana

  “Bobby!” The voice came from six-foot-six “Slim-Jim” Bailey who lumbered out from the Fort Peck Visitor’s Center to greet his former direct boss, now his third-line boss, realizing the only vehicle coming across the wide expanse of nothingness would be Robert; who as usual, was right on schedule. Slim was a bit disheveled.

  “What the hell just happened, Slim?” Robert asked.

  “Earthquake,” Jim replied. “Bad one; it’s still registering. Jesus, Bobby! Good to see you,” he shook Robert’s hand hard. “It’s worse,” Slim-Jim added, looking his mentor hard. No one was around, only a handful of cars in the parking lot. It didn’t take many people to operate a hydroelectric dam.

  “Worse?” Robert asked.

  “In the last twenty minutes Bonneville has cut ties with us; and, Jesus, Bobby,“ Slim-Jim’s eyes were wide. “The Intertie,” Slim started, stomping a bit, turning away. “It’s gone.”

  The implications were Way Beyond Significant. The Texas consortium would have already shut their connections, which meant no electricity was being sold between the western states and the eastern states; which meant people in Maine who were on electricity instead of gas were sucking the big wand along with everyone in New York, Pennsylvania, nearly 60% of the US, and the power companies weren’t going to be able to produce the instant electricity needed to supply toasters and electric toothbrushes and electric blankets and city lights and….WOOOOSH…it was the sound of a straw sucking an empty soda bottle.

  Robert’s brain had to clear all of the things he couldn’t do anything about.

  “Are we OK?” he asked.

  Slim-Jim’s eyes were cloudy. He started to shake his head but didn’t say anything. “I don’t know, Bobby,” he hesitated. “I’m not sure yet. Let’s go inside. This can go either way,” replied the Power Plant Manager.

  This wasn’t going to be the drill I thought it was going to be thought Robert O’Brien.

  The pair entered the Operations Center.

  “Too many red lights, Slim” Robert remarked at the control center’s scoreboard. “What are these?” he asked.

  “Come on, Bobby; this is your stuff,” Slim added. The control center had four people on consoles, two of which doubled as maintenance for other parts of the dam; it was lonely duty in the most desolate part of the lower US.

  “Registrations?” Robert asked.

  “Yes,” replied Slim-Jim.

  “Sweet, Jesus,” Robert replied.

  “Amen,” added his new manager.

  The Fort Peck Dam was talking.

  Nobody built earthen dams any more because they were susceptible to guess what--EARTHQUAKES!

  Well, duh.

  The newly installed registration board was lit by reports from seismic equipment buried deep within the dam.

  “Liquefaction,” Robert muttered, now really nervous. Slim-Jim’s eyes were wide open.

  Soil liquefaction occurs in an earthen dam when the soil—saturated with water loses its strength and stiffness; the breadth of the dam, in response to an applied stress such as an earthquake. In layman’s terms, the soil becomes so disturbed that the water in the soil changes form, from soil to something very much like quicksand. The liquefied soil then appears to have a choice, to remain as is, or to pass the liquid back and forth between the soil particles, kind of “sloshing” due to the external forces.

  “Sloshing” on a larger scale could mean the fault of a large earthen dam because the soil structure, the massive amount of dirt and landfill, begins to lose its strength, and more importantly—instead of behaving like a solid, the “sloshing” turns the soil into a liquid, thus soil liquefaction.

  In other words, it’s a bugger to fix once it starts.

  “Do you think it’s going to go?” asked Robert.

  Slim-Jim Bailey’s eyes were bugged.

  “I’ve started shut down. I don’t have a clue, Bobby.”

  The two managers walked out to the large expanse of the Fort Peck Dam.

  “Look over there!” Robert exclaimed. His mouth, dry before, lost even the thought of a pucker as his eyes scanned the mile between the power plants and the berm of the dam over looking Fort Peck Lake; as of yesterday morning the massive 134-mile long lake was seven feet three inches above the “full pool” level of 2234 (above sea level) at 2241.3.

  What they saw should have been impossible. Across the wide, grassy expanse to the east the ground was actually moving; a slow dance where the ground became soft, chewy in consistency, then began to form little circles of ten feet in diameter with a donut hole in the middle. And there was nothing they could do about it. There wasn’t a bag of hurt-no-more they could put on the wound.

  “My God in heaven,” Slim-Jim swore. “Sand boils.”

  The dam was squeezing sand out from its core below due to the pressure of the earthquakes vibration; all across the face of the mile wide sloping surface of the earthen dam tiny sand volcanoes were being formed. Water filled the center of the holes.

  “I don’t suppose you can order an army of compactors,” Robert asked, his belly queasy.

  “I can’t order you a pizza, Bobby,” the plant manager replied.

  Robert smiled but walked away from downstream visitor’s center. The concrete walkways connected the center with the double seven-story power plants a quarter mile away. To his left the uphill slope was hard to see, but walking it was different and clear. The long walkway connected the business part of the dam with the berm, or crest, of the dam itself.

  Robert left the walkway and started walking uphill on the packed dirt. The ground was frozen solid—except for little vents of heat that caused vapor streams. The closer he got to the center of the field, the warmer it got. He could feel the temperature change; maybe now up to 14 degrees.

  The sand boils looked like the suction cups of an octopus on a piece of glass as seen from above; nothing in nature looked the same. Robert looked down the 4-mile length of the dam. He couldn’t see past fifty yards with any detail.

  Nancy, I hope you’re OK; because I’m not.

  University of Washington

  Johnson Hall

  Geo Survey Lab, Seattle

  The emergency lights came on in the lab.

  “Seismic event!” Karen managed to grab her lab phone. “It’s an 11.2—seems like it was right under our seats but it wasn’t. Its eight hundred miles away; wait a minute! There’s been a second one, 9.45 ten miles north of here; Bainbridge Island. I don’t know what to do!” Karen continued to shout.

  There was no response on the other end. The line was dead. It was supposed to be a direct connection to Golden.

  The emergency lights flickered and went out.

  In the coffin-like confinement of the basement lab, Karen looked around her for any source of light. She could hear destruction rumbling above her.

  Uh, oh.

  The sound of a collapsing building got louder. Poundapoundapoundapounda and whoosh. The lab was filled with dust, like someone had emptied a completely full vacuum bag in front of a fan. Karen began to cough uncontrollably, and fell back to her knees. She found her coat and tried to use it as a mask, but it was too clumsy.

  Thank you, God. The first floor hadn’t collapsed into the basement. Johnson Hall, Earth & Space Science was one of the older buildings on campus; alt
hough completely re-modeled in 2004-5.

  “Hello?” she shouted weakly; coughing, sputtering, in the pitch dark of the basement.

  “Hello” she shouted again, not hearing a reply. ‘Hello!” she yelled a third time, a noise that came out as a cross between a squeak and a croak. Nothing.

  Above her Karen heard nothing. Deadly silence. Not even a brick. Not a rat. Nothing.

  “Hello! I’m here!” she shouted.

  It was early. But, shouldn’t someone be here? The emergency lights aren’t on because this isn’t an emergency. No. it’s a disaster, she reasoned.

  Lab equipment, student experiments, papers, computer equipment; all had turned into hazards for walking. Knowing in her mind’s eye where the stairwell was, coat wrapped around her shoulders, she inched across the lab—through the land mine of physical maze. Ouch she touched something sharp. I’m bleeding! She could feel the sticky dripping of her own blood. Crap! That’ll be a good picture, she thought. Lab technician stabbed to death by a pencil.

  Lights out, dust clogged the room, Karen made her way by memory toward the opposite side of the room. No sense trying the elevator. But, what if someone’s in the elevator? Come on, nobody comes to the basement of the eco-lab at 6:30 in the morning unless they’re already here. I’m here. Nobody else was expected.

  “help”

  Shit. She thought she heard something. I need to get to the stairs. I’m going to suffocate. Did you hear anything? I DIDN’T HEAR ANYTHING.

  “help”

  It was a voice from somewhere below her.