The Yellowstone Conundrum

by John Randall

  The President admired Spann’s work ethic. “How is it he always has a great tan? He does nothing but bad weather. You can’t get a tan in a hurricane.”

  “I don’t know, sir, maybe a tanning bed,” his Chief of Staff replied automatically, and then cleared his brain and shook his hand no. “I’m not going there.” Not wanting in any way to visualize the famous weatherman climbing in and out of a tanning bed.

  Spann continued.

  “The Yellowstone Caldera is 48 miles wide east-to-west and thirty-six miles north-to-south; occupying nearly 1/2 of what is now the national park. The entire center of the park used to be a pre-historic volcano,” Spann continued. “A monstrous-sized mountain that at some point in time collapsed onto itself, forming what is called a caldera. Crater Lake is another example.

  “There are reports of severe damage in Seattle and Portland; cell phone transmissions are out. Cloud cover makes any kind of detailed images impossible; also Salt Lake City, Idaho Falls, and all up to Winnipeg and Calgary; tremors all the way to San Diego. Along I-25 through Wyoming; Casper, Cheyenne, down to Denver—extreme damage; Rapid City, South Dakota reports damage; complete devastation in Montana along I-90; Helena, Butte, Bozeman and Billings—Pocatello, Idaho Falls, Twin Falls, Boise; infrastructure, roads, hospitals, bridges, schools, all damaged or ruined within a 600 mile radius. It’s as if a cluster of nuclear bombs has gone off.”

  The up-close satellite pictures honed in on what used to be West Yellowstone, Montana. There weren’t two sticks stuck together.

  Not a tree stood.

  Complete devastation. Three gas stations were on fire. Motels and restaurants on both sides of the highway had been flattened, their remains then sifted violently as if God was panning for gold. No one was on the street.

  Not a soul. Straight ahead in the distance, over the miles and miles of flattened trees, was an ever-expanding massive black cloud of billowing molten ash towering into the sky; the juxtaposition of the crisp, dry, Cerulean blue sky over Montana to the left and Wyoming to the right, with the purples, blacks and browns of the volcanic debris mixed with the reds, yellows and oranges of the early morning sunrise as seen through the clouds.

  The President looked like he’d been kicked in the gut by his best buddy; tears were in his eyes.

  “Everyone is going to be affected by this,” he started. “Let’s start with the JCS, George Johnson (Homeland Security), Anne Hastings (FEMA), Abe Liebowitz (Energy) and David Jackson (Interior). Tell them to be in the Situation Room within the hour.”

  The President pulled out his iPhone and called the Vice-President, Amber McConnell, who was home in the Vice-President’s mansion on Observatory Circle in Northwest D.C.

  “You watching?”

  “Yes, sir,” the former governor of Kentucky answered quickly.

  “I need for you to give Pamela and Jimmy a heads-up,” referring to the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense. I want Jimmy to start on what-if and how-to in case we need to move a massive amount of people out of harm’s way. He needs to get the National Guard Bureau working on logistics to help the Pacific Northwest. I’ve got Abe, David Jackson, George and Anne coming here along with the JCS,” the President rattled off the agenda quickly.

  “The Joint Chiefs of Staff?” Amber questioned.

  “It’s their responsibility to be liaisons to the Secretaries of the Army, Air Force and Navy/Marines; I want everybody in the loop,” the President paused. “Oh, yes—can’t forget Congress. You know who to touch base with. In fact, I’ll probably have a larger scale teleconference sometime this afternoon. Have them get ready for it. That’s a lot for you.”

  “No problem, sir. I’ll get it done,” Amber replied.

  “Thanks,” the President hung up and punched another number.

  “Yes, Mr. President,” replied the thick-voiced Tim Arbitrage, Secretary of the Treasury, one of the least-liked people in all of government.

  “Tim, I want you to suspend trading on all markets, immediately. We have a national disaster in progress, and I don’t want anybody making money on it. Announce that the markets will be closed for three days. I don’t want what almost happened in 2008 when the pigs got out of the pen and people realized the bankers had screwed them over; I don’t want any bank runs.”

  The President knew that Tim Arbitrage would be very reluctant to close Wall Street, but it was the President’s call. “Yes, sir.”

  Elliott Bay, Seattle

  “Lieutenant! I don’t like this, sir!” The dirty grey buildings were all built with connecting walls, a solid line of three-story mud-brick single- and double-wides with an occasional alley-way ever hundred feet or so. The rooftops were flat with solid railings. The asphalt main street was littered with rocks, dirt, trash a couple of bodies; the side streets often ended in dirt. Exposed piping for sewer and water was common; electrical poles on every corner.

  Over and over again Ray’s brain went through the ordeal of the first attempt to take control of Fallujah; then he flipped. He was being waterboarded; bound hand and feet, his waist secured, the board slightly tilted so his head was on the downhill slope; then the water. No, no--! Can’t breathe! His body tried to thrash back and forth but he was drowning—going under—can’t breathe—God, no! Lungs were on fire; blackout soon. Ray twitched violently.

  “No--no! Please don’t!” he shouted. “I don’t want to die!”

  Ray opened his eyes.

  He was eyeball-to-eyeball with a very large dog.

  “Ruffffff!” then was the recipient of a slurpy, but rough tongue. Standing over him was the 145-pound Great Dane, Aunt Betty’s guide dog; by good sense commonly called “good dog” by anyone within eyesight.

  Messages from remote parts of Ray’s body started to send in damage reports. His hand found blood on his forehead just as the dog started to do a nutzoid dance, his tail wagging, his head and body saying yeah, yeah, come on—you can do it, just the way all dogs do.

  First the smell hit him; of death, of water, of oil, tinted with coffee and dead fish; then the overpowering odor of diesel fuel, above him liquid leaked from a hundred little spots; water he hoped, fuel he feared.

  Ray rolled over onto his side; The Dog immediately shifted planes of reference and cocked his neck, then licked his face again, straight up from his chin to his forehead.

  “Gimme a fucking break,” Ray muttered, bringing his right arm into play. This would be called the Arm That Didn’t Want to Respond.

  Wow, that hurts. Broken, are we? Yes, indeedy. Shit, I hope not. A shot of pain, like God drilled a bad tooth without Novocain; like he’d been stuck with a cortisone shot, missed and hit muscle instead. Then it was his left knee’s turn to vote. I vote for pain it said, a campaign placard in the next election.

  Ray opened, and then cleared his eyes. All he could think of was Maureen McGovern singing “There’s got to be a morning after” in the original Poseidon Adventure because tables and seats were on the ceiling. A closer inspection revealed at least ten upside down bodies, hands hanging down in an upside-down “wave”, just like at the ballpark. Ken Griffey, juuuuuniiiooorrrrr the Kingdome announcer used to say.

  Then he felt the rivets from the welded steel panel pinching into his back, that and an uncomfortable feeling that either Fido was peeing on him or he was laying in water. The Wenatchee punctuated the thought with a horrible groan. In the near distance somewhere he could hear human cries. One of the ceiling people fell and made a squooshy wet spat sound as he fell face first into what had been a ceiling-mounted light fixture.

  Orienting himself, Ray concluded that the Wenatchee must have spun 180 degrees as it crossed over the shoreline, then slammed into what remained of the Alaskan Viaduct; then probably rolled over onto its side. The water of course was from the tsunami and had no place else to drain; unless—unless, shit, somehow the Wenatchee is at an angle enough that it could be sliding back into Elliott Bay; nah—that couldn’t happen.

  The Wenatchee shift
ed again. Ray noticed that the boat was at an angle, not much of one, but the 16,000 ton boat moved again.

  Being on the second passenger deck, there was only the top deck above him; actually, now below him; the captain’s pilothouse had been sheered off in the initial collision with the Alaskan Viaduct. Ray’s eyes widened. The lower passenger desk, the automobile deck and the engine rooms are ABOVE ME.

  Ray, my boy, that grinding sound you hear is the belly-up Wenatchee collapsing the upper passenger deck by the weight of the bottom half of the boat, the cars, dead passengers, and tons of water. The tsunami destroyed all of the piers and most likely collapsed the sea wall; which means what?

  The Wenatchee is sliding back into Elliott Bay upside down. The weight of craft, the pressure of the tsunami and the tons of water sloshing around inside the boat are going to drag this son of a bitch right under water!

  “Oh, shit,” Ray tried to get to a knee.

  Not today, not at least on that knee! Fido the Wonder Dog, the size of a small horse; all Ray could think of was how much this thing must eat and then shit during a single day; understood Ray’s condition and stood by as Ray balanced himself, getting to his feet.

  “Yeah, yeah. Good boy. I guess,” he muttered. Now it came to him.

  The dog knew Ray was having a hard time. The second passenger deck of the Wenatchee was a football field in length plus a basketball court. Ray heard water sound either along side or underneath him, and then a grinding noise as the large craft slowly started to be sucked back toward Elliott Bay over the destroyed seawall.

  The second deck ceiling, actually its floor, began to sag. The craft began a series of agonizing groans, talking out loud to whoever would hear.

  “Come on, dog!“ Ray began to hobble forward, his worthless right arm in great pain. Fido roofed and ruffed in a can’t-you-move-any-fucking-faster fashion.

  Gotta go up or gotta go out.

  “Upstairs!” Ray shouted. Only everything was backwards and upside down. Ray shrieked at the visual brain fart. “Fuck me fuck me fuck me!” he shouted. Fido the Wonder Dog had trouble as well because of the steel stairways and because he was so God-damned big, toenails like a velociraptor. Scrape, scrape, scrape; but he scrambled up—or down as it may—to the next level, followed by Ray Spaulding, a physical wreck.

  “Out!” shouted Ray, his brain thinking that the Great Dane would be like Astro on The Jetsons and respond “rrraaahh rrrup” or “rut row” or something like it.

  The sound of the Wenatchee became more like a death spiral. Steel beams that had withstood incredible pressure began to buckle as the weight of the automobile and engine decks, the heaviest portion of the boat, began to crunch, giving way to gravity. The Wenatchee started to slide sideways from its perch in the ruins of the Alaskan Viaduct; smashed pieces of Ivar’s Acres of Clams were ground into powder beneath the craft. The Bainbridge Island tip end of the Wenatchee was already dipped into Elliott Bay, as were the first twenty cars on the auto decks. Above that was the engine compartment.

  Panting heavily, feeling like he’d been shot in the gut, his right arm and left knee on fire, Ray kicked into gear come on, solider and grunted his way up the second set of stairs, now into the automobile layer of the Wenatchee. Beneath him he could hear faint cries from the top passenger deck; but there had been no time.

  The auto deck was like looking into a circle of hell. Auto after auto had people inside, drowned by tsunami waves that had passed through the boat, or shaken to death by the vibration. Although much of the water on this deck had fallen off after the tsunami rounds of waves, car after car was filled with water and dead people in various poses of astonishment. By the time it would have been OK to open the door, the passengers inside were already dead.

  The Wenatchee made another agonizing groan and started to rotate to the left a bit. The car decks, already upside down and stacked like four rows of interlocked Legos, began to break apart; a Volvo crashing again, this time into a Chevy truck. The insides were helping the outsides to the inevitable conclusion; slip-sliding away into the shallow death of Elliott Bay.

  There was only one way out. With the bottom deck now the top deck and the top deck filled with fuel and engines, Ray and Top Dog had to reach the Seattle end of the ferry’s car deck and hope for the best.

  Ruff, ruff, ruff Big Dog barked, leading the way. Come on Mister come on Mister come on mister get your god damn ass in gear the Big Guy said, bounding slightly uphill; fifty feet. Ray heard the Wenatchee’s death rattle as the top heavy boat slowly turned. As best he could with his injured knee, Ray scrambled between upside down cars, now the heavy hemp lines dangled down like dead man’s wave on the deck below.

  Now at the mouth of the car deck, behind him 200 vehicles upside down, drowned and battered, he was still above dry land—or was it? The Wenatchee was sliding away from land in slow motion. It was a 10-foot drop to a moving surface; no, they were moving, not the land.

  Ray grabbed the collar of the big animal and shouted “Come on!” then jumped off the end of the ferry boat. Big Dog let out a yelp, then a high-pitched yelp, knowing only the faith of The Man, the Good Man.

  It wasn’t quite like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but close enough. Big Dog’s yelp was the shhhhiiiiiiiiittttttttt.

  Ray Spaulding hit the remaining surface of Pier 54 with a thud, followed by his four-pawed friend. Not five feet above his head, the Seattle side of the WSDOT Wenatchee slid past him, slurping into Elliott Bay where it sank in a mere 40 feet of water. Visible from the surface were the boats lettering, barely beneath the surface by perhaps 15 feet.

  Ray lay on his back, breathing hard, the morning mist now near a light rain. Behind him he could hear the sounds of the Wenatchee making more crumbing noises, just loud enough for someone as close as Ray to hear.

  Alpo?

  Limping, the big dog filled his view and gave him another big wet kiss.

  “You da dog! Yes indeed, you da dog,” Ray wrapped his left arm around the dog’s neck. For whatever reason, Ray Spaulding’s life had been spared again; this time not by his fellow brothers in arms but by a 145-pound Great Dane.

  God had not been recognized in Ray Spaulding’s life before. It wouldn’t sink in until later that of the six hundred forty-three humans aboard the Bainbridge-Seattle ferry on February 20th, he was the only survivor.

  But Ray Spaulding wasn’t stupid.

  There had to be a reason.

  Columbia Generating Plant

  Hanford Nuclear Reservation

  Richland, Washington

  The two of them had been in the darkened room for two hours. Past the first half hour of nervous chit-chat there hadn’t been much to say. You couldn’t say I’mfuckingscaredIwanttogetthefuckoutofhere! ten times in a row followed by a big poop of last night’s dinner that had managed to digest through your body. Andy Everett was drenched in his own sweat. The temperature in the control room had risen from a comfortable 72 degrees to an uncomfortable 80 degrees in the span of two hours. It was dark. It was hot. It smelled—they smelled—they were at the end of their shift. It was time to go home, toss a few cool ones, have a steak on the grill at 8:30 a.m., get drunk by 10:00, take a blue pill and fall asleep in a bedroom with room-darkening shades with fans and the air conditioning unit on full blast, phones off, no pets—and hope you could sleep through the day until seven or eight at night; then back to the third shift again.

  Worse, all they could hear were the unusual noises. You never heard any noises in the Power Control Room, except the punch of a button—except for the steady hummm of the plant itself. In the dark there was no hummm, only the occasional eerie noise from something metallic going through a heat warp, a long groaning noise of something undergoing torture it wasn’t designed to go through.

  Then there was an unmistakable sound of liquid flowing. It had to be the water discharge pipes. With the plant off the electrical grid—no power headed to the Wenatchee (Columbia Power) or Yakama (Bonneville) systems, not on
ly was the power in the Northwest suffering an up-the-nose-with-a-rubber-hose, the Columbia Generating System’s nuclear power plant was in deep doo-doo.

  Andy’s legs had cramped an hour ago and he was half kneeling, half leaning on the ergonomic curved desk where the only light in the room; a single direct connect phone to the Power Control Center in Portland was lit.

  They would call if they had anything to say.

  The phone rang.

  Andy Everett almost threw up, but caught himself before answering.

  “Yes,” he replied. Jake Beatty could be the only one on the other end.

  There were seconds of dead air before Jake could reply.

  “I have bad news and more bad news,” the WAPA control center manager started. Outside his building in Portland bridges over the Willamette River had collapsed and the city was in chaos; roads were closed, major buildings had been severely damaged, power was out, infrastructure fucked.

  “Why haven’t they called us?” Andy asked tension in his voice. The they referred to Hanford management and the implementation of Plan B. “Why haven’t they opened the doors?”

  “They have--they’ve--the plant has gone off grid,” Jake started.

  “Is this a Fukushima?” Andy shouted a 29-year old power control specialist rookie to his third-line manager.

  A loud groaning noise was followed by what sounded like water sloshing. The hairs on Andy’s wet skin on the back of his neck perked. He was in the movie Crimson Tide and the sub was headed for deep 6. He was hearing the same torqueing sounds of metal being twisted unmercifully.

  “There’s no power to the facility. It’s off-line,” Jake tried to keep his voice steady. “The water supply to the cooling towers is cut off. The lines are damaged.”

  I’m fucked is what he means.

  Irradiated water, water that had passed over hot nuclear rods, was spilling out onto the desert floor, gushing. The pipelines had been cracked like eggs during the earthquakes and subsequent aftershocks.