The Yellowstone Conundrum

by John Randall

  “Is any foreign country planning a nuclear strike against the United States at this moment?” The President looked around the room. He was the only one in shirt sleeves. If asked, he’d respond he would be a puddle of sweat if he had to wear a coat and tie. His thin lips were pursed. Not a man on the Joint Chiefs of Staff thought anything was funny. The Chairman spoke.

  “No sir.”

  “Good. If I had to, how many Army and Marine troops could I send to Los Angeles or Seattle?”

  “You mean National Guard, sir?” asked the Secretary of the Army.

  “No, I mean regulars,” the President corrected.

  “To do what, sir?” he replied, glancing at the other Generals in the room.

  “To keep the peace, General,” the President added, plainly. Lots of yes sirs around the table but some blank faces. The President sighed. “OK, are we in agreement that North Korea isn’t going to lob a nuke over the hill or that some jihad whacko isn’t going to drive a Ford 150 into Jerusalem and blow it to hell.”

  No, probably not was the consensus reply.

  Oh, I’m feeling really comfortable. The President thought.

  Rosie re-entered the Situation Room, which was filled with high-pitched chatter, people of all ranks coming and going.

  “Sir, I have the CEOs of IBM and AT&T on line 1.”

  The President wasted no time.

  “Gentlemen,” he started. “I’ve never met either one of you, although I understand you might have sent me campaign money, for which I thank you,” which was followed by murmuring by the executives of the top companies in the world.

  “Our country, no, the world has a problem. It’s America’s problem right now, but it’s going to be a global problem by the day after tomorrow. I assume you’ve heard there has been a massive seismic event in Wyoming,” which was followed by yes sirs. “If I could tell someone in the military to go and bomb Wyoming if it would make this stop, I’d do it in an instant. But, I can’t,” the President paused. “But, what I can do is make sure that the people’s government gets as close to its people as possible in a time of crises. I know that your people and equipment are all over this building. I need to establish a command and control center so that when the mayor of some town in Idaho calls for help, that an actual person here in the White House answers that call—and that person has at his instant disposal computing power to find people who might help and answers to questions.”

  “I would prefer that this command center be here in the White House, but if it doesn’t, I just need for it to happen. My Chief of Staff, Charles Leonard, is your contact. Do you need his numbers?”

  The CEO of AT&T cleared his throat.

  “Sir, Congress has still, after nearly fifteen years, not passed a bill that instructs the construction of a secure, reliable—fail-proof—cellular network in times of emergencies. I’d be better off with a land line; better yet, e-mail or Twitter. I doubt if I could reach your personal cell phone from my personal cell phone right now, sir. Send me a text? Maybe. Send me an e-mail? Maybe. Talk to me? Not a chance. You’ll get a recording.”

  “Then my people shouldn’t wait for phone calls,” the President stated a question.

  “No,” replied the AT&T CEO, a virtual clone of the IBM CEO, down to the blue suit, white shirt and power tie. “Land lines aren’t going to work, either. Damage reports from the local telephone companies indicate catastrophic damage to electrical equipment—telephone poles, switchyards, you name it. Of course, telephone poles carry power at the top, then our telephone wire, then cable TV wire. One telephone pole in a neighborhood can be fixed pretty quickly. A million telephone poles is something else.”

  The President started to feel numbness in his fingers; his face began to tingle as the enormity of the problem began to sink in.

  “There are cell towers either damaged, destroyed, moved all over the West. Hell, if you just look at cell tower it moves.”

  “What do you recommend?” The President asked.

  “Hire some kids who know how to text,” he replied.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes. Use them like you would a translator, like when you call Iran or the Space Station or wherever.”

  A pause. “Mr. Constanza, your opinion?” The President asked the IBM CEO. Now wasn’t the time to be a blue-suited marketing executive. “Mr. President, we can help with your Command and Control, making sure your people are able to access any authorized database, and provide them with the computing power to do so. I hate to say it, for the problem you—we—have at hand, you should contact Apple. They have the device hardware and hand-held software your people will need. We’ll work with them to link to your secure databases, no matter where you decide they are.”

  Another pause. “You want me to contact Apple,” the President repeated.

  “Yes, sir,” Dale Constanza replied, somewhat sourly.

  “Let me check the window to see if somehow we’re in an alternate universe.” It was well-known historical fact that IBM could have had Xerox, Apple and Microsoft for chump change in the ‘70s.

  The executives disconnected. “Chuck,” the President turned to his Chief of Staff. “Let’s conference in our nation’s weatherman.”

  The Weather Channel HQ

  300 Interstate North Parkway SE

  Atlanta, GA

  “Charley,” his Program Director spoke calmly in his ear. “In ten seconds you’ll be speaking with the President.”

  “Of the Weather Channel,” Spann replied with a dry smirk.

  “Of the United States; five, four, three, two, one.”

  “Good morning, Mr. President.”

  “I’d like to say that it was a good morning, Charley; but, unfortunately it’s not. You’re on a secure connection. I have with me the Secretaries of Energy, Interior, Homeland Security, two of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of FEMA. Can you give us an update?”

  “Good morning, Mr. President,” Spann was now using a touch screen.

  “What can you tell me about the ash from the eruption?” The President asked.

  “I can answer that question from a weatherman’s perspective, sir; but I’m not a geologist. I can’t tell you how much or how long.

  “You have volcanologists in the Department of Interior who can help you better than me. But, I can tell you that the winter jet stream is behaving pretty much as it always has. The jet stream in the United States is pretty predictable,” Spann showed a series of archive shots of the Jet Stream.

  Inside the Situation Room, the President nodded toward David Jackson, Secretary of the Department of Interior, who had already gone to his phone.

  “But, your question is what’s going to happen with a steady stream of volcanic ash added to the mix,” Spann paused, normally one to explain everything in detail. He turned to his computer maps.

  “In the winter months nearly the whole of the U.S. is under the influence of the Artic jet stream because of various places on Earth where the ocean’s temperature is higher or lower than normal. In this case,” he pointed to the Northern Hemisphere map. “The subtropical jet stream has met a warm spot in the ocean, the La Nina, and is dislodged to the north. Portions of the warmer air have leaked into the western and southeastern US, creating a wave. No place else on the planet Earth in the Northern Hemisphere is there a similar anomaly.

  “To answer your question, sir; there will be a significant effect in the Great Plains states—Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Texas and Oklahoma where the jet stream will deposit volcanic ash regardless of the season. The volcano ash will drop along proven wind patterns, making life difficult in these areas. Come summer and things will change.

  “Also notice that in addition to our East Coast cities, the Jet Stream passes over London, Paris, Bonn, India, Japan, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Singapore before crossing the Pacific Ocean and being re-influenced by its water temperature.”

  Spann left out a tag line he wanted at add. We all breathe the
same air, too bad we all can’t get along. But, that’s your job, sir. I’m just a weatherman. “In the summer the ash plume will disperse and lazily move across the country, like in the last map.

  “Here there is only a remnant of the polar jet stream out in the Pacific and in spots above Hudson Bay. Again, the grey areas are where the wind speed is the highest. This is a July picture and the sub-tropical jet stream has risen up to the 40th parallel, where normally it’s around the 30th. But, there’s not much happening, not like in winter.”

  Spann reflected.

  “Just because there isn’t an active jet stream doesn’t mean there’s no problem. Observe that in the summer the effluent from Yellowstone will float straight across the county, directly over Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, New York, Boston. That’s in the summer time,” Spann concluded. Take me out to the ball game.

  While the primary camera showed satellite pictures of the devastation, Spann’s fingers rapidly sought out images he wanted from other data. Image after image popped up of the jet streams, polar and sub-tropical, first with historical data from yesterday and the day before. “Yes,” he replied to himself, then nodded to another producer that he was ready to cut back onto the camera.

  “This is the jet stream image from yesterday morning. You can see there are two rivers of air, one well to the north across the Northern Plains, and the second—the sub-tropical jet stream running horizontally across Texas and Mexico. The sub-tropical then hits the relatively warm water over the Gulf Stream and agreeably then starts to meander north, the two rivers of air meeting off the Grand Banks of Nova Scotia.

  “Now, compare this with this morning’s jet stream pattern.

  “Notice what’s happening. Warmer air from the sub-tropical jet stream has forced its way up to the Great Lakes—it’s going to be 50 degrees in Chicago and Detroit this afternoon—effectively breaking up the Artic jet stream, forcing the colder air to dive along the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains.

  “Now, watch what happens,” Spann allowed the computer animation to take over. “The Artic jet stream is going to drop all the way down to Texas and combine with the sub-tropical stream in the Georgia-South Carolina area.

  “Then march right on up the east coast. Dallas will get snow and ice; places like Memphis and Tupelo, Birmingham, Nashville, Knoxville and right here in Atlanta will get up to eight inches of snow, then the storm will curl on up the East Coast and give us another typical President’s Day present.”

  There was a pause on the line.

  “What’s going to happen tomorrow, Charley?” the President asked.

  “Let me dance a bit, here, Mr. President,” Spann looked directly into the camera. “First of all, we don’t have any empirical evidence with regard to snowfall after a volcanic event; Mount St. Helens blew off a thousand feet of mountain and basically spread it out over central and western Washington. It was August. There was no water vapor, no cold temperatures. It just went boom. Mt. Redoubt in Alaska; several times in the last fifteen years, but again, nothing in winter, nothing in combination with water vapor.

  “Snow is created when microscopic bits of water vapor attach themselves to microscopic bits of dust in the atmosphere; it freezes, melts, refreezes, then if it’s cold enough and heavy enough, it falls to the surface as a snowflake.

  “What will happen when an infinite amount of dust reaches the upper atmosphere; and that infinite amount of dust meets a sufficient amount of water vapor, say from the Gulf of Mexico, and the combination does its thing? My guess is the result is an infinite amount of really heavy snow; why heavy? Because instead of a microscopic bit of dust, the water vapor is going to attach itself to a “glom” of volcanic ash; “Glom” is one of our technical words.

  “Color? Perhaps on the grey side instead of white, maybe even darker.

  “When? You ask. Once the plume of ash reaches the jet stream, it will be truckin’ at 150 miles an hour. Every six hours it will have moved 900 miles. By one this afternoon, it will have already passed Denver. By seven this evening it will be approaching Dallas. By midnight it will have reached Jackson, Mississippi and will have caught up with the cold front moving along the tropical jet stream path, where it will ride across the South and up the east coast tomorrow.

  “How much snow you ask? We don’t have computers or programs sophisticated enough to predict that kind of combination of events. If the up flow of Gulf air is rich and moist, then instead of eight inches, you might be looking at feet instead of inches.

  “I’m open to any questions,” Spann added.

  There weren’t any.

  Seattle Waterfront

  Ray stayed stationary on the remains of Pier 54 until his breathing became normal. To his right, Top Dog had curled up and lay beside him. How long had passed? How long had he been in the Wenatchee before something had told him to wake up. The Big Guy perked up a sharp ear at The Man’s effort to get up. To his feet, Ray looked around. It was hard to tell time. The skyline of Seattle looked like one of those kids Apocalypse games. It was truly a Terminator backdrop.

  To his left the condominiums along Alaskan Way and the upper piers were destroyed. There was nothing left of any of the restaurants or businesses. To his right the major shipping companies which operated the lower number piers were completely devastated. Out of view to the north, Ray would have gasped as others had in the morning at the visage of the Space Needle bending over in abject agony.

  Uphill and to the east the concrete canyons of Seattle were filled with the incredible debris of human-kind; cars, storefronts, dirt, dead fish, dead people, refrigerators, roofing material, all the junk we call our stuff. In the distance Ray could hear sirens and a helicopter, perhaps two. But, overall there wasn’t much noise, not for a workday—even in February. Downtown was destroyed. All of the streets running uphill to 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th Avenues were littered and jammed with a mountain of crap.

  “OK, Superdog, let’s give it a whack.” The prospect of climbing up and over the moraine of debris was daunting. Staying put didn’t exactly fill his dance card, either.

  On his feet, ahead and uphill was the skyline of downtown Seattle. Between himself and downtown was a fifty-foot high moraine of broken Alaskan Viaduct, automobiles, crushed buildings, crap brought out of the sea, damaged buildings; now a huge mound of sharp edges. To his left, on what remained of Pier 55, multiple places were on fire as gas lines exploded. Two blocks further the remains of the 10 large condo buildings on the viaduct side of Alaskan Way—now reduced to rubble from floors 1-4, higher floors perched precariously, all ready to simply collapse. Two of the buildings were on fire.

  Everything was wet. How long was I out?

  The tsunami had struck, driven the Wenatchee into the viaduct, destroyed the piers and seawall, forced a wall of water up the concrete canyons to Third Avenue before retreating back toward Elliott Bay, reversing the process of distributing destroyed buildings, storefronts, chairs and tables from restaurants, paper, boxes, Starbuck’s cups, rats, drywall (now wetwall) and anything else not locked down; drawing everything back toward the fallen viaduct.

  Takes a lickin’ but keeps on tickin’. Two hours. I was out two hours.

  The gray misty morning partially obscured the Safeco Plaza, Union Bank, Bank of America, Columbia Tower, the Courthouse and King County government buildings. At least one of the buildings was on fire. From Ray’s perspective it was difficult to see, either the Wells Fargo or the Fourth & Madison building.

  Why isn’t anybody here? His brain shouted.

  Dude, anyone who was here is dead. Anyone else can’t get here. You and Big Pup are the only ones.

  The eeriness of the scene was enhanced by the lack of light. The only lights in sight were dim glows from interior emergency lights in some of the buildings. Overhead in the distance he could hear one or two helicopters, occupants of which must be drop-jawed at the sight.

  There are people inside elevators in those buildings Ray thought, and then added how the
fuck am I going to get out of here? Ray turned his attention to his companion, whose head came up to his chest. The dog’s eyes were clear and sharply-focused, his tongue as big as a man’s size 13 shoe.

  Just give me a man with a six-inch tongue, the ladies used to say.

  Ray smiled for the first time.

  As if smiling was the magic word, the sound of a helicopter grew louder. It was a WSDOT highway patrol traffic copter. Above him the helicopter turned, then circled lower. Ray waved, his right arm hurting like hell, his left knee the same. The helicopter lowered to just above the littered surface of the remains of Pier 54; an officer jumped out.

  “Who are you?” he shouted.

  “Ray Spaulding. I was on the Bainbridge Ferry”

  “Where are the others?”

  Ray gave him eyes with questions. “Dead,” then turned to Elliott Bay where the forward section of the Wenatchee was barely 15 feet under water.

  “Jesus fucking Christ!” the officer swore.

  “I don’t think Jesus had much to do with this, officer. You’ll probably have to ask His Father. I’m not even sure that’s the right place,” Ray paused. “Shit happens.”

  “Get in. I’ll give you a ride to Harborview,” the officer offered, the helicopter’s blades providing relentless punctuation to their conversation.

  Ray looked at the ‘copter’s seating.

  “I’m not going without the dog. He saved my life,” Ray turned down the offer. “And there’s no way you’re going to get him and me into that thing.”

  The officer quickly agreed. “Sir, come with me! He’ll be all right!” the officer shouted.

  Ray shook his head. “Sorry, can’t do it! How do I get out of here?”

  “Everything south of here is completely flooded. The docks are gone, the lowlands toward the ball parks; they’re fucked, buried in ten feet of water,” the policeman turned toward the moraine of crap. “You’re lookin’ at it,” he said, then at Ray’s eyes. “Are you sure you don’t want a ride?” The pilot gave the officer the finger-circling lets-get-the-fuck-out-of-here message. Ray shook his head no. “Power’s out everywhere west of Denver. It’s going to be hell. Are you sure you don’t want a ride out of here?”