It was an extremely efficient operation and Ben appreciated that efficiency as much as any physicist. He wasn’t blind to the potential dangers of nuclear energy, but he knew that so long as the machinery functioned properly, and there was no human error, and no accidents, then there was no way that the enormous quantities of radioactive poisons could escape into the environment. True, every two years the fuel rods would have to be removed and transported to a reprocessing plant for cleaning, removal of plutonium and burial of the remaining radioactive wastes; but again, it was simply a matter of everyone doing his job properly. It was over a year ago that White Water had been refueled last. Ben remembered getting a queasy sensation in his stomach as the diesel truck, groaning, had pulled onto the freeway with its heavy load of radioactive fuel rods en route to the reservation. But the two year accumulation of radiation was well contained. Nothing short of sabotage could release its deadliness to the air.
Glancing at the clock Ben noticed that the time was 8:42 a.m. Precisely at that moment, the cement floor began to slide under his feet. His head snapped around in surprise as he instinctively reached out to steady himself, grasping onto the edge of a console. His feet were firmly planted on the floor, perhaps twenty-four inches apart, yet he felt like he was on a large skate board as his body was thrown first forward, then backward. Attempting to regain his balance, Ben dropped his papers and held firmly to the console with both hands.
Across the room, Michael Percy had been cast broadside into the front of the master control board. Scrambling to latch onto something stable, Mike’s hands frantically waved over the instrument panel. “Jesus Christ!” he yelled, “what’s happening?”
“Mike,” Ben shouted, “it’s an earthquake! But watch it! Get your hands away from that panel!”
He didn’t think Mike heard him. The man seemed to be yelling, his mouth wide open and his face contorted in shock.
Desmond Anderson, the third member of the crew was lying partially under a desk, his back and feet exposed, but his head securely protected.
In what seemed like minutes but was actually less than sixty seconds, the shaking ended. California experienced numerous earthquakes each year and, as would be later determined, this one was not particularly forceful. To the three men frozen in the control room, however, the trembling seemed quite intense. After all, this building had been especially constructed to withstand the most violent rigors, and yet their bodies had been flung about with the swaying motion like tiny rag dolls.
Finally tearing his hands loose, the knuckles as pale as the console to which they had been firmly attached, Ben switched on the scanning screen to the reactor building. No one was in sight. Strange, he thought, there should be someone down there. Snatching up the intercom speaker, he began calling, expecting any minute to see white coated figures moving about. Ben’s absorption in the eerily empty picture before him was interrupted by a shout from Mike.
“Ben! There’s something wrong! The reactor temperature’s rising!’’
“Shut it off! Drop all the control rods.” Ben’s command was instinctive as he wheeled away from the screen and strode over to the master control board. He quickly checked the instruments for the cause of the problem, eyeing the temperature-gauge needle. Mike was seated at the other end of the board intent on the switches in front of him. About to speak to him, Ben was distracted by the crackling sound of static from the intercom switching on. Then a voice came through the speaker, a voice filled with fear.
“A coolant pipe has cracked! We’re getting flooded with water over here!”
Ben spun toward the screen in time to see the floor of the reactor building take on a shiny, liquid glaze.
“That may be hot!” he bellowed, grabbing the microphone. “Get out of there!”
Turning aside, he roared, “Des, make sure the emergency coolant switch has activated! Fast, man!”
Without coolant, the interior of the reactor core would quickly become overheated. As the intense heat built up to a sufficient level, fuel rods would melt and the fission process would cease, with tremendous damage to the reactor. Theoretically.
Two orders had been issued by the supervisor, both of which should bring the problem under control.
“Done!” Des answered as he checked the computer screen that showed the switch was activated that shot the stand-by coolant into the superheated core.
“Ben, there’s something wrong! The control rods won’t go down!” cried Mike as he worked the program controlling the release buttons. In response to Ben’s first command, he had quickly located the buttons that, when remotely pressed, would lower all of the cadmium control rods into the reactor core. Those rods absorbed the excess neutrons and were the brakes for the fission process. Without them, the reaction within the core would continue unchecked, and an unchecked nuclear reaction would result in a great explosive force building up until it was released in a violent discharge.
“I don’t understand it! The red lights are on!” bellowed Mike. “And I can’t get these damned rods to drop,” he said as he feverishly alternated the buttons.
“What do you mean, they won’t go down? Why not? They’ve never failed to before!” Ben shouted.
“They won’t! They won’t. I think I may have accidentally entered something during the quake that raised the ones that had been down.”
“Do you mean there aren’t any controls in there? Jesus Christ! If we don’t get those rods to drop we’re going to have a blowout.” Red lights flashed all across the panel of computer screens as Ben stood there frantically mashing buttons.
“Ben, the temperature is still rising in the core,” said Mike excitedly.
“What? Still rising? Isn’t the coolant...?”
“The emergency coolant must be evaporating,” Des yelled out. “The fuel rods can’t take too much more before they start melting, Ben!”
“At least the goddamned reaction will stop once the fuel rods melt!” said Ben, reassuringly.
But the situation was becoming critical to the reactor. The men, relying on what they knew to be the best opinions of certain scientists, were convinced that a burn-out would destroy the reactor but would prevent a nuclear explosion. There was no reason not to believe this since a burn-out was commonly touted as a built-in safety factor with the reactor core. Still, a burn-out would be an extremely costly occurrence for the company.
“Des, keep an eye on the temperature gauges! Mike, come with me,” snapped Ben.
Taking his assistant, Ben left the consoles and passed into a smaller, circular cubicle. “There’s one other chance for dropping those control rods.” By now they were in front of a gray metal console with the face closed off. “There’s an emergency lever that can be used as a last resort....maybe it’ll jar them loose.”
Instructing Mike to hold the door back, Ben reached inside, grasped the metal lever, and yanked. Nothing happened. The lever hadn’t budged. In surprise Ben hurriedly searched for the cause. To his dismay, the cabinet had become warped and its metal surface had squeezed the lever into an immobile position. The earthquake had done some damage.
More damage was done than was obvious to Ben, in fact. The sudden shifting of the earth beneath the plant had caused a hairline fracture to traverse the top of the reactor dome. This meant damage to the pressure suppression system.
“It’s no use,” Ben said dejectedly. “The damned thing is jammed.”
“Ben, what are we going to do? Without those rods...?”
Ben ignored the question and ran back into the master control room. Des looked up as
he entered.
“It’s still going up, Ben! That core is an inferno!” said Des.
The scanning screen showed the reactor building to be empty of people. The crew working around the reactor had exited at Ben’s order. Now the scene was a flooded, innocent-appearing chamber with its gigantic steel reactor vessel and metal catwalks overhead. In the center of the vessel was the multi-ton core of radioactive fuel, an
d it was quickly, with deadly accuracy, speeding toward a monumental release of its immense powers.
Realizing that the members of the crew had escaped from the reactor area, Ben turned his attention to the board again. In the absence of liquid coolant, internal temperatures within the reactor continued to rise. Although the theory had never been tested, Ben just assumed that the very worst that could happen, if the emergency coolant failed to reach the interior of the core, would be the melt-down of the overheated radioactive fuel rods, which would in turn shut down the chain reaction of splitting atoms.
Although some skeptical scientists had warned of the possibility of the melt-down actually resulting in a pooling of molten radioactive substances in the bottom of the reactor, the consensus from most nuclear physicists was that even with such a pooling, there would be insufficient fissionable matter present for the formation of a critical mass. Relying on these conclusions, Ben considered the danger of an explosion from the nuclear source to be almost non-existent.
Having exhausted his efforts at forcing the control rods to drop down inside the over-heating core, Ben returned to the temperature gauges. The needles were rapidly climbing t their limits on the dials, A melt-down would completely destroy the reactor, but at least the damage would be confined to that area, and the remainder of the plant would be spared.
Ben stood, watching the needles as he ground one fist against his other palm. Mike stood behind him, and together they heard Des say the program was initiating to throw the switch that would release the second stand-by emergency coolant. This was their last resort to forestall the meltdown.
“Is anything happening?” yelled Des from his console, hoping Ben would announce a temperature reduction, showing that coolant had entered the core.
“No!” shouted Ben as the needles continued their upward swing. It was apparent that the water which should cool the reactor was not getting to it.
Mike grabbed Ben’s arm. “Why hasn’t it burned out?” he asked as his fingers clamped into flesh. “That’s what it was supposed to do, wasn’t it, Ben? Melt, then die out?”
Ben nodded dumbly. “Yeah. But I don’t think it’s going to do that. Look at the gauge!” The needles had reached their limits. They could go no higher.
Des was suddenly behind them. “It’s not burning out!” he shouted. “The reaction isn’t stopping, Ben.”
Mike wheeled away from them and broke into a run toward the door yelling, “I’m getting out of here. This thing is going to blow!”
For a split second Ben took his eye off the dial to glance at the clock overhead. It was 8:46 a.m. In the next instant an unearthly hell exploded over White Water.
Ben thought he had been dreaming of the pain, but when he opened his eyes it became a reality. It seared his body, seeming to touch each nerve as it sliced through the tissues. And it worsened with each inhalation that was more than the briefest gasp, tearing at his lungs with every effort of breath. Slowly, carefully, he blinked, the dryness of his eyeballs causing a raspy sound that carried to his brain. It was funny that he should hear that when all else was quiet.
The sun neared its zenith—it was nearly noon. Ben tried moving his body but the slightest motion made the pain more acute. He lay back under the rubble, waiting. Surely a rescue squad would be here soon.
The next time he lifted his lids the sun had gone far past its zenith and was beginning its descent. Was this possible, that no one had attempted a rescue mission? Aware that the reactor had exploded sometime before nine o’clock and he had lain there for hours without anyone making an attempt to help, Ben was convinced that aid would never come.
Gazing overhead, he saw that the day had become smoggy. It was the kind of gray foggy haze that always accompanied a temperature inversion. A high pressure system had trapped the heat near the earth’s surface, forcing the industrial and auto wastes of smog to blend with whatever other particles might be present in the lower atmosphere. The pollutants, including the radioactive fallout, would hang suspended low over the area until winds blew them away, or rains carried them to the ground. An inversion was most deadly when confined by a natural basin, as in Los Angeles. Open to the sea on one side and closed off by mountains on the other, the Los Angeles basin was sure to lock in the poisoned clouds.
Tugging painfully, Ben began working his body from under the chunks of rubble. Discovering that his left arm was tightly wedged beneath a slab of building material, he concentrated on getting the limb free. At last it was exposed, and to his dismay he found that about midway between the elbow and wrist, the forearm had been turned around. The palm faced out instead of in. Grimacing, feeling jagged ends of bones scraping flesh, he gingerly lifted the wretched hand up and folded it into his shirt, close to his chest. Clearing the last of the rubble away from his legs, he cautiously tested each one and learned that they were capable of motion.
The stillness was a foreboding of things to come. Not even the slapping of ocean waves could be heard. The plant had been destroyed. Piles of metal and concrete littered the grounds. Warped, twisted bodies of automobiles were scattered over the land. The nine o’clock crew had been arriving at the moment of the explosion. Normally there would have been thirty-two people within the plant; now, Ben saw no one.
The stupendous release of energy had virtually flattened White Water Nuclear Power Plant. Its personnel were as ragged and ripped as its reactor. None escaped who were in their cars or defenselessly walking across the parking lot or on the grounds.
Disoriented, Ben pulled his painful body to its feet. It had become obvious that having alone miraculously survived the blast, he would have to try to help himself. He reached inside his jacket pocket for his smart phone. The screen was black. He punched the power button. It lit up. He dialed 911. Nothing. Nothing happened. He brought up the district office number. Nothing. There was no signal - not for sending or receiving.
Home. Home was his goal, but the direction to take was the problem. Spying the chain link fence in the distance, he started toward it in hopes that upon reaching it, he could continue eastward until reaching the freeway. Then, with luck, he would be picked up and carried home.
Once he was moving, the pain became less noticeable; not less intense, but less noticeable. Complete concentration was required to avoid the hunks of wreckage that lay in his path. Only strong- willed determination to live forced him to place one sluggish, bone-weary foot after the other.
The fence, the dully metallic, heavy wire wall that enclosed the White Water facility was still standing. He could see it more clearly as he lifted his glance. A huge dark blob seemed trapped in the mesh of wire a short distance above the ground. The blob became no more distinct, however, as he laboriously closed the distance between himself and the fence. Then finally he was there, directly abreast of the elongated mass. By now it assumed human characteristics. Two arms thrown back in surrender. It was Mike Percy.
Mike had evidently been running across the parking lot after dashing out of the control room. His body was horizontal to the ground and about two feet above it. He had been blown into the chain link fence with such force that the metal links had sunk deeply into his back, firmly attaching him by the meaty shoulders, buttocks, and thighs. The charred features were barely recognizable.
Ben stared in horror. Unwilling to leave the corpse grotesquely snagged by the fence, he determined to pull it loose until it could fall to the ground. Suppuration and body fluids had plastered the clothing to the body. Selecting a hem of the dead man’s shirt, Ben closed his fingers weakly around it. The fabric crumbled into ash. Steeling himself, he placed his hand behind the nape of the neck and gave a short tug. The skin slipped. Indeed, the skin and the prickly hairs at the base of the skull slipped off into his hand, adhering its wet, yellowish pink tissue to his own flesh. With revulsion, he disgustedly slung his hand, throwing the sticky mass aside. It was no use. He simply didn’t have the stomach to pull Mike free. The heat had literally cooked the body to the point where fl
esh was beginning to fall from the bone.
Ben wanted to be sick. He felt his intestines churning and a hot bile-tasting odor rose into his mouth, but for some reason nothing came up. His parched lips and throat desperately needed water—but vomiting would only dehydrate him that much more. It was just as well if the regurgitate would stay down.
Stumbling along the length of fence, nearly blind with pain and fatigue, he finally found the opening. The journey to the freeway, less than two hundred yards, seemed interminable. Yet somehow he made it. His reasoning faculty had not been functioning well, for he’d thought that once he made it out to the highway, he’d be picked up and carried to safety. Now the six lanes were before him, stretching endlessly in opposite directions. But there was not a single vehicle, not a single evidence of people, in sight. Nothing moved. There were no birds in the sky and no glittering reflections from airplanes up in the gray overhead. It was almost as if he were the last man on earth.
Chapter Three
The Calmar Chemical Company was the nearest industrial operation to the White Water Plant. Situated thirteen miles directly south, it, too, was within a stone’s throw of the Pacific. At eighteen minutes until nine o’clock that morning the day shift had already been there nearly an hour.
Up front, in the administration section of the plant, sat Cecil Yeager, assistant director of marketing, in his tiny, glassed-in office. Cecil brushed his coarse hair back and pulled himself in closer to his desk piled with paperwork and glanced at his computer screen. It was at that moment, as he glanced outward, that he noticed Mr. Hargrove standing on the other side of the glass. Hargrove seemed intent on the young man before him. Cecil could see his boss’s lips move and imagined that he could hear the words. He continued to watch as the younger man broke into a broad smile and pushed his hand into an eager grasp with the boss. A knot twisted in Cecil’s gut. This was it. He watched as Hargrove clasped the other around the shoulder and turned to walk off. The bastard, Cecil murmured under his breath.
The Nuclear Catastrophe (a fiction novel of survival) Page 3
