The Tsunami Countdown

by Boyd Morrison

  “I realize that, sir.”

  “Do we need to evacuate the terminals?”

  “Not at this time. They’re far enough from shore to be out of immediate danger. We’re only concerned about the runways at this point. But we recommend that you take everyone off the planes just in case.”

  “What a headache. You better hope you’re not making us do all this for nothing.”

  “And you, sir, better hope we are.”

  EIGHTEEN

  10:19 a.m.

  1 Hour and 3 Minutes to Wave Arrival Time

  Two minutes before the tsunami was expected to arrive at Johnston Island, Niles Aspen was on speaker phone in the ops center. He and Brent Featherstone, the other scientist staying behind, were both biologists from the University of London. Kai had wanted them on the line to describe the tsunami in case they lost the feed from the tide gauge, which was in real time. But Aspen had a surprising source of information for them.

  “Dr. Tanaka, to help educate our students, we have equipped ourselves with a video camera linked to the satellite network to broadcast photos at sixty-second intervals. But we could change that to a real-time video broadcast.” He gave Reggie the web address of the video feed.

  Reggie typed it in and they saw a jittery picture of the Johnston Island runway. The twin-engine supply plane carrying their five comrades was on its takeoff roll. In a few seconds it lifted into the air and circled the island to wait until it was clear to land again.

  “Can we record what we’re seeing?” asked Kai.

  In a flurry of mouse clicks too fast for Kai to follow, Reggie started a recording application. “This will let us analyze the data later,” he said.

  Kai had already told Aspen about the loss of contact with Christmas Island. The British scientist seemed remarkably composed.

  “Well,” came Aspen’s voice through the speaker, “we have Charlotte and the rest safely away. I have to say, Dr. Tanaka, this is all quite exciting for us. Just what we needed to liven up our normal routine.” A muffled voice came through behind Aspen’s. “And Brent reminds me that we even have a thermos of tea to help us weather the storm, as it were.”

  “Believe me, Dr. Aspen,” Kai said, “I hope I’m wrong.”

  “I don’t know what more we could do.”

  “You’ll be our first confirmation as to whether we’re dealing with a true tsunami or not. You’re on a concrete structure, correct?”

  “It couldn’t be more solid. You Americans certainly don’t mind wasting construction material. This is the safest place we can be within walking distance. It might be the strongest structure on the island, by the look of it. We didn’t bring any vehicles, of course.”

  “How high are you?”

  “I would say we’re thirty feet above the ground.”

  The camera panned around to show a wide, flat roof, and then the jaunty figure of Aspen in a wide-brimmed hat, T-shirt, and shorts, holding a large phone to his ear as he waved to the camera. The voice came out slightly ahead of the image from the camera, so it looked like a badly dubbed foreign film.

  “We are now moving the camera to the edge of the roof facing the ocean. As you mentioned, the tsunami should arrive from the southeast, so that is the direction that you will be looking.”

  After a few more seconds of nausea-inducing wobbles, the camera came to a stop atop a tripod, with Aspen now out of the picture. A narrow road led away from the building, passing several structures before it petered out at the beach. In the distance, breakers could be seen curling over the reef that encircled the island.

  “To give you a sense of perspective,” Aspen said, “the two buildings you see directly in front of us are single-story wooden structures roughly fifteen feet in height. I would estimate that the shoreline is about five hundred yards away. That is about as far as we could get from the ocean and still find a strong building. I’d be quite surprised if the water got even this far inland.”

  Another indistinct mumbling in the background.

  “Brent thought he spotted a wave on the horizon, but it was just another big breaker on the reef.”

  “Dr. Aspen,” Kai said, “it’s likely that the first thing you’ll see is the water receding from the shore.”

  “Right. We’ll keep on the lookout … Wait a minute. I think I see what you’re talking about.”

  A second later Kai could see the ocean noticeably receding from the beach, visible even with the poor video. He had seen similar video and pictures from other tsunamis, particularly the Asian tsunami, but seeing it in real time was literally breathtaking.

  “It’s a spectacular sight, really,” Aspen said. “It’s like no ebb tide I’ve ever seen.”

  Kai watched in wide-eyed wonder as the water went out. By the time it had withdrawn a couple hundred yards, he expected the tide to start reversing and come back. But to his astonishment it kept going out.

  “Sweet Jesus,” said Reggie. “It’s happening.”

  Aspen continued to cheerfully report what he was observing.

  “I’d guess the water has gone out one thousand yards by now. Is this the kind of phenomenon you were expecting, Dr. Tanaka?”

  All Kai could say was, “No.” This was beyond his wildest nightmares. Until that point, he thought Aspen’s retreat to the rooftop would provide all the protection he needed. Now Kai clearly saw that the situation was dire, but he didn’t know what to tell Aspen. There was nowhere else for the man to go.

  “The water has stopped receding, I believe.”

  The video confirmed his words. The extreme ebb tide bubbled out past the reef. With better camera resolution, Kai would have expected to see thousands of fish flopping around on the newly exposed ocean bottom.

  “My word, look at the birds.”

  That got Kai’s attention. It seemed like an odd thing to say, considering everything else clamoring for attention. “Excuse me, Dr. Aspen?”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it, really. All the birds on the island seemed to have taken flight simultaneously. I hope the pilot notices and steers clear of them.”

  A yell in the background.

  “Brent just noticed that the water is starting to come back. At an alarming pace, too, I’m afraid.”

  In the distance, a frothy white line stretched across the horizon and out of the field of view of the camera. After a few seconds the white froth had risen visibly and seemed to be racing for the camera.

  “Dr. Aspen,” Kai said, “you need to find something to tie yourselves to. Anything permanently affixed to the structure.”

  “We have no rope.”

  “Use your belts, nylon from a backpack—anything.”

  “I’m afraid the best we can do is to wrap our arms around a metal ladder bolted into the side of the building. Excuse me while we do so.” Kai marveled that the man continued to use common courtesies in such a dire situation.

  The wave now approached the beach. The froth looked to be thirty feet high and still rising. A growing roar threatened to drown out Aspen’s voice.

  “As you can hear,” he shouted, straining to make himself audible, “we are listening to what sounds like twenty approaching freight trains. How big is this tsunami going to get, Dr. Tanaka?”

  He deserved the truth. “I don’t know, Dr. Aspen. Maybe too big.”

  A pause. He knew what Kai meant.

  “Well, Dr. Tanaka,” Aspen yelled over the din, “it seems Brent and I may not get to enjoy that cup of tea after all.”

  As he said that, a wall of water smashed into the palm trees closest to the beach, completely engulfing them, and the wave finally showed signs of curling over. Kai could only watch in shock as the tsunami collapsed and drove itself into the first building it encountered, shattering the wooden structure.

  Whole trees and the debris from the building were driven forward by a wave that had to be at least one hundred feet high. It engulfed everything in its path. No building was even half the height of the wave. It was as if
the world’s largest dam had burst.

  The howl of crashing water coming from the phone now made it almost impossible to hear what Aspen was saying.

  “My Lord! Hold on, Brent!” Then a scream from Brent in the background, and that was all Kai could make out before the phone went dead.

  At the same time, the tsunami commanded the entire area of the screen. It was like peering through the window of a washing machine, water boiling and churning, with indistinct bits of detritus writhing around within it.

  The camera pitched backward, probably from the force of air pushed in front of it by the wave. For a fraction of a second, all Kai could see was blue sky. Then a shadow loomed over the lens, and the image was gone.

  Kai, Brad, and Reggie all stood in stunned silence. Nobody could muster the words to comment on what they had just seen. But they knew the implications. In less than an hour, Hawaii was going to experience a catastrophe of epic proportions.

  NINETEEN

  10:24 a.m.

  58 Minutes to Wave Arrival Time

  The horror of watching Dr. Aspen’s and Brent Featherstone’s deaths confirmed Kai’s nightmare scenario. “What the hell is going on?” Brad said. Then he pointed at Kai with an accusing finger. “How did you know the tsunami would be so big?”

  “I didn’t know, all right?” Kai yelled. He calmed himself, but his pulse was still racing. “It was just a guess based on Crawford and Mader’s research. I saw on the news that a TransPac jet went down somewhere over the Pacific. They showed a graphic of the plane going down in the exact same location as the earthquake.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t think that it’s a coincidence. Brad, since it’s just me and Reggie here, I’m going to need your help. Call the FAA and find out exactly what the latitude and longitude was where they lost contact. And see if there were any other planes in the area. And don’t take no for an answer.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll explain when you’re off the phone.”

  “But who do I call? It’s a holiday.”

  “I don’t know. There’s got to be an emergency number. Here.” Kai gave him the number for Hawaii State Civil Defense. “Call Brian Renfro at HSCD. Get the number from him. Tell him you’re my brother.”

  Brad looked dubious, but he saw that Kai was serious and went into the other room to make the call.

  “Kai,” Reggie said, “do you know what the chances are of this happening?”

  “I don’t know. A million to one? But, Reggie, what if it did happen? We’ve got no scenarios for dealing with it.”

  “If we’re wrong about this and word gets out, we are going to be the laughingstock of the seismic community.”

  “I know, Reggie, but …” Kai tapped his watch. He didn’t have to tell Reggie the clock was ticking. “I’m going to get on the phone with NASA and find out if they have any satellite data or photos from the site of our earthquake.”

  “And me?”

  “Start doing a search of relevant papers in the Science of Tsunami Hazards. See if you can find that formula from Crawford and Mader.”

  “Gotcha.”

  Kai dialed HSCD. Although the PTWC notified many different organizations throughout the Pacific about tsunami hazards, NASA was not one of them. Kai had no emergency number for them.

  Brian Renfro picked up the phone on the other end.

  “Brian, it’s Kai Tanaka.”

  “Kai, what is going on? Your brother just called me asking for the number for the FAA.”

  “You gave it to him, right?”

  “Sure, but that’s a little weird, don’t you think?”

  “It’s going to get weirder. Who would we call to get emergency satellite imagery?”

  “Satellite imagery. Why do you need that?”

  “I think the situation may be worse than we first imagined.”

  “Worse than a tsunami? Is there a hurricane coming too?”

  Brad came back in holding a slip of paper.

  “Hold on, Brian,” Kai said. To Brad: “That was fast.”

  “While I was on the phone, I looked at CNN’s Web site. They already had the latitude and longitude reported in the story.”

  He gave Kai the slip of paper with the coordinates. Kai gave it to Reggie, who took a red dot from the container and stuck it on the map at the indicated coordinates. It overlapped with the dot of the earthquake.

  “Jesus!” said Reggie. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “What do you think?” Kai asked.

  “I think I’m wrong about the seamount.”

  “Brian,” Kai said, “it’s worse than a hurricane.” He told Renfro about the video of the disaster at Johnston Island.

  “And Christmas Island?” Renfro said.

  “It’s probably completely wiped out. Brian, the reason I wanted Brad to call the FAA was because I wanted to confirm that the TransPac flight went down at the same location as the earthquake.”

  “Why do you want to know that?”

  Kai took a deep breath. It was the first time he’d say it out loud. “Because I think that we’ve had a meteor impact in the middle of the Pacific.”

  Renfro laughed. “Yeah, right.” When Kai didn’t laugh with him, he became silent. “You’re serious?”

  “That’s the only explanation I can think of.”

  “You think satellite imagery can confirm it?”

  “Yes. Who is the best to call? NASA? They operate Landsat. How about NESDIS?” NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service operated the GOES weather satellites that were used for all of the nation’s hurricane forecasting.

  “They’re a good place to start,” Renfro said. “I’ll patch you in when I get someone on the line.”

  With that, he hung up.

  “Wait a minute!” Brad said. “What did you just say? A meteor?” “Actually, if it hit the earth, it’s a meteorite,” Reggie said.

  “What are you, the language police?” Brad said. “Who cares?” He turned to Kai. “Come on! If a meteor or meteorite or asteroid or whatever was heading toward us, it would have been big news all over the TV for months.”

  “Not if no one saw it coming,” Kai said.

  “Maybe it came out of the sun,” Reggie said.

  “You mean they might have missed an asteroid big enough to cause a tsunami? I’d like to know who’s in charge of that screwup.”

  “That’s not important now,” Kai said. “We’ll just have to assume it’s an asteroid impact and work from there.”

  “Why does it even matter?” Brad said.

  “Because if it was an impact, we don’t know how big the resulting tsunami would be when it reaches Hawaii. Asteroid impacts move water in a way completely different from earthquakes. That’s why we need to get some data. Reggie’s looking to see if he can find Crawford and Mader’s latest projections.”

  Brad looked confused. Kai explained further, as much to help himself wrap his head around the scenario as for Brad’s benefit.

  “Crawford and Mader are researchers at the Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico. They wrote a series of papers about computer models they had developed predicting how big tsunamis from an asteroid impact would be. Of course, they had to make a lot of assumptions, like material density, velocity of the asteroid, and angle of impact. But part of their research estimated how big the tsunamis would be as a function of the distance from the impact point and the diameter of the asteroid.”

  “But if the asteroid wasn’t detected before it hit, how can you know how big it is?” Brad was quick.

  “Because we know how big the earthquake was and how deep the water is in that part of the ocean,” Kai said. “They developed a formula that would approximate the magnitude of the resulting earthquake depending on the size of the asteroid. We’ll solve the formula in reverse based on the size of the quake. From that, we can estimate how big the waves would be at various distances from the impact zone.”

  “Fine,” Brad
said. “But how do you know they’re right?”

  “We don’t,” said Reggie. “We’ve never gotten seismic readings from an asteroid impact. There have been a lot of different papers written about asteroid-generated tsunamis, and the estimates are all over the map. Even the Johnston Island images only give us a minimum size.”

  “The data from the DART buoy should give us an accurate reading,” Kai said.

  “So until then,” Brad said, “you’re guessing.”

  “Educated guessing. It’s better than nothing.”

  “So, if it is an asteroid, what do we do?”

  Kai honestly didn’t know. The PTWC had been founded to warn against tsunamis generated by earthquakes, the most frequent cause of Pacific-wide tsunamis that were a threat to Hawaii. Most of the dangerous quakes were centered in Alaska, Japan, or Chile, but tsunamis could also be generated locally by volcanic quakes and landslides. Tsunamis originating from the Pacific Rim would take five hours or more to get to the islands, leaving plenty of time to evacuate the coastline, even if it was extremely costly and time-consuming. Locally-generated tsunamis could arrive in a matter of minutes and were therefore much more dangerous. In either case, evacuation routes and procedures had been carefully planned out, based on the size of tsunamis typical for those sources.

  But there were no procedures for dealing with an asteroid-generated tsunami. It was just too unlikely to spend the PTWC’s limited time and resources on.

  “I’ve got the formula,” said Reggie. He started tapping it into the computer. “So let’s see. We registered an earthquake of 6.9. What’s the depth of the ocean at that location?”

  Using a map of the Pacific Ocean floor, Kai sounded out each digit to make sure Reggie understood. “Four nine two five.”

  “Got it.” Reggie continued typing. “And now I just type in how far we are from the epicenter, and that should give us a ballpark height of the biggest wave.”

  When he was finished, he leaned forward and looked confused. Then his eyes widened suddenly, and he pulled his hands back from the keyboard as if it were hot.