The Tsunami Countdown

by Boyd Morrison

  A mega-tsunami was unprecedented, so large that HSCD had not considered it a realistic possibility. The chances of it happening were so remote that planning for it was not deemed economically prudent.

  And so, when the eighty-foot-high tsunami struck the coast of Oahu, the wave submerged all three power plants to a depth of thirty feet, shutting all of them down. The higher waves to come would destroy them completely.

  Renfro shook his head as the reports came in. Not only were the power plants smashed, but the wave had washed away most of the power lines and their towers. Where lines remained intact, the water caused short circuits in the system. The power substations that weren’t submerged couldn’t handle the massive overloads, and the surviving circuit breakers were tripped.

  The island of Oahu was in a blackout.

  A few locations, however, still had power. Backup generators and batteries continued to power HSCD, hospitals, and the air traffic control tower at Wheeler Army Airfield.

  Renfro knew only one other major system continued to function: small backup generators or batteries were included in the design of every cell phone tower.

  On the tenth floor of the Seaside, next to the stairwell, a second set of stairs led up to the roof. Brad, Jake, and Tom had reached the top of the stairs without getting injured by the flying shards of glass. With the rushing water just below them, Kai ushered everyone up the last flight of stairs and onto the roof.

  The flat expanse of faded and peeling white paint was broken up by a few large air-conditioning units and not much else. Kai ran to the edge of the building and looked down. At that height, he would normally see multitudes of beachgoers thronging the promenade far below. Instead, breathtakingly, the water was now only fifteen feet beneath them, the top floor dry by a few inches. Water surged like a river around the corner of the building, taking all kinds of debris with it.

  Kai was relieved that the building hadn’t collapsed with the first wave. But he had no idea if it would stand up to the next one. Not that it would matter: the next wave was going to be another five stories high, completely covering this building.

  He knelt by Lani.

  “Are you all right, honey?” Kai said.

  She nodded and gave him a tight hug. “I can’t believe you came to get us. How did you know where we were?”

  “You were on TV. Then Jake led us to you when we got to the Grand Hawaiian. Was it your idea to send him there?”

  She nodded again. She was a smart kid.

  “Is Mom okay?”

  “She was at the hotel. I’m sure she’s fine.” Although Kai tried to project a confident calm, he was in fact sick with worry about Rachel. He knew this thing was far from over, and he didn’t think she’d be safe for long where she was. Neither would they.

  Kai took out the walkie-talkie and tried it first. After a few attempts he got through to his wife and breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Rachel, are you all right?”

  “Kai! Thank God! Please tell me you got Lani.”

  “I have her right here. She has an exciting story to tell you.”

  Kai passed the walkie-talkie to Lani and walked over to Brad. He was taking pictures of the flooding with his cell phone, which had been in the dry bag.

  “What do we do now?” Brad said, snapping a photo of a boat floating past the eighth story of the building behind them, the twenty-story building they would have been in if only they’d had another minute to run over to it. Kai took Brad aside so that the kids wouldn’t hear them. Teresa joined them.

  “We wait,” Kai said. “The water will recede. When it does, we need to make a run for higher ground. In the meantime, maybe we can wave one of those helicopters down.”

  “We’re not the only ones,” Teresa said. “Look.”

  She gestured to the other buildings around Waikiki and Honolulu. As far as the eye could see, buildings were topped with people leaning over the sides or waving to the skies. There had to be hundreds of them, if not thousands. Seeing that, it struck Kai as strange that they were the only ones on the top of this building. He had the awful thought that perhaps The Seaside held other people who hadn’t tried to evacuate their condos until the water was upon them.

  To Kai’s surprise, Teresa grabbed both him and Brad in an embrace.

  “I can’t ever thank you enough for saving Mia,” she sobbed. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come along.”

  “Hey, it finally got Lame-o here on a motorcycle,” Brad joked. “Of course, my Harley is now rusting away under about eighty feet of Pacific seawater. But it was a helluva last ride.”

  Kai wanted to say it was going to be okay, that they were all safe now, but it couldn’t have been further from the truth. They couldn’t stay, but at the moment they couldn’t go, either.

  Kai borrowed Brad’s cell phone and dialed 911. The line was jammed and all he got was a busy signal. He tried again, with the same result.

  He was about to call Reggie when Kai realized that it wasn’t his own phone. His was in pieces on the side of Fort Stewart Road, washed away by now. Reggie’s cell number, of course, wasn’t in Brad’s cell phone list, and Kai had become so reliant on that feature that he had no idea what Reggie’s number was.

  He resorted to calling his own number, knowing he would be routed to voice mail, since his phone wouldn’t answer. It rang through, and Kai punched in the remote access code while his greeting played. He had one message. It had been received less than five minutes ago.

  “Kai, this is Reggie.” Kai heard Reggie wheezing. “I sure as hell hope you get this, because that means you survived. We’re running up Fort Stewart Road right now. It is a madhouse. People everywhere. I haven’t been able to get in touch with Alaska. I assume you got through to them or I would have heard from you, but I’ll keep trying. Once I get to Wheeler, we should have some dedicated phone lines.”

  Kai berated himself for leaving without making the transfer. He could only hope that HSCD was in contact with the warning center in Palmer. For all he knew, they and the rest of the Pacific island nations were now ignorant of any new information because he had abandoned his post without even making sure someone else would pick up his responsibilities. His stomach twisted with guilt.

  “I’ll keep my phone on,” Reggie continued. “The service has been spotty. I’m lucky I got through to your voice mail. If you’re out there, give me a call and let me know you’re okay. I hope I hear from you, Kai.”

  The message ended. Kai memorized the number rattled off by the voice mail’s caller ID and saved it in Brad’s phone’s list before dialing it.

  “Who are you calling?” Brad asked.

  “Reggie,” Kai said. “Maybe he can send us a chopper.”

  The call immediately went to voice mail.

  “Quick,” Kai said to Brad, “what are the cross streets of this building?”

  “It’s hard to tell with all the streets gone. I know we’re on Kalakaua.” He pointed in the direction of the mountains behind them. “Lemon is that way. I think this might be Laka‘laina running perpendicular.”

  Great, Kai thought. The only real estate developer in Honolulu who doesn’t know the streets.

  Lani came over, holding the walkie-talkie in front of her.

  “Mom wants to talk to you.”

  Kai motioned for Brad to take it. “Tell her what we’re doing and that we’re all right.” He didn’t have to add “For now.”

  Reggie’s voice came on and Kai left the message.

  “Reggie, this is Kai. If you get this in the next ten minutes, we are on top of a white ten-story condo building called The Seaside on the east end of Waikiki. We think the cross streets are Kalakaua and Laka‘laina. If you get this, send a helicopter to come get us. And call me. I lost my cell phone, so I’m on Brad’s.” Kai gave him the number and hung up.

  “Do you think he’ll be able to send one?” Teresa said.

  “I don’t know. But if he doesn’t, we’re going to have to
try running for it.”

  “‘Running for it’?”

  Kai forgot that Teresa didn’t know anything about tsunamis.

  “This wave will recede as the next trough in the series of tsunamis reaches us.”

  “Series! You mean there are going to be more?”

  Kai didn’t have time to cushion the news.

  “We cannot stay on this building. We’ve got about twenty minutes before the next wave comes in and covers this condo.”

  “How many more are there?”

  “I don’t know.” If Kai had made sure Reggie was in touch with Palmer, maybe he would have known. “At least two. Maybe more. We’ve got to leave one way or another.”

  “How?”

  “If a helicopter flies near us, we need to try to wave it down. If not, we’ll go down the stairwell as the water ebbs. Once we reach the ground floor, we’ll have ten minutes before the next wave comes in.”

  “How far can we get in ten minutes?”

  Under the best of conditions, they could run maybe a mile in ten minutes. But given their exhaustion and the debris that would be littering the way, that estimate was way too optimistic. And with waves this size, the water would surely reach more than a mile inland.

  Kai studied the buildings around him. About five blocks away from the beach was another apartment building that was about twice the height of The Seaside.

  “That building is twenty stories tall. If we make it up that one, it’s a little farther inland. We can sort of leapfrog our way up to the Punchbowl as the next wave recedes. That’s the closest point that’s safe.”

  It wasn’t a great plan, but it was all he had.

  The smell of seawater was strong—much stronger than it should have been this high up. It reminded Kai that they were still in mortal danger.

  He looked to the sky, trying to will one of those distant helicopters to come their way. He wanted to do something but couldn’t. Only twenty minutes until the next wave, and he was completely helpless.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  11:30 A.m.

  17 Minutes to Second Wave

  After Brad finished filling Rachel in on their situation, she had a last word with Kai and then signed off to deal with her latest problem. There was no way a helicopter could land on the pointed top of the Akamai tower to rescue the family across from Rachel and Max. The only way for the family to escape was to go down. But with the dredging barge embedded in the building, probably blocking the stairwell in the center of the structure, they might not be able to make it all the way to the ground.

  “Do you think they can get out?” Max said. “There’s no way to know from here,” Rachel replied. “They’ll just have to try it.”

  “Even if they get all the way down, can they get to safety? You said there’s another wave coming, and it’s even bigger than the last one.”

  “There’s one other possibility,” she said. “They might be able to go across the skybridge.”

  They searched for signs of the sixth-floor skybridge, but the water level was still well above it. The skybridge, designed like a suspension bridge, hung from cables that extended up to the eighth floor. Sixteen cables, eight anchored to each side of the bridge’s floor, held it in place, half the cables attached to the Moana tower and the other half attached to the Akamai tower. The cables were still intact, but it was impossible to tell whether they were still connected to anything substantial enough to walk across.

  “The skybridge?” Max said. “Do you think it’s still there? That would be convenient.”

  “Convenient? You think anything about this morning is convenient?”

  Max dropped his head in embarrassment. “I just meant that it would be lucky for them,” he said sheepishly.

  Rachel sighed. “I know, Max. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t take it out on you. Look, we won’t know about the sky-bridge until the water recedes, but if it is still there, they might be able to get to it and get across. It’ll take them a few minutes to get down twenty stories.”

  The family didn’t budge. They just looked at Rachel and waved frantically, not knowing what to do. They were in a panic.

  “We have to tell them to move now.”

  “But how?” Max said. “With the power out, we can’t use the hotel phones.”

  “We’ll write it on something.” Rachel looked around, then realized what they needed was right in front of them. She ran over to the maître d’s desk and grabbed the grease pencil he used to mark the seating plan. She took it to one of the dining tables, threw the glasses and utensils on the floor, and began scrawling on the white tablecloth in huge letters.

  In a minute she completed the crude message.

  “Help me,” she said to Max, and whipped the tablecloth off. They carried it over to the window. It said: GO TO SKYBRIDGE 6TH FLOOR.

  “Wait a minute,” Rachel said, keeping the tablecloth out of view of the window.

  “What?” Max said.

  “We need to make sure the skybridge is actually there.”

  The water had begun to flow back toward the ocean, carrying anything that floated. In another minute, the level was down to the sixth floor. They held their breath to see whether the skybridge was still intact.

  As the water dropped farther, the debris started to get caught on something. When it began to pile up in a line between the buildings, Rachel knew the skybridge had survived.

  “Okay, let’s put the sign up,” Rachel said. “And let’s hope they speak English.”

  They held the tablecloth against the window so that the family could read it. After seeing it, both the man and woman nodded furiously and gave a thumbs-up. In a second, the whole family was gone.

  “Looks like they got the message. Max, you need to get everyone here up to the roof. It won’t be easy because of the stairs. You’ll have to leave the wheelchairs behind. Keep calling for a helicopter. And take some of the tablecloths to wave as a signal.”

  “You’re not going down there, are you?”

  “They may need help getting across. Besides, once they get over to our building, they may try to go down instead of up. That would be a bad decision. Max, do whatever you have to do to get that helicopter.”

  He nodded. “Be careful.”

  “You too. I’ll see you in twenty minutes. If I’m not back by then, that means …” She trailed off, not wanting to actually say the words.

  “You better be,” Max said.

  With that, Rachel ran to the door marked by the emergency exit sign and started down the stairs.

  Over the skies of Honolulu, Kai saw more helicopters than he even knew existed. Army Black Hawks and huge Navy HH-53s were the biggest, but there were news choppers, scenic tour helicopters with their logos emblazoned on their sides, and everything in between. At one point he counted over a dozen helicopters buzzing around the city in all directions. All seven of Kai’s group waved their arms wildly, but even with that many helicopters in the air, not one of them came in their direction. There were just too many other people clamoring for their attention.

  The only other option was to go down. The water swirling below made that an unpleasant prospect. Along with the inorganic wreckage, Kai now saw bodies being drawn back to the ocean. Most of them were facedown, so he was spared looking at their last expressions, but he could see the tsunami had been indiscriminate.

  In the short time that the water had begun to withdraw, Kai saw at least thirty bodies of men and women, some still in flowered shirts or bathing suits, others stripped completely naked. But the most horrible sight was the children. The first one was a girl about Lani’s age, her long blond hair floating around her. Kai felt the urge to jump in and pull her out, but he restrained himself, knowing it would be a pointless gesture that would not only get him killed but would also mean he’d no longer be there for Lani. Each time he saw a child float by, Kai looked for signs of life in the hope that he might save him or her, but each body remained still. He told Lani not to look, but he knew he couldn�
�t protect her for long. Eventually, they would have to go out in that.

  Almost as horrible was seeing the pets that had been taken by the wave. Dogs and cats were mixed in with the people. Some of the dogs still had their leashes on. It made Kai wonder for the first time how Bilbo was, but he realized with relief that if Reggie was okay, his dog was too.

  Then they saw another carcass, one so out of place amid all of the other carnage that Kai blinked several times before realizing what it was.

  “Is that what I think it is?” said Brad.

  Below them, swirling next to a Volkswagen Beetle, was an enormous orange and white giraffe, floating on its side.

  “What on earth …?” Teresa said.

  “The zoo is right over there in the park,” Kai said, pointing in the direction of Diamond Head. “It must have gotten swept away by the wave and pulled over here.”

  “Poor thing,” she said. “They must not have had time to get the animals evacuated.” Kai shook his head. Every animal in the zoo must be dead.

  On the building behind them, the water level was now half a floor below the high-water mark. It was definitely receding.

  “Come on, everyone,” Kai said quietly. “We need to make our move now.”

  He led them down to the main stairwell, where he peered over the side to inspect the damage. The surface of the ninth-floor landing dripped with water and silt, but the steps looked otherwise intact. Pieces of trash were caught in the railings and wrapped around the pillars that held up the outer part of the stairwell.

  A pungent smell surrounded them. The bodies hadn’t begun to decay yet, but the tsunami had mixed sewage, gasoline, garbage, and assorted chemicals into an odor that Kai had never before experienced. He coughed at the stench.

  The water drained surprisingly quickly off the eighth-floor platform. The flow past the building must have been greater than ten knots, much faster than a person could swim—even faster than the currents of many rivers. Occasionally a large object would bang off a pillar, startling them.