Boyd Morrison - The Tsunami Countdown

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 By the time it had withdrawn a couple hundred yards, he expected the tide to start reversing and come back.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.

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.”