Boyd Morrison - The Tsunami Countdown

“Sir,” the reporter said, “do you think the traffic will let you get to a safe location in time?”

“Oh, I’ll be safe,” the driver said, his eyes continuing to flick away from the camera. “I’m heading down to the Ala Wai marina to get my sailboat. I don’t want to see it get sunk because of some stupid tsunami.”

“Are you planning to tow it back home?”

“No, I don’t have a trailer. I’m going to take it out to sea. I gotta protect my property.”

“What about your car?”

“My car?” It looked like the first time the guy had considered what would happen to his car.

“Yes, you’ll have to leave it at the marina, right?”

“Dammit!” he yelled, pounding on the steering wheel. “I knew I should have brought my son with me.”

The camera pulled back to the reporter, but Kai had seen enough. He turned to Reggie.

“These people aren’t getting it. We need to do something.”

“Like what? The inundation maps we have are worthless. Even if we could develop new ones in the next few minutes, we don’t have enough time to distribute them. Besides, we don’t even know for sure how large the biggest wave will be.”

Kai sighed at the futility of the situation. The published inundation maps and evacuation signs were now woefully inadequate. They would lead the evacuees to supposedly safe locations that would be wiped out by the first seventy-five-foot tsunami. Kai didn’t want to think about what would happen when those areas were hit by a two-hundred-foot monster.

And it looked as if some people weren’t following even the established instructions, let alone the new warning telling them that the current inundation maps were useless. They didn’t understand the severity of the situation, and unless Kai did something fast, many of those people would be killed.

Brad, who had been manning the phones, came back into the operations room. When he told Kai about his conversation with Teresa, Kai felt the blood drain from his face. His daughter was somewhere out there, and he had no idea whether she was safe or not. That was when the personal nature of the upcoming disaster fully hit him.

“Isn’t there something we can do to help her?” Brad said. “Call the police to find her?”

“Are you kidding?” Reggie said. “Half the people on the island are probably calling the police right now.”

“Well, we’ve got to do something! What about the governor? She said we should call if she could do anything for us.”

“Oh, that’ll look great,” Reggie said, “using our connections for personal reasons while the rest of the people fend for themselves!”

Brad raced over to Reggie, who had a good four inches and a hundred pounds on Brad, and got within an inch of his face. “I don’t give a shit how it looks! That’s my niece!”

A snarl twisted Reggie’s face, and Kai pushed himself between them before it got ugly.

“Hey! Hey!” he said, pulling Brad back. “Ease up! I know it’s tense in here, but let’s just bring it down.”

Brad’s idea was tempting, but even if Kai called the police or the governor, what could he tell them? That the girls were somewhere on Waikiki—maybe? Kai didn’t even know that for sure.

“We’re not calling them,” he said. “The police are already doing what they should be doing. They have a duty, just like I do.”

All Kai could do was hope that Teresa would find them in time or that they would call to tell him they were in a safe place, if they knew what that was.

Reggie went back to the computer. Kai escorted Brad to the other side of the room so he could cool off for a minute.

“Brad,” he said, “I want to thank you for everything you’re doing today.”

“Lucky for you, I was free today. And I don’t have to warn my employees. They have the day off.”

Kai realized what he meant. Hopkins Realty had its corporate offices across from the Ala Moana shopping center, which was located only a few hundred feet from the beach in Waikiki. Outwardly, Brad might have seemed blasé about the business, but Kai knew it meant a lot to him to run the company his father had started.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think about Hopkins Realty until you said that.”

Brad shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

“But the office. The files …” Kai said.

Brad smiled. “Believe it or not, my insurance covers tsunamis.”

Kai stared at Brad in disbelief. Most insurance policies didn’t cover tsunamis unless you specifically purchased an expensive rider. They were more popular now, especially after the Asian tsunami, but still pretty uncommon.

“Hey,” Brad said, “my big brother is the assistant director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. I had to get it.”

Kai smiled at that. At least there was one thing he could feel good about.

“The phones have been ringing nonstop,” Brad said, looking at notes he had written. “We’ve gotten calls from everyone. New York Times , CNN, Fox, ABC, NBC. CBS even has a crew out by the front gate. I told them they couldn’t come in—”

“You mean they’re here?”

“They were filming some story over in Ewa and got over here as soon as the warning went out. They’ve been trying to get in to interview you. I told them you were too busy.”

“All the data analysis in the world won’t help if people don’t understand what’s going on. What do you think, Reggie?”

Reggie grudgingly nodded. “Why not? It might be better than a phone interview.”

“We’ll show them the video from Johnston Island. Maybe that will convince some people to move faster. Brad, open the gate and tell them that only the reporter and the cameraman can come into the building. Anyone else will have to wait outside. I don’t want a mass of people in here.”

In two minutes Brad ushered in a slender Asian woman in a blue blazer, followed by a bearded cameraman wearing jeans and a Detroit Tigers baseball cap.

“Dr. Tanaka, I’m Lara Pimalo,” the reporter said, shaking Kai’s hand firmly. She nodded toward the cameraman. “This is Roger Ames. Thank you for meeting with us. I know you must be extremely busy.”

“We are,” Kai said. He held up a finger. “My one condition on you being here: if I ask you to stop filming, you’ll do so immediately. Okay?”

“Of course,” she said.

“Good. The reason I’m letting you in here is because the evacuation is going poorly. We need to motivate more people to leave. Quickly. I believe I have something here that will help.”

“What is it?”

“Can you show video of something on a computer screen?”

“Sure. It won’t look great, but it should be recognizable. But, Doctor, graphs and such don’t make for great—”

“It’s not a graph. It’s video from Johnston Island this morning. It shows a massive tsunami obliterating it. I want you to broadcast it.”

She and Ames were stunned for a moment, but Pimalo couldn’t hide her excitement about getting such a great scoop. She frantically gestured to Ames to start filming.

“Just tell us what monitor it will be on,” he said, “and we’ll set up for the shot.”

As Ames got the camera ready, Pimalo said, “Why don’t you just e-mail the video to someone at the studio? Not that I mind the exclusive.”

“Can you make sure they broadcast this live?”

“Oh, we’re planning to.”

“With a live broadcast, I know the video will be seen.

If I e-mailed it, how do I know it wouldn’t just sit there, waiting for someone to open it?”

“Good point. I’ll let the station know to be ready for the broadcast.”

In another minute the camera was in position and they were rolling. As the video from Johnston ran, Kai narrated what was happening on screen.