The Tsunami Countdown Page 17

  The tsunami had arrived.

  THIRTY-THREE

  11:22 a.m.

  First Wave

  The express elevator to the penthouse restaurant in the Grand Hawaiian opened to dispense the last of the guests from the lobby, Rachel among them. According to the list in front of her, seven rooms below the tenth floor still had guests in them, but it was too late to do anything about that now. They were on their own. The Starlight restaurant had a panoramic view of Honolulu, with glass in every direction except toward the north. To the west was the other Grand Hawaiian building—the Akamai tower—and downtown Honolulu. To the east was Diamond Head. And to the south, a magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean out to the horizon. The stunning vistas, not to mention the world-class cuisine, made the Starlight one of the most sought-after reservations in Honolulu. Celebrities visiting Oahu would often stop there to nosh on crab Rangoon or shallot-infused mahi mahi and take in the spectacular scenery.

  Rachel paid no attention to the view. She walked around the restaurant, trying to calm the guests and answering questions.

  “When can we leave?”

  “Is someone coming for us?”

  “Are we safe up here?”

  Rachel tried to be as positive as she could without promising anything.

  “Please calm down, everyone,” she said. “We’re perfectly safe up here for now.”

  A few of the women cried, but most of the guests took the situation well. The battle-hardened veterans in particular seemed to be taking it in stride.

  A woman at the window screamed, and a man on crutches next to her pointed outside. All heads turned in the direction of the beach.

  Max, who was also standing at the window, waved her over.

  “Rachel, come here quick!”

  She ran over and gasped when she saw what they were looking at. The water had receded from the beach, exposing a great swath of sand for miles up and down the coast. The yachts that remained in the Ala Wai marina rested on the bare seafloor, most of them leaning over on their sides. The Ala Wai Canal, which extended from the marina under three bridges and angled behind Waikiki, had been completely drained, revealing its silty brown bed. A few of the sightseers that were left leaned over the bridges’ railings to watch the fish flopping around in the empty canal. Some of the bystanders finally understood that the coming tsunami was real and ran across the bridges, seeking refuge they could no longer reach.

  Several boats that had left the marina late were now stranded on ocean floor that hadn’t been exposed to the air since before the first Polynesians had settled in Hawaii. In all, five sailboats, seven motorboats, a 150-foot white luxury yacht, and a massive dredging barge were left high and dry. Some of the passengers stood dumbfounded on the decks of the boats, while others jumped overboard in an attempt to get to high ground.

  To the east, only a scattered few stayed on the beach, either not realizing the danger or ignoring it. As she surveyed the scene, she spotted three minuscule objects racing for the shore.

  “Kai!” she cried out.

  “What?” said Max.

  “My husband and daughter. That’s them right there.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  The Jet Skis were just about to reach the waterline. But that would leave them still a hundred yards from the nearest building.

  “Oh my God!” said Max. “They’re not going to make it. Look!”

  “Don’t say that!” Rachel said, clasping his arm. “They will make it!”

  With the water still flowing out, an even more ominous sign approached. The sun reflected off a line of water stretching from horizon to horizon. The line seemed to be coming toward them at an impossible speed, but just as it began to slow, it started to grow in height.

  Rachel put her other hand on the window and leaned her head against it.

  “Come on, Kai!” she said, pleading, her eyes wide with terror. “You can do it!”

  She clutched Max’s arm and could do nothing more than watch as the tsunami loomed in the distance, no more than a minute from engulfing the tiny specks below.

  “Hold on!” Kai yelled.

  The Jet Ski hit the exposed beach more gently than he thought it would, sliding along the wet sand easily for at least fifteen feet. By the time they had all jumped off, the water was already another forty feet behind them, as if a giant vacuum were sucking the ocean away.

  Kai grabbed Lani’s hand and, with the dry bag flapping uncomfortably against his back, sprinted for the hotel in front of them. The distance seemed vaster than the Sahara Desert, but he knew they could cross that span in less than a minute. It was all they had.

  Brad held Mia’s hand and pulled her along, followed by Teresa, Tom, and Jake. The going was slower than Kai wanted, because the sand was wet and their feet sank into it all too easily. To make matters worse, the shore inclined significantly, so they felt as if they were practically climbing it.

  Twice, Lani slipped and fell. Kai looked down and saw the reason: she and Mia were wearing flip-flops, while the rest of them wore sneakers except for Brad, who had on boots.

  “Kick those flip-flops off!” Kai said.

  The girls did as they were told without hesitation.

  In a few more seconds they reached what was normally the surfline. To Kai’s astonishment, a massive Hawaiian woman dressed in a flowing muumuu walked slowly out toward the ocean, her arms outstretched.

  He stopped, mesmerized by the sight.

  “Hey!” he yelled. “Ma’am! A tsunami is coming!”

  She turned to him. She was in her fifties, her skin wrinkled from exposure to the sun, a beatific smile revealing stunning white teeth.

  “This is God’s will,” she calmly said, and then continued her march to the sea and certain death.

  “Come on!” Brad screamed. “Forget her!”

  Before Kai turned to run, he stole a look at the sea and with his own eyes saw the phenomenon he had studied for years in cramped offices with abstract mathematical formulas.

  A frothy white mass churned toward them in horrifying splendor, building and collapsing as it reached the shallows surrounding the island. At first the sound was very much like the crashing of waves on the shore, but the difference was that the roar never abated: it just kept growing, continually topping itself, reminding Kai of a jet engine throttling up for takeoff.

  He might have stayed there, transfixed, until the tsunami took him if Brad hadn’t grabbed his shoulder.

  “Come on!” he repeated.

  The others were already ahead of Kai, but Lani lagged behind. He grabbed her hand as he ran by.

  The girls were exhausted from their ordeal in the kayaks, and they slowed the group down. Mia sobbed from the fatigue, but she didn’t complain, and neither did Lani.

  “You’re doing great!” Kai yelled in encouragement.

  They reached Kalakaua Avenue, the sound of the tsunami behind them so loud that it was hard to hear each other. Tom and Jake started sprinting for the building directly in front of them, and Teresa followed with Mia. They were headed for the wrong building. The twenty-story hotel Kai had intended to go to was a hundred yards farther up the street. The condo in front of them was only ten stories high.

  “No!” he yelled. “That one!” He pointed at the taller hotel.

  The boys either didn’t hear or ignored him.

  He followed to try to keep them from going into the smaller building. Although it looked strong, with a solid concrete base, it was too short to be a refuge from more than the first wave. The wave now towered high above Waikiki Bay, casting a shadow even though it was midday. To the southeast, the point of Diamond Head was struck by the tsunami. Geysers of water plumed into the air as it plunged against the steep sides of the extinct volcano, where million-dollar homes were now being pummeled into splinters by one of the most powerful forces in nature.

  The boys had too much of a head start, and Kai didn’t get to them until he reached the front of the building. Brad grabbe
d them before they ran in.

  “This is the wrong building!” he yelled.

  Brad started to run with the boys away from the condo and toward the hotel, but Kai shouted for them to stop. They had run out of time. If they ran for the hotel, they weren’t going to make it. The boys got to the corner of the condo building before they turned and headed back toward Kai, who was now at the condo entrance.

  He threw open the doors etched with the name “The Seaside” and frantically searched for the stairs. The unfashionable decor and peeling paint revealed the Seaside’s age, but the building also looked sturdy, and that’s all Kai cared about at the moment.

  Teresa shouted, “There!” and wrenched Lani toward a staircase on the east side of the building. Kai followed, with Mia in tow.

  The emergency stairwell was obviously built before new building codes required stairs to be protected within the interior of the building. These stairs were airy and bright and actually more attractive than the lobby because they were completely encased in glass.

  To his right, Kai could see the tsunami crash with a mammoth splash onto Waikiki Beach. The wave reached the shore to the southeast first, smashing everything in its path. Instead of a vertical wall of water, the ocean rose like the world’s fastest-rising tide. At first the palm trees resisted, but the water was too powerful and bent them over like toothpicks. A five-story hotel farther down the beach was hit and the wave poured through it. Ranch-style homes near it were covered within seconds. Closer to Kai, surfboards bounced above the churning foam, their owners nowhere to be seen. The Jet Skis flipped over and disappeared. Then the woman in the muumuu was engulfed by the wave.

  The sight made Kai gasp in terror. He raced up the stairs as fast as he could.

  Before he reached the second floor, Kai could tell that Mia was completely spent. He grabbed her and held her in his arms like a toddler, sprinting up the stairs two at a time, the adrenaline kicking his energy to a level he had never before experienced. In any other circumstance, carrying an extra ninety pounds would have slowed him to a crawl, but with the wave about to crash down on them, Mia seemed to weigh no more than a sack of groceries.

  Kai kept Teresa and Lani in front of him, willing them to go faster. The door on the first floor banged open. He knew it had to be Brad and the boys, but he didn’t take even a second to glance down at them. They had to get much higher.

  He was on the eighth-floor landing when Kai heard a chilling sound. Over the roar of the water, the noise of glass shattering on the first floor signaled that their time was up. In quick succession, the wave blew out the windows on one floor after another, like a sharpshooter at a rifle range systematically shooting bottles on a fence.

  The building lurched, throwing Kai off balance as he stepped onto the ninth-floor landing, and he slammed against the railing, almost dumping Mia over the side. He regained his footing and made it up the last flight of stairs to the top floor. He set Mia on her feet and looked down.

  Brad pushed Jake and Tom in front of him at the sixth floor, the churning mass of water now only two floors below him and rising fast.

  They all yelled at Brad from their perch. “Hurry! Come on!”

  Kai held the railing in a death grip, hoping that their luck wouldn’t give out now. All he could do was watch as the tsunami stalked his brother from below.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  11:23 a.m.

  24 Minutes to Second Wave

  Rachel had watched in horror as Kai and Lani fled the wave and lost sight of them when they got to Kalakaua Avenue, the buildings obstructing her view. She immediately tried to call Kai’s cell phone to see if they were all right, but all she got was a fast busy signal, indicating all lines were jammed. She tried Max’s walkietalkie with no success. When she couldn’t see them anymore, she turned her attention back to the tsunami coming in. From her vantage point on the twenty-eighth floor, she was far above the maximum height of this tsunami, but as the wave grew, it looked like it would never stop.

  “Will you look at the size of that thing?” said Max.

  The boats that had been left stranded were picked up by the wave. The smaller boats capsized immediately or were borne by the wave as it rammed into the shoreline and buildings, smashing them into unrecognizable pieces. The people who had been running from the water were simply swallowed up.

  The tsunami crashed into the white luxury yacht’s bow, driving it backward, but most of the wave’s force went around the yacht, and it floated on top of the water only a short distance from where it had been resting, its propellers churning at full speed to keep it from coming ashore.

  The dredging barge that had been attempting to leave the inlet to the Ala Wai Canal was not so fortunate.

  The barge was part of a project to dredge the accumulated sludge at the entrance of the canal. The captain had tried to get the barge and its equipment out to sea before the tsunami hit. However, the barge lacked quick maneuverability, and in the chaos during its escape, it had drifted too close to shore. The receding water left it stranded broadside to the wave, helpless. When the tsunami reached it, the wave picked up the three-hundredfoot-long vessel like a toy and threw it back toward the hotels lining the beach, on a direct collision course with the Grand Hawaiian.

  “It’s coming right at us!” Rachel said. “Hold on, everyone!”

  Many of the guests had crowded up to the window to see the wave come in, but most of them ran to the back of the room when they realized what was happening. Screams and yells filled the restaurant. Max and Rachel stayed at the window, transfixed by the ease with which the tsunami tossed the massive barge.

  As the water rumbled toward them, the building shook as if a minor earthquake had jolted it. The glass vibrated in sympathy with the motion.

  When the wave reached the original shoreline, the barge rotated so that its bow pointed straight inland. As the wave was about to smash into the Grand Hawaiian, the barge rotated just enough so that it cleared the building they were standing in, but now it headed for the second of the Grand Hawaiian’s twin towers.

  The barge’s bow plunged into the Akamai tower with immense force. The sound of pulverized steel, glass, and concrete was audible twenty-eight stories up in the Moana tower. The top of the barge crashed through the sixth-floor balcony and came to a stop after fifty feet of the ship had disappeared into the interior. The tsunami kept up the pressure as it climbed higher and inundated the barge, sweeping the jumble of dredging equipment on its deck into the building. The stern half of the barge, buoyed by the water, rose up and snapped off, leaving the bow firmly wedged in the building. Detached from the rest of the barge, the stern glanced off the building and floated around the Akamai tower and out of view.

  Vast amounts of debris choked the water. Cars, boats, pieces of buildings, trees, all combined into a morass of detritus flowing inland. Rachel knew that bodies must be mixed in with the wreckage, but thankfully she was too far up to make out those details clearly. For as far as she could see on either side of the hotel, water seven stories high filled the streets of Honolulu. Anyone caught in that would have needed a miracle to survive.

  Rachel mentally reviewed her options. Evacuating the guests by going back downstairs would be futile. Even assuming the wave would retreat enough to let them out onto the streets, there wouldn’t be enough time before the next wave for them to reach safety. Their only hope was to be saved by air.

  She gestured toward the helicopters, both military and civilian, buzzing around the city. Her best hope was to follow Kai’s suggestion.

  “We have to try to get one of them,” she said to Max.

  As she opened her cell phone to dial 911, the only way she could think of to get help, she happened to glance across at the Akamai tower. With a gasp, she pointed to a window about three floors below them where a man with a goatee leaned against it, a cell phone in his hand, peering down at the barge sticking out of the lower stories. The sun reflected off his bald spot, and his flowered shirt rippled
in the breeze. Even from this distance, the desperation on his face was apparent.

  “He’s trapped,” Rachel said, “and he knows it.”

  The dredging barge had been driven into the middle of the tower like an enormous spike, most likely crushing the stairwell and any escape in that direction. The distinctive spire roof of the Akamai tower, in contrast to the flat roof of the Moana tower, provided no place for a helicopter to land.

  “My God!” Max said. “He’s not going to jump, is he?”

  “I don’t know,” Rachel said, waving her arms and banging on the window, trying to get the man’s attention.

  A woman, as dark as the man was fair, ran to the man and hugged him, followed by three children. The man didn’t seem to hear Rachel, but the biggest of the children, a boy, caught sight of her in the restaurant and pointed. The man returned Rachel’s wave and motioned with his hands, asking what they should do.

  “What now?” Max said.

  “I don’t know. But if we don’t get a helicopter, none of us is getting out of here alive.”

  She had just started dialing again when shouts of alarm coursed through the room. Every light in the restaurant went dark, and the air handling system fell silent. The power was out.

  From the Hawaiian State Civil Defense’s bunker, Renfro had been monitoring Oahu’s major power stations with growing apprehension. All three of them sat on the coast, the biggest in Nanakuli, the others at Barbers Point and Honolulu. Of course, HSCD disaster planners had considered their proximity to the coast, but the most urgent concern was hurricanes, which battered the Hawaiian Islands periodically. In those cases, the tidal surge was never higher than fifteen feet. Tsunamis rarely reached more than thirty feet in height, and the power plants were above that level.