The Tsunami Countdown Read online

  Teresa popped open the hatch. “If you think I’m going to let you get a navel piercing, you’re dreaming.”

  “Mom, please!”

  “You’re too young. And don’t even start with the tattoos.” Mia had been bringing up the subject of belly button piercing for over a month.

  “What is the difference between getting my belly button pierced and my ears pierced?” Mia’s voice was headed into whine country.

  “One is harmless decoration, and the other is an advertisement for sex. You’re not mature enough for it. We can talk about it again when you turn eighteen.”

  Mia pulled a boogie board out and slammed it to the ground.

  “Be careful with that!” Teresa said. “Are you trying to prove my point?”

  “Mom, I’m almost fourteen. I know a lot of girls my age that have them. And it’s not sexual.”

  “Sure it isn’t.” Teresa locked the car and headed toward the sunlight beckoning from the garage exit. “Come on.”

  Mia reluctantly picked up her board and followed her mother.

  “Lani,” Mia said, “don’t you think Mom should let me get my navel pierced?”

  “I don’t know,” Lani said. She obviously didn’t want to get involved.

  Teresa stopped at the exit. “Mia, while I’m in charge, you are not lifting up your shirt to show some boy your navel ring, which is about the only thing it’s good for. And yes, I realize you are about to be prancing around the beach in a bikini in a few minutes anyway, but that’s the way it is. Got it?”

  Mia ground her teeth, but said nothing.

  “Good,” Teresa said. “Let’s go find some beach and have fun.”

  They emerged from the garage onto Kalakaua Avenue, the main drag up and down Waikiki. To the west, the view was obscured by the hundreds of high-rise hotels and condominiums that extended to the office buildings of downtown Honolulu. In the other direction, Kalakaua stretched past the last hotel on Waikiki about a half mile away, where it passed the zoo and finally ran into Diamond Head, the massive extinct volcano that served as Honolulu’s dominant landmark.

  Teresa, followed by Mia and Lani, plunged into the throng of people crowding Kalakaua Avenue and crossed the road to Waikiki Beach. They passed a magnificent banyan tree and stepped onto the beach itself.

  As Teresa searched for a spot big enough for the three of them, she heard people speaking Japanese, French, German, Spanish, and a few languages she couldn’t place. Like all beaches in Hawaii, Waikiki was open to the public, so a mishmash of all walks of life mingled with the guests of the expensive resorts.

  Two boys, both about sixteen, walked past. Tan and lean, they looked like younger versions of Brad. They gave the girls an appraising look and the taller of the boys spoke to them as they went by.

  “The surf’s a lot better by our condo.” He pointed his thumb in the direction of Diamond Head.

  The girls laughed, and the shorter boy yanked his friend and kept walking. Despite what Teresa had said earlier, the boys’ attention to her daughter tickled her, but she hid her amusement.

  They walked for a little while and stopped at an open patch near an impressive hotel called the Outrigger Waikiki. Teresa dropped her bag and started spreading out her towel. She had a clear view to the breakwaters on either side, and the waves coming in were good-sized, but still mild enough for safe boogie boarding.

  “How’s this?”

  Mia made a show of propping up her boogie board in the sand. “Mom, Lani and I want to walk down the beach.”

  “We just got here. Don’t you even want to get in the water? Look how blue it is. It’s gorgeous.”

  “Yeah, it’s great,” Mia said, stripping down to her bikini. “But I saw some great T-shirts back there, and I want to get some souvenirs while we’re here.”

  Lani piped in, now down to her bikini as well. “Yeah, and we want to get new dresses for the luau tonight.”

  Teresa wasn’t very concerned about letting the girls go off on their own. Mia had been babysitting for a year now, so walking around the beach, especially with someone else, wasn’t worrisome. Teresa looked at her watch. It was still a couple of hours until lunchtime.

  “All right. But I don’t want you to come back with a piercing.”

  Mia sighed. “I promise.”

  “How long do you think you’ll be gone?”

  The girls looked at each other and shrugged in unison.

  “There’s a lot to see,” Mia said. “Maybe an hour or two.”

  “You have some money?”

  Mia waved her wallet. The babysitting money she wasn’t using to pay off her texting bill.

  “Sunscreen?”

  “We put it on at the house.”

  “Okay. But be back by eleven thirty. After a morning in the sun, I’m going to be starving.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” Mia said as she and Lani turned toward Diamond Head and began walking. “You’re the best.”

  “Bye, Aunt Teresa,” said Lani.

  Teresa gave them a wave. She was actually relieved to have a little uninterrupted time alone. After she liberally applied sunscreen, her plan was to immerse herself in a good mystery novel for a peaceful morning. As she spread out her towel, a beep caught her attention. She fished through her bag and saw that the display on her cell phone said, charge phone. She powered it down and tossed it back in her bag.

  ELEVEN

  9:57 a.m.

  It had been half an hour since the tide gauge reading from Christmas Island was supposed to be transmitted, and Kai was growing more worried by the minute. Reggie’s calls to Steve Bryant still went unanswered. “What the hell is going on down there?” Reggie said to no one in particular.

  The phone rang, and Kai swept the receiver up in the hope that it was the operator with good news.

  “Dr. Tanaka, this is Shirley Nagle, the operator you spoke with earlier.”

  “You got through?” Kai asked hopefully.

  “Well, no, I haven’t,” she said. Kai slumped in disappointment. “But I wanted to call you back, since you said it was so urgent. I asked another operator here, Chris, if he had any other ideas. He said that, in addition to the under-sea cable, there’s a backup satellite hookup on the island. But the funny thing is, I’m not getting through on that, either.”

  “Why is that funny?”

  “Chris swears up and down that the satellite transmitter has a backup generator in case of power loss, so I should be getting a connection, even if the main island power is down. But I’m getting nothing. No signal whatsoever. It’s like the island isn’t there anymore.”

  “Jesus,” Kai said, the implications too terrible to grasp. It’s like the island isn’t there anymore.

  “Excuse me?” Shirley said.

  “Nothing. Can you please keep trying to reach them?”

  “Sure. We’ve already got a couple of other people on it. I’ll let you know as soon as we get through.”

  Her voice sounded upbeat, but Kai didn’t share her optimism. He had the terrible feeling that they’d never hear from anyone on the island again.

  There were at least three thousand people on Christmas Island. Kai couldn’t accept the possibility that it had been wiped out by a tsunami on his watch. He felt the beginnings of a headache and popped a couple of aspirins from a bottle in his desk.

  Reggie saw the look on Kai’s face. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  Kai told him about the satellite transmitter.

  “I think a tsunami hit Christmas Island,” he said. “A big one.”

  “How is that possible?” Reggie said.

  “I don’t know. Could it have been a landslide? Maybe the seamount has been building for a while and now a major eruption triggered a landslide down the face of it.”

  “No way. There have been no major seismic disturbances in that region for the past ten years. I checked the database.” Reggie was already working on his bid to get credit for his discovery. “The seamount couldn’t be big e
nough to cause a major landslide at this point.”

  “And the quake magnitude? Have we gotten confirmation back from NEIC yet?”

  “I just checked again,” Reggie said. “NEIC estimates 6.9.”

  The Southeast Asian tsunami resulted from a quake with a moment magnitude of 9.0, over one thousand times more powerful than this earthquake. An earthquake as small as 6.9 had never spawned an oceanwide tsunami. There just wasn’t enough energy or motion of the seafloor to generate large waves that could travel great distances.

  The conditions didn’t add up. The earthquake shouldn’t have spawned a tsunami, and yet they couldn’t get any signal or communication from Christmas Island.

  Kai picked up the sheet with the wave arrival times. Johnston Island would be next in about twenty minutes, then the Big Island twenty minutes after that, followed by Oahu an hour and twenty-five minutes from now. Johnston Island had a real-time tide gauge, so that would be their next chance to get data about a potential wave.

  “When will we get the wave height data from the DART buoy?” Kai asked Reggie.

  “The max wave height at the buoy will be about five minutes after it reaches Johnston. The captain on the Miller Freeman said they’ll have the satellite uplink ready in ten minutes, which will be just enough time. So it looks like the tide gauge at Johnston is our first chance to see if it’s really a tsunami.”

  Up to this point, Brad had quietly been watching events unfold, content merely to spectate, but now he couldn’t resist interjecting.

  “You mean, you’re willing to wait more than twenty minutes until you know for sure?” he said.

  “What do you want us to do?” Reggie responded. “Evacuate a million people because of a downed power line?”

  “Do you want to take the chance that they could be killed because you thought it was just a downed power line?”

  “I’m just saying that we need more evidence,” Reggie said defensively. “I mean, sure, if we had a 9.0 earthquake on our hands, I’d issue the warning in a second. But to completely wipe out Christmas Island and our tide gauge, the tsunami would have to be huge—at least twenty feet high. There’s no way a 6.9 quake causes a tsunami that big.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’ve researched every major tsunami in the last sixty years,” Reggie said. “There is absolutely no historic precedent for it. Besides, do you realize how much an evacuation costs? We’ll be crucified if we’re wrong, especially with this kind of flimsy data. I say we wait twenty minutes. If the tide gauge on Johnston craps out, too, then I’m all for a warning.”

  Twenty more minutes. For a massive evacuation, every minute would count. With less than an hour before a potential tsunami hit the southern tip of the Big Island, Kai had to make the call. In his mind he imagined the headlines vilifying him for a massive unnecessary evacuation. The internal NOAA investigations into why he ignored long-established procedures. The political reprisals condemning yet another federal employee who couldn’t handle the position. As Kai thought about it, the retaliatory consequences became clear to him. His tenure would be cut short by what would be seen as a lack of judgment, that he didn’t have the experience for the job.

  On the other hand, something deep down was telling him that this wasn’t just a power disruption. He couldn’t pinpoint where the cognitive dissonance was coming from, the subtle clash of information that was telling his subconscious mind it didn’t fit together. Logically, there was little reason to be worried about a major tsunami. But they couldn’t rule it out, either, and that’s what scared him the most.

  In the end, Kai’s choice simply came down to what was best for his family. His daughter was on the beach that morning. His wife was in a hotel no more than a hundred yards from the ocean. He could live with losing his job because he made a poor decision; he couldn’t live with himself if his wife and daughter died because he made a poor decision.

  “We’ve already waited thirty minutes,” Kai said softly. “We can’t wait any longer.” His doubt made him sound unconvincing. When Kai realized Reggie and Brad were looking at him, hoping to see confidence, he cleared his throat and stood up straighter. “Reggie, send out the warning. I’ll get on the phone and talk to the duty officer over at Hawaii State Civil Defense.” Like the PTWC, HSCD would be minimally staffed on a holiday.

  “Are you sure?” Reggie said. “We’ve got even less to go on than the one we issued last year.”

  A mixture of concern and support etched Brad’s face. Even as a bystander, he knew this was a tough call.

  But Kai’s moment of hesitation was over. He couldn’t let his misgivings influence others, diminishing the sense of urgency about the evacuation. If a real tsunami was coming, they needed to act quickly and decisively.

  “I’m sure. Do it. Issue the warning.”

  “Okay,” Reggie said. “I’m glad it’s your call. I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”

  Reggie went to the computer and started typing in the commands that would issue a tsunami warning to every government agency in the Pacific. Kai had just made a $50 million decision.

  TWELVE

  10:01 a.m.

  1 Hour and 21 Minutes to Wave Arrival Time

  Kai called Hawaii State Civil Defense and the officer on duty, a junior staffer named Brian Renfro, answered the phone immediately. “Brian, this is Kai Tanaka over at PTWC. I need to speak to Jim Dennis.” Dennis, the vice director of HSCD, was the person who normally made the big decisions there and coordinated all the efforts of the state’s emergency services.

  “Sorry, Kai, he took the weekend to visit some friends on Kauai. It’s just me and a couple of others here today. What’s wrong?”

  On a normal working day, HSCD would have up to thirty people on staff. He knew Renfro from the first semiannual training scenario he had participated in. Renfro was a bright kid, but young, not much older than twenty-five. Kai could only hope that Renfro’s thorough training at HSCD would prepare him for what was about to happen. He was about to get a big dose of responsibility.

  At least Renfro was in a safer location than Kai. Rather than being built three hundred yards from the ocean like the PTWC was, HSCD was well ensconced in a bunker inside Diamond Head crater. Because Hawaii was exposed to so many different types of potential disasters—tsunamis, hurricanes, volcanoes, earthquakes—the state took civil defense very seriously. Situated inside an extinct volcano with sides over six hundred feet high, the bunker could withstand virtually any disaster nature could dish out.

  “Brian,” Kai said, “we’ve got a situation here. Did you see the bulletin we sent out earlier?”

  “Sure did. What’s the problem? Are you upgrading it?”

  “Yes. We’ve lost contact with Christmas Island.”

  “You mean the tide gauge?”

  “No, I mean the whole island, including the tide gauge.”

  “When?”

  “The tide gauge was supposed to give us a reading over thirty minutes ago. Since then, we haven’t been able to get in touch with anyone on the island.” Kai took a deep breath. “We think it may have been wiped out by a tsunami.”

  There was a pause at the other end of the line.

  “Okay,” Renfro finally said. “Give me one minute. Then I’ll call you back. I’m going to try to get in touch with the vice director.”

  Kai hung up the phone and told Brad and Reggie what Renfro said.

  “What do we do now?” Brad said.

  Reggie perked up as if he just remembered something. “My God!”

  “What?” Kai said.

  “There’s a team of scientists on Johnston Island.”

  “But I thought it was abandoned,” said Brad. “There was an article in the paper about the chemical weapons disposal facility being shut down in 2004. Now it’s a nature sanctuary or something.”

  Johnston Island, a tiny coral atoll like Christmas Island, was only about twice the size of Central Park. Until 2001, it served as the United States’ primar
y disposal facility for chemical weapons, but fortunately it had incinerated its last bomb. If this tsunami had happened before then, they might have faced the additional specter of having thousands of canisters of the deadliest chemicals known to man washed out to sea. That was one of the few things Kai felt relieved about at that moment.

  The other good news was that, now that the facility was shut down, the thirteen hundred people who manned the station had packed up for good, with the last of them having left in 2004. Since then, it had been operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a wildlife preserve.

  “How do you know someone’s there?” Kai said, snatching the map of Johnston Island from its bin and unfurling it on a table.

  “I wanted someone to check the tide gauge there because we’ve been having intermittent signal problems,” Reggie said. “Alvin Peters over at U.S. Fish and Wildlife said a team was there for a month doing observational studies of turtle nesting on the island and that they could check on the equipment for me. Even gave me their sat phone number.”

  A quick scan of the map showed that the maximum elevation on the island was no more than forty-four feet, not high enough to ensure protection from a large tsunami. Kai didn’t know the state of the buildings there or whether they would be able to stand up to the force of a tsunami. The only truly safe place was out at sea in deep water. Thank God the scientists on the island had a phone.

  “They only have ten minutes,” Kai said. “Call them right now. Let’s hope they have a boat.”

  As Reggie ran to his cubicle to get the number and make the call, the office phone rang. It was Brian Renfro.

  “I couldn’t get in touch with the vice director,” he said, “but I just got your tsunami warning, so I’m going to follow standard procedure. We’re trying to contact the governor now. The sirens will go off in a minute, and then I’ll start broadcasting our standard tsunami warning message on the EAS. Call me back if you get any new information. Especially if it’s a false alarm.” With that, he hung up.