The Yellowstone Conundrum

by John Randall

  The White House

  9:40 A.M

  Charles Leonard, 55, faithful friend and intermediary to the President since he started his first political campaign 10 years ago, now was his Chief of Staff. Unflappable he’d been called. Throw anything at him and he’d eat it up and make political lasagna out of it, something palatable for everyone.

  Charles walked into the White House kitchen where he suspected the President would be.

  “Sorry to intrude, sir. “

  “But, it’s your job, Chuck,” the President said with some resignation in his voice. “Can you let me finish my pancakes and box scores?”

  Leonard shook his head softly.

  “Would you like some pancakes?” The President offered.

  Charles shook his head softly again.

  “What is it?” The President asked.

  “It could be the end of the world, sir.” Leonard replied directly.

  Fort Peck Dam

  Robert O’Brien turned from his examination of the new soil features blooming on the mile-wide sloped berm of the Fort Peck Dam. It was disturbing. The sand boils indicated violent activity beneath the surface, vibrations so powerful that the water in the sandy soil would become separated from the soil itself, separating into soil and water, forcing sand upward. Not good. That allowed water from the impounded lake, one of the largest man-made lakes in the United States, Fort Peck Lake, to penetrate where the soil used to be. Earthquake vibrations then started the sloshing effect.

  What made it worse was that the sand boils were being created as far as the eye could see across the entire five-mile width of the dam.

  The men retreated to the eight-story high Power 2 building, located on the SW bank of the downstream Missouri River, about 400 yards away from Power 1 building originally built in the 1940s. Connecting the two power plants were four tunnels, two of which went into the two power plants, and another two that were used to pass water from Lake Fort Peck to the downstream Missouri River. The altitude difference between the lake and the river was about 180 feet, a gentle walk in the park from the towers to the berm above the lake, where a highway ran the entire five-mile length of the earthen dam. In the control center for the automated dam were two first-shift operators who were wide-eyed, no-party-here. Not only was the Big Boss in town, Shit was Happening.

  “Slim, I want you to get your people out of here,” Robert said, urgency in his voice.

  Robert’s comments were punctuated with sound like that from a giant cement mixer—gravel and sand and water and cement shit, all slowly gravelly rotating—cachunk, cawhack, cachunk, cawhack; only this wasn’t a low sound. It was a loud sound, like some devil monster under the earth trying to clear his voice. The two men on the consoles put down their headsets.

  Robert edged toward the door. “Slim, it’s time to go. Something’s happening here,” Robert said, urging his plant manager to leave.

  RUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUN!!!!!!! Robert’s inner voice shouted.

  At 52 Robert O’Brien was no longer The Man He Used to Be. He tried to exercise three times a week, well maybe twice, but the job didn’t allow much flexibility for keeping in shape. He tried to walk in the morning but he found himself driving in the morning instead; to work, with a stop at McDonalds more than once a week. What did they put in that food that made your saliva glands start perking when you saw the arches? Now, that’s something Congress should investigate.

  Not feeling one tiny bit guilty, but feeling a tiny bit overweight, slow and old, Robert O’Brien, Undersecretary of the Department of Reclamation forearmed his way through the front doors of Tower 2 and headed across the macadam parking lot toward a grassy berm that separated the two power towers from the undulating, but uphill series of mounds to the south. Robert began to scramble, his suit quickly dirty, his shirt disheveled.

  The gravelly sound turned from a cement mixer into something much wetter. Robert turned to see an avalanche starting in slow motion. Facing the power plants, and now perhaps 50 feet above them in altitude and 500 feet in distance, he saw the material on the Missouri side of the dam start to slide toward the power towers, initially up to the second floor, disengaging from the dam proper in a goopy “slurp”. For an instant there was separation between the dam proper and the dam portion on the downstream side—which was the side where the seven-story power control buildings were. Massive tonnage of sloppy soil slid into the Missouri River, creating a temporary downstream surge.

  Robert continued to climb ever so slowly through the scraggy brush, now quickly getting out of breath. Feet don’t fail me now.

  The foundations of the Power Control buildings were now exposed like a tooth root stripped of its gums.

  “No!” he shouted as the next portion of the mile-wide dam broke off from the main; like a cookie-dam being eaten from the wrong side. With the downside cookie having been pretty much eaten, first a portion then the entire dam on the tunnel side, the side connecting the lake with the river, gave way to the tremendous pressure and weight of the impounded water. The water exposed the buried concrete and steel tunnels, the land stripped. In one slow motion instant, water from Fort Peck Lake gushed in a 30’ wave downhill at the point of the breech, approximately 100 yards wide, flowing downhill 180 feet into the Missouri River. The twin power control towers were no match for the water, which was in party-on-dude mode; yah-hoo, Big Muddy is headed for New Orleans. The damage was irreversible.

  Standing on the sidelines Robert O’Brien was no more than thirty vertical feet above the rushing water. No man was alive below unless he’d followed Robert immediately out of the power control plant and was hidden from view somewhere. Guilt would come later.

  Robert O’Brien started to cry, a combination of thankfulness for being alive, of simply following the primal instinct for self-preservation, and for the knowledge that America would never be the same again. Everything man had done had been torn into a new gig, a phrase from his college days. Asunder was the new word.

  Robert also began to realize that although it was eight o’clock in the morning and the sun was up, it was 8 degrees F and all he had on was a suit coat. In the distance to the SW the sky was black with volcanic ash.

  “Shit!” he shouted.

  Robert stood on the east side of the Fort Peck Dam and watched as his rental car was gobbled by the lake, now quickly part of the downstream Missouri River. The dam itself actually ran east-west, right at a point where the Missouri River started one of its oxbow whirly-gigs. Visitors, including Robert, drove across the dam from the west to the eastern side, parked and visited. To the left were the dam and the flatlands he’d crossed in the morning. On the eastern side was nothing but rolling crappy land.

  And nothing but a good old parka in that car, he thought to himself. Yep, nothing but a nice, warm parka; you got out of the car, took off your fucking parka because it was too warm at the time; morning sunlight, no breeze, and the damn thing was so thick; and put it back into the car on the driver’s side. You fucking idiot. Now your car is floating toward St. Louis, probably to be a tourist destination at Garrison Dam; Look, kids! Inside that car is the parka the idiot manager of the Bureau of Land Management needed to prevent from freezing to death during the Great Event. But, no! It’s still there. And the idiot manager of the Bureau of Land Management froze to death out there in Eastern Fucking Jeezebutt Montana. Kids, there is a lesson to be learned here.

  It was possible someone might be alive in the power control towers at the dam, since they were both still standing; but, it was unlikely for long. The incredible power of flowing water would wear the foundations down to the point where the buildings would be compromised at the sub-foundation level, then simply collapse. Everyone inside would be killed; no matter that they would stumble their way to the top of the building.

  There were no rescue helicopters. The buildings would surely topple and any survivors would be dumped, building and all, into the 33-degree Missouri River. Colder than a witch’s tit, they used to s
ay.

  While thoughts of his hot wife Nancy did flit through the synapses of his brain, God had sent him an emergency IM. GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE AND FIND SOMETHING WARM which filled the foreground. The sight in front of him was unbelievable. The “cookie” which was the earthen dam had been eaten away from below, allowing the impounded Missouri River to break through at its most narrow point; unfortunately destroying the two control tower buildings and the water pumping facility upstream at the mouth of the four tunnels on the lake side of the dam.

  I’m on the wrong side of the fucking dam, he thought. Over there, across the breech in the dam are two roads that lead to Fort Peck, Montana. But, I’m not over there. I’m over here. There aren’t two roads leading to Fort Peck, Montana. Or to Nashua, Montana as there are on the other fucking side of the fucking dam. No, the only road leading from the eastern side of the dam was back into the middle of absolutely nowhere.

  Tucking his hands into his pockets, Robert O’Brien turned and started walking east away from the Fort Peck Dam.

  It was eight degrees F at 9:30 A.M. There was no chance of him being discovered and rescued by anyone. There was no way. He reached for his cell phone and fumbled for the power-on. Blu-blu-bloop it replied cheerily. No bars. No signal. No phone, no pool, no pets.

  Nature had played a trump card. Robert took one last look at the raging waters of Lake Fort Peck as they plowed through the dam, falling 200 feet into the Missouri River.

  I’m going to freeze to death.

  With one forlorn look behind him, one last look at logic, nobody is crossing to the east side of the Fort Peck Dam today or in my lifetime. All of the people who can rescue me are on the west side of the river. I’ve worked here and there isn’t anything but coyote dung between here and wherever the hell I’m going.

  I am so screwed.

  Beartooth Pass

  Montana-Wyoming Border

  Penny and Jimmy were hauling butt heading east across the powder east of Yellowstone. Having spent the night above the banks of Soda Butte Creek close to Trout Lake, their path had taken them northeast straight up the valley toward Beartooth Pass, the 10,500 pass between Wyoming and Montana. The sky behind and above the young pair was filling up with a black smoke monster.

  “Keep pumping, Jimmy!” Penny shouted. They’d been following a long beautiful canyon, which in springtime would be a mile wide with flowers and sage and several streams, all flowing downhill, eventually to Lake Yellowstone fifty miles away. The air temperature was zero degrees but the pair were perspiring heavily, their pace that of Olympic speed. Jimmy knew he wouldn’t be able to keep up, especially with what lay ahead of them.

  “You go ahead, babe,” he shouted from thirty feet behind her.

  Penny knew the difference in skills would tell under the circumstances. There was no way she was going to leave him behind. If they didn’t slow, Jimmy would be overcome, exhausted. It was time for slow-and-steady-beats-the-black-cloud-monster.

  “No way,” Penny slowed to a casual speed. Going uphill on skis took concentration and coordination. Going through a wooded area on skis was fun, slide and glide, pole and pole; double pole, bend and stride, glide and push; hey here comes a flat spot. Going up and over a 10, 948 foot pass was different.

  Soon they reached 9,000 feet altitude; Penny paused, her cheeks little puffballs of cherry. Buried under twenty feet of snow beneath them was the primitive campground called Long Lake, the highest elevation campground in the Absaroka Range, an unusual EW mountain range that formed the Montana-Wyoming border. To the north were the Beartooth Mountains, to the east and south were the Wind River Range.

  They had reached timberline. The pair stopped, out of breath, their breath in quick intakes, oblivious to the fact that a 200-foot deep lake was 30 feet below them. Ahead of them was the crest of the range, with Beartooth Pass the low spot in the divide, nearly two thousand feet higher. On the other side of the pass you could ski to Billings, assuming a person ever wanted to do such a thing.

  Skiing to Billings was all they wanted to do.

  Behind them, a huge black cloud had—after two hours—risen to the level of the jet stream at 36,000 feet.

  The tear in the earth at Old Faithful Village now stretched 14 miles to the west and north, obliterating the park in that direction. Gone were the Morning Glory pool, the Paint Pots, and most of highways 287/89. It was now difficult to see how wide the rift was; fire spewed from the center of the earth, ash—molten land, trees, buffalo, elk and a snippet of Randy Crowe from Flagstaff, Arizona—all spit into the air with unabated anger.

  It was a calm day, weather-wise in the upper Rockies. The jet stream was doing its thing, dipping up and over Glacier NP and hurtling down the eastern side of the range with cold fury. Eight hundred miles to the SE the polar jet stream met the relatively warmth of the sub-tropical jet stream and started to party hardy, right around Barton County, Kansas. Cold meets warm, humidity squeezed, conflicting air masses—holy shit, we have a winter storm; not just a storm, but a major winter storm; which God does once or twice or thrice every February.

  It’s the Brew Crew, snow and ice in Texas, warmth and moisture from the Gulf, bitter cold from Penny and Jimmy in Montana, all formed to make things really unpleasant in the South, followed by the Mid-South, followed by the Mid-Atlantic, followed by the East Coast. After that there was no more because everybody will be pissed.

  Jenny could hear Jimmy wheezing behind her. His lungs were taking a beating. He was literally going on all-heart. Jimmy James was fucking scared and not afraid to admit it to his girlfriend.

  “Babe, I’m not going to make it.” It wasn’t just making it to the top, then skiing down three thousand feet through a canyon to below timberline that worried Jimmy James.

  It was the wall of terror behind them; against the blindingly blue and white of the eastern view, behind the skiers was a steadily-advancing wall of black soot, ash, and hot volcanic crap, now feeling good about its bad self. Like a dog sniffing another dog’s butt, the trail of ash above Yellowstone National Park started a contrail of its own toward the East. Ash already was falling heavily at Yellowstone Lake, the fishing bridge and on the snow covering the famous and massive Yellowstone Fires of 1988, “natural” fires that consumed nearly half of Yellowstone’s forests in the eastern sections of the park. That destructive fire is part of nature’s design is perhaps best left to the poets and thinkers; after all, who is to say the park was actually “nature” considering its development by man.

  Regardless, heavy ash began to fall along US highways 14/16/20 toward Cody. Inside the park the Canyon Village Visitor’s Center, closed in wintertime was covered with 18 inches of soot. In another two days it would be incinerated by inclusion into the Caldera. Soot fell heavily at an iconic American scene, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, views of the upper and lower falls of the Yellowstone River, where in the summertime people made their way by the thousands to snap a photo. Any traveler this day would soon be dead, the sky dark, the air un-breathable. Within two days the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone would itself be part of the re-birth of the Caldera and simply vanish—destruction on a cosmic scale.

  “God damn it Jimmy! You need to haul ass! Let’s hump that God-damned bitch!” Penny shouted, just as afraid as her friend. There was nothing in her voice that was left to interpretation. The black wall of death behind them grew larger, taller and closer. Competitive skiers cursed a lot because there was so much that could go wrong. The sport was incredibly physical but most mistakes were mental; a mental mistake in baseball and you chase the ball to the fence. A mental error in X-country and you’re in the middle of a helicopter free-fall, skis going two directions, body out of control.

  Jimmy was stopped, bent over, hands on his knees. He was gassed and it was still a thousand feet uphill to the pass. He tried to say something but didn’t have enough energy.

  crinklecrinklecrinklecrinklecrinkle. It was snowing.

  Penny cleared her head. It can’t
be snowing. The sun is out and there isn’t a cloud in the sky.

  Oh, yes; just one cloud, one big fucking cloud.

  In the fifteen minutes it had taken them to climb through the forest above Long Lake Campground, the black smoke monster had made giant strides to the east. The cloud looked like an advancing thundershower on a dry, sunny day. The far distance was indistinct, three shades of dark grey; the near distance was fuzzy, then the road ahead appeared to be dark grey as heavy clouds blocked the sun. To the north, blue sky with the cloud in the near distance; of course, “near” is a relative term to anyone who has hiked, schlepped or been in the backcountry.

  The black cloud appeared to have an edge to it, a point where the droppings stopped. It was advancing east and south. Overhead the cloud was already being like the hood of a parka—over the head and down to the eyebrows. To the east was sunshine and happiness. South, not so happy; the people in Cody were about to experience Ash Monday.

  It was April of 2000 and Penny was in the seventh grade, age 10. She and her Dad, a business friend of her Dad’s named Mr. Carlson, and his son Frankie, age 11 were on a three-day hike of Mt. Hood—an up-and-back trip from Portland to Government Camp, a night at the Timberline Lodge, take the ski lift to the top, then start on the South Side Route. The agreement was they’d hike as far as made sense, make camp, then get up very, very early in the morning, summit and return.

  As fate would have it, Dad and Mr. Carlson didn’t pay sufficient attention to the weather service bulletins which are posted, re-posted and re-re-posted every few hours. They were experienced hikers and didn’t need anyone to tell them differently. The hike up to the summit along The Hogsback to the Perly Gates would be packed with hikers; summiteers as they called themselves.

  The night at the Timberline had been special. The two St. Bernard dogs were now four St. Bernard dogs, all woofy and slobbery. They were there to greet people and make them laugh, which everyone did. The inside of the Lodge was like a huge party, high wooden beam ceilings, party sounds came from all sides. Later that night after the Dads had gone to bed, Penny and Frankie Carlson had snuck down to the basement level of the lodge to the sauna and gotten into a “you-first” argument before Penny had stripped down to her socks. The sauna was so hot! Young Frankie couldn’t take his eyes off of her, not that there was anything to see. She was already a foot taller than him, nothing but peeps for nipples, her torso clearly different from his. She didn’t care. It was hot! Then they dashed for the lighted swimming pool; out of the sauna, up three steps and a short dash across the deck area and a dive into the heated swimming pool. Naked never felt as good as that night.