The Yellowstone Conundrum

by John Randall

  With the dams gone and the ongoing earthquakes in Wyoming, electrical power in the western states from North Dakota south to Oklahoma is out. Texas has electricity as does San Francisco and parts of Central California. The Western Area Power Administration in Phoenix is attempting to re-establish power in Arizona. If it can, some service in Southern California can be resumed, but there is no current projected up time.

  Electricity suppliers in the South and East, no longer able to draw on the hydroelectric supply from the western states, will experience brownouts and rolling blackouts.

  Last, and certainly not least, the Columbia Generating Station on the Hanford Reservation in Washington State has experienced significant structural damage; nuclear waste tanks which have been in operation for seventy years, since the start of the Cold War and the development of America’s first nuclear weapons, have exploded sending massive clouds of radioactive material into the atmosphere. While the core of the plant went off line within seconds of the earthquakes, the water supply from the Columbia River to the generating plant has been cut off; meaning a meltdown of the core is probable. Unlike Chernobyl and Fukushima, workers are unable to get near the facility. At approximately 1:00 Pacific Time a massive explosion rocked the area as additional storage tanks detonated. The cities of Richland, Pasco and Kennewick in central Washington have been devastated.

  I have been in direct contact with many of the leaders of the world; England, France, India, Israel, Russia, Japan and China; all of whom will begin to experience the fallout from the Yellowstone and Hanford explosions.

  My fellow Americans, as a result of this national disaster, I have taken several actions this afternoon; powers granted to me by the National Emergencies Act of 1976. I have closed the stock and commodities trading markets in New York and Chicago indefinitely. Effective tomorrow morning, February 21st I am declaring a Bank Holiday of one week until Congress can be notified and have asked the Secretary of the Treasury to present to me a plan that will ensure the safety of existing deposits and prevention of bank closures.

  In closing, I pray for your safety and well-being and my hope is God will take my prayer to each and every one of you.

  Both Cam and Betsy had tears welling as the radio went silent. They had reached the intersection of state route 450 and state 59; quickly turned right, and a mile later left onto state 387. Wright was dead ahead.

  “Cam! It’s starting. It’s here!”

  The headlights from the big rig splayed onto the Exxon station, bringing a vile memory taste back to Cam’s lips. Syphoning gas from an underground tank hardly ever went smoothly. Sure enough, little white snowflakes had started to fall, not the heavy chinka chinka chinka stuff—but white ash from burning timber.

  Cam laid into his horn as he moved quickly through town, past the Town Hall and Rec Center, then followed Wright Blvd as it made a circuitous, serpentine route from highway 387 on the north side to highway 59 on the east side, all-in-all about two miles. People started to come out of their homes; and like the first snowfall of the season, began wandering around, holding their hands out to catch the magical snowflakes.

  Turning around, Betsy and Cam started shouting out their respective windows.

  “Get out! Get out of town! It’s here! You’re all going to die!”

  They took a pass through the mobile home park, then back to the Civic Center where many of the same townspeople remained inside.

  “Do you have a civil defense siren?” Cam asked.

  “Yeah, but it’s going to require electricity,” the blue-shirted mayor replied. “When did this start?” now very concerned. “I was outside not fifteen minutes ago and you could see stars.

  “There’s a battery back-up,” added Gladys Holt, Wade’s administrative assistant, now smiling.

  “Yes! Go set that thing off!” ordered the cowboy mayor.

  “OK, here’s the deal. You’re going to be up to your ass in volcanic ash by daybreak. Everybody who has a car needs to get the fuck out of Dodge. Now! You need to be sending people around town, wake people up, and do what you need to do. If you know of someone who has a fifth wheel on the ground, let’s hook it up to my rig. Go to the supermarket, take whatever food is on the shelf and pack it into the RV,” Cam’s voice was urgent.

  “Is there a pharmacy here?” Betsy asked.

  “No, we have to go to Newcastle or Gillette; Walgreens. “Don’s has over-the-counter drugs,” referring to the town’s only supermarket.

  “I met him before,”

  “Jared Hastings. No, I wouldn’t call Jared a ‘sociable’ man.” McGriff broke a smile, interrupting what surely would be a description of the dour owner.

  All of a sudden the emergency siren started hooting; loud enough to get your bowels working.

  “I’ll take you. It’s only two blocks, down and over. Owner is probably at the Rusty Nail getting a nightly snooter, along with a good portion of the town. The siren’ll get them here.”

  Off they went. Betsy came along, curious to see how Cam’s rig would work with a fifth wheel. It all of a sudden became very dark; darker than a witch’s tit, darker than; well, darker than dark.

  “We don’t have long, Cameron,” she warned. “We aren’t going to be able to see our hand in front of our face.”

  Cam knew what to do. He jumped out of the cab and onto his “trailer”, released the lock so that it would receive the ball joint of the RV. Unlike having to install a hitch, the PeterBilt was always ready. Cam backed into position then activated the raisers on the RV so that the ball joint would easily slide into position and be locked. There was no time for chock measurement. The trailer had to be raised 5 inches, which he did manually. The whole process took less than five minutes. Theft of 5th-wheel trailer must not be a crime in Wyoming.

  Ten minutes later Cam and the 5th wheel were back at the Civic Center. The emergency siren was on, the neighborhood crowded with cars and people. White ash continued to fall. There were no stars.

  “Food,” Cam said plainly to Wade, who pointed to his left.

  “Two blocks; right across from the Rusty Nail.”

  “Is he going to be there?”

  “Jared?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wade, we have about fifteen minutes before the black stuff is going to fall and when it does you’re not going to know which way to shit. Everybody who is coming with us needs to be with us, because we have to leave town right now!”

  Cam turned and slowly edged his way from the Civic Center and headed toward the supermarket. Thirty seconds later he was there. The supermarket had super service, wonderful employees, and was well respected in the town. Cameron was about to rob it.

  Jared Hastings stood in front of his store; inside, two rows of light dimly lit most of the market; obviously now on generator. A handful of townspeople were inside. It was nearly pitch dark in the parking lot. The only lights came from Cameron’s Peterbilt and the lights from other cars who had decided to cast lots with the caravan.

  Betsy got out ahead of Cameron and approached the 45-year old owner of the supermarket; Cam was behind her but back ten paces.

  “Mr. Hastings. I almost died this morning over on I-25 because the earthquake knocked out all of overpasses. If it hadn’t have been for Cameron, I’d be dead now. The black stuff, when it comes; well, it covers up everything. There’s no white, just black. You can’t breathe,” her Tennessee twang now prevalent. “It’s starting to sprinkle dark. We got no time. We’re going to drive east as far as we can go and set up camp somewhere. These are your people, Mr. Hastings. We’re either going to go with food from your store or we aren’t; and I can’t believe you’d let your friends go without food,” Betsy started toward Jared. “We need your help, Jared.”

  Jared Hastings’ shoulders slumped, melting in front of her. Betsy hugged him as Cameron and a throng of townspeople went by. “If we’re wrong, we’ll pay you back,” she paused. “If we’re right, then it won’t matter much.”

  It w
as a lifetime’s effort to run a supermarket in a rural town; dependent on everything; supply, manpower, expenses to meet revenues—which in the supermarket business was about a 1% profit—utility companies made more profit than supermarkets. Stripping the shelves clean would mount to $20,000 or more.

  Chinka chinka chinka

  The white ash had started to turn to small pieces of blackness. The townspeople managed to set up a relay; canned goods of all kinds; meats, vegetables, tuna, anything bottled, medicines, bottled water, pasta, propane gas tanks from the exchange out front, pain relievers, toothpaste, toilet paper, feminine products—got to have tampons even when the world is coming apart—lighter fluid and matches, candles, then the Cokes and related bottles; batteries of all sizes. Cam couldn’t help it, but he wasn’t going to stop anyone bringing a snooter along; wine and booze were also brought aboard.

  In ten minutes Don’s Supermarket in Wright, Wyoming had been properly looted; no money taken from the cash registers. While some meat had been taken, it was only a day’s supply; the rest would rot. Bitsy stood in the parking lot as black ash started to drop on everyone’s shoulder.

  “Mr. Hastings, you need to come with us. If you don’t, you’re going to die here tonight.”

  “This is my life,” Jared Hastings had the deer-in-the-headlight look. His wife and children were back at their home, locked in the darkness. He continually ran his hand through his thinning hair in a what-am-I-to-do mode, totally lost. He was wrong about his original estimate; he only had a day’s worth of kerosene for the generator.

  “Bitsy!” shouted Cameron from across the lot.

  “Mr. Hastings, please; come with me,” Betsy urged.

  “I—I—can’t,” he replied simply, courageously. He couldn’t leave his family and what was left of his business, even in the face of probable death.

  “I understand sir,” Betsy kissed him on the cheek, turned and ran to the cab. She’d tried but he had relieved her of all responsibility.

  At eight fifty-two on the evening of February 20th a caravan of thirty-two vehicles, including a Peterbilt with a loaded fifth-wheel pulled out of Wright, Wyoming heading east along with 65% of the town’s full-time population. Stars could be seen through the front windshield; everlasting pitch dark behind. The agreement was that they would drive until they thought it was safe. If anyone ran out of gas, they would leave their car where it stood, and join another group. If the “stuff” they’d brought with them wouldn’t fit, it would be discarded along the way.

  By the time they reached state 450 headed toward Newcastle they were moving at 45 miles an hour, just about ten miles per hour faster than the ever-expanding Black Cloud was spreading to the south and east.

  Betsy hit Cameron on the arm, just because. “Thank you, Cameron.” For the eighth time in six hours she began to cry again.

  King County Public Library

  Third floor “Living Room” Seattle Public Library, Rex Sorgatz photographer 21 October 2005.

  Building designed by Rem Koolhaas

  From the third floor “Living Room” area Ray and ten of the thirty-plus collection of office workers, tourists and people-in-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time analyzed the 5th Avenue entrance area.

  It was very dark in the huge library; no lights in the building, no lights in Seattle. Ray knew people by shapes. Reflecting against the latticework of the Library’s façade was some light. As a group, they stopped and walked toward the 4th Avenue side of the building, then toward the Spring Street side. Two catty-corner blocks away the 1201 Third Avenue Building, once the tallest building in the city, now second to the 76-story Columbia Center, three blocks to the south. Fire engines could be heard. Light from the fire sparkled and bounced off the aluminum and glass skin of the Library.

  “Look!” the voice came from a woman he couldn’t see directly because of the darkness. Across the street from 1201 was the luxurious Fairmont Olympia Hotel:

  It was also on fire. Both fires were at the street level; both set by marauding gangs. Not a person gathered in the darkness for one second believed that the Seattle Public Library wouldn’t be a target. The lowlife toilet bowl shit-scums were out to burn Seattle down.

  “That’s not going to happen here,” Ray said softly. “This building is not going to go down. We don’t have much time. We have to secure this entrance,” Ray turned to the 5th Avenue doorways; and then we have to go downstairs to the second floor to secure the entrance to the parking decks on Spring Street.

  One of the beautiful things about the Library’s design was that the skin of the building was all aluminum and glass and in most places around the building, was offset by twenty feet or more from the actual walls. Unfortunately, the Seattle Library, as unique as it was, was subject to the same restrictions on its budget as every other city and state faced; manpower was the easiest item to fix in a budget. Do we need full-time security guards? How many staff? Isn’t the library built to virtually run itself?

  Ray looked at the 5th Avenue entrance from a military standpoint. The entrance was narrow, through a set of six doors, which fed into three lanes of electronic scanners. All but the center doors were closed. Someone entering through this entrance was immediately faced with a “go straight” toward the back of the room; “go down” a double escalator (non-functioning) to the first floor and a second “go down” to the “open air” auditorium constructed between the third and second floors.

  “I have to go downstairs to check on the first floor; John, you’re in charge,” the urgency in his voice unmistakable. “Block that entrance however you can! But, this is the way I’d do it.” Ray began to speak quickly to John Banner, 42, balding, Winston smoker, was in Seattle for a week from his hometown of Sacramento, staying at the Hyatt because he’d won a free trip for accumulating reward points on his Hyatt Gold Passport card; only to have his stay upgraded to participate in a new show called The End of the World as We Know It.

  Escalator from first to third floors.

  Banner was nodding his head. Ray’s suggestions made sense. Ray turned to Diane Bryant, 45, an attractive brunet but stern-faced, who was also paying attention. Diane had made her way from Redmond, almost making it to work as an investment banker for Bank of America at the Columbia Towers before having to abandon her 2012 BMW near the Two Union Square building and started to walk to work. Cell phone didn’t work; there were no lights; it was raining, but at least she had her umbrella. She was a classy lady who could handle four-inch heels, but not necessarily for such a distance.

  “Everyone, you don’t have much time,” Ray struggled not to return to Fallujah but his brain was pinging bad times. “Find something you can use as a weapon!”

  Ray turned and headed down the escalator. It was a long fucking escalator and Ray wished it was working.

  “Ray!” came a shout down at the end of the tunnel, normally lit a pretty yellow—another feature of the library that involved the visitor’s other senses. There were red tunnels, blue tunnels and the yellow escalators. Hurrying as he could, Ray sensed that Molly and/or the folks below were in trouble.

  “What!” he shouted.

  “There’re people outside! The bad guys are here! Not many, but some!” she shouted.

  Out of breath, Ray arrived at the first floor. There was still the second floor entrance to the parking garage to be checked. Molly had overstated the size of the crowd, but there was no mistaking it. A number of shitbags were slouching down 4th Avenue, peering into buildings, seeing if there was anything to steal. There was no time and so much to do.

  “Molly—Janice! “He motioned to the two of them. “Here’s the deal. This entrance is too difficult to protect,” Ray turned and was impressed that the entrance area had pile of shit against the doors and the security wand-through areas; a brief, very brief smile cracked his brain as he saw material from the English as a Second Language (ESL) kiosks, chairs and desks jammed against the doors; also that they’d used the Information kiosks.

  “
Great job everybody!” he shouted, then to Molly and Janice. “Over there,“ Ray pointed toward the elevator banks; to either side were the emergency stairwells red lights lead to white lights which lead to jump out of the aircraft into the freezing water. “I need for a number of your people to be walking back and forth, carrying something that looks like it might hurt, or might be a gun. When the shit hits the fan and they start breaking into the door, run like hell for the stairwells.

  The stairwell doors opened into the stairwell from the outside.

  “I want a lot of you up on the second floor already. Find something; a bar, a rack, I don’t know what, when your brave friends from the first floor come up the stairwell, you then need to make it like your last stand. Throw whatever you can into the stairwell. This has to be more than just annoying for them. You have to drive them back down the stairwell, so that they’ll have to come up the escalators,” Ray paused. “You have to hurt them because they will be trying to hurt you. You have to hate them. You have to have the anger; it’s-me-or-them attitude,” he explained. “It doesn’t matter that you’ve never hit anyone in your life. If you don’t succeed they will kill you,” Ray said simply. “People, I don’t know how else to explain this to you!”

  There wasn’t anything else to say. Everybody scattered to what they thought they could contribute to. It was amazing. It was shit or get off the pot time. Find something you could do; didn’t matter that you’d never been in a fight in your life. People were coming to hurt you.

  In the meantime Ray had to check on the Spring Street parking lot entrance and figure a way to help these poor people.

  You’ve been a soldier, dude. They haven’t. In fact, there are days, sometimes weeks, have gone by when you haven’t been able to tell the difference between reality and dreamland.

  The VA had been good to him; so had the Army. He wasn’t alone. The dreams he had; the ones that all of fucking sudden dropped him into what felt was like a mixture of gaming and sheer terror; those were real.