HARVEY IS MOVING TOWARD THE NORTHWEST NEAR 14 MPH… 23 KM/HR. THIS MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE OVER THE NEXT 12 TO 24 HOURS.
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 130MPH… 210 KM/HR. HARVEY IS A DANGEROUS CATEGORY THREE HURRICANE ON THE SAFFIR/SIMPSON HURRICANE SCALE. SOME FURTHER INCREASE IN STRENGTH IS LIKELY DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS.
HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 85 MILES… 140 KM… FROM THE CENTER… AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 290 MILES… 465 KM. ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 945 MB… 27.90 INCHES. A RECONNAISSANCE PLANE WILL BE IN THE AREA SHORTLY.
TIDES OF 6 TO 8 FEET ABOVE NORMAL… LOCALLY HIGHER IN BAYS… CAN BE EXPECTED OVER PORTIONS OF THE NORTHWEST BAHAMAS.
CHEN
Greg Chen, who’d pulled the overnight shift at the Hurricane Center, was one of the most accurate forecasters the Hurricane Center had ever seen. As a person, he was unpredictable, shifty and slippery, an anomaly among the hurricane specialists for the way he exhibited a disturbing pleasure as storms came ashore. Amanda and the others always felt a sense of defeat and inadequacy. There was no high-fiving in the forecast room. Just drawn faces and knitted brows. But Greg Chen seemed to revel in the moment. Amanda attributed it to misdirected enthusiasm, for one did have to be wildly enthusiastic about hurricanes to make them a lifelong study. Still, one always got the feeling that Greg Chen had another motive for the things he did. Amanda respected his ability as a forecaster, but disliked him as a person.
She wasn’t pleased with the bulletin Chen had written. She wished he had added a phrase at the top warning of the possible threat to the United States coastline. Greg Chen generally wrote more conservative bulletins than Amanda. Almost as though he delighted in the idea of residents being surprised by a massive storm. Almost.
CHAPTER 18
Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, Maryland
8:25 a.m.
In Building 28, a technician oversaw the operation of a newly installed, massively parallel supercomputer, which contained hundreds of processors joined together. The new machine, five times as fast as the old Cray C-90 it replaced, ran vast quantities of data through complex mathematical models that produced the information used as the basis for all routine weather forecasts, public and private, in the United States, including the summer hurricane forecasts.
The Class VIII system was part of the National Weather Service’s Modernization and Associated Restructuring program, aimed at improving forecasting by maximizing state-of-the-art machines. Scientists had run up against a computational wall with increasingly complicated models.
It was like trying to run modern wordprocessing software on a small-minded Mac Classic, the technician once said, though the problem existed on a much more complicated and more economically critical plane. More and more people—from farmers to stockbrokers—were coming to rely on the National Weather Service for information about what the weather would do tomorrow, next week, next summer.
The computer was running smoothly. The technician at Building 28 had little to do. But he had his eye on Harvey, the hurricane churning out in the Atlantic. When Harvey got within thirty-six hours of landfall, the technician would enter a series of commands to shut down the LORAX, which was only in the test phase and tied up a huge chunk of processor power. Policy dictated that all the supercomputer’s resources be devoted to operational models whenever a hurricane was within thirty-six hours of landfall.
Shutting down the LORAX would be a simple procedure. The technician had other, more abstract and problematic things on his mind. His wife was in the hospital, dying. If he didn’t very quickly come up with more money, she would not have a chance at another clinical-trial treatment that might stave off her raging cancer. Even the best health-care programs didn’t pay for the unproven treatments of clinical trials. The technician winced every time he imagined trying to raise his daughter alone.
The answer, it seemed, had just landed in his lap—in the form of a moral dilemma. The official-looking man in the perfect suit who’d visited him at his home offered money. Big money. All the technician had to do was, effectively, flick a switch when asked.
He had warily allowed the man in the perfect suit into his home while his daughter played in the backyard. He had listened. At first, he had resisted. But the man in the perfect suit reminded him of his wife’s condition. Then told him the sum. A hundred-thousand dollars for rendering a computer program unusable. A whole year’s salary. The technician thought about that. He was confident he could cover his tracks after making a simple change in the computer code that would take days to discover. Nobody would know he had done it. But could he live with the knowledge that he had disrupted the flow of information to the National Hurricane Center?
Could he live without his wife?
He had looked out into the backyard, at his four-year-old daughter who had no idea of the weird scene taking place in the living room. She didn’t even understand that her mother was dying.
He said nothing to the man in the perfect suit. Just nodded that he would do it.
The man in the perfect suit then gave him ten crisp one-hundred dollar bills. A down payment, he’d said. And then he’d explained the little test they wanted to do, the simple blip he was to create in the GFDL program. The test had gone well.
Nobody suspected much once the program began functioning normally again.
The man in the perfect suit had called to congratulate him. He said the real job might come soon. In fact, the call might come one day this week.
CHAPTER 19
Aboard Hugo,
Latitude 23.9 North, Longitude 72.0 West
8:30 a.m. (12:30 Zulu)
Captain Glen Barnes chewed fiercely on his flavorless Doublemint gum. The roar of the four Allison engines was dulled by his headphones, which filtered the noise to a loud, constant drone. It usually gave Barnes a headache three or four hours into the flight. But the crew of Hugo had been flying for more days in a row than Barnes could remember. What a season. More flying time than in any year since 1995.
Including the refueling stop in the Bahamas, they were into their eighth hour, and the headache was like a familiar but unwanted companion now, an acquaintance who tags along until you give up and just try to ignore him, knowing he won’t go away.
Hugo had made four passes through Harvey’s eye. Each had been rougher, with more lightning and turbulence, and the pilot knew there was only enough fuel for one more pass. Heavy lightning had prevented a run through the northeast quadrant, but the on-board Doppler radar showed a small window, and the crew was about to make their fifth pass. It was starting to get bumpy. Barnes turned to his copilot, who sat calmly awaiting the heavy turbulence they both knew was coming.
“You sure you want to do this?”
“Got to save the planet,” Duggan deadpanned.
Barnes grinned at his copilot. He could be an irreverent sonofabitch, but he was good. Barnes trusted him. He switched his microphone to communicate via satellite with the mission director.
“Control. Teal One Niner. Looks like we got a storm up ahead,” Barnes said. “We’re thinking of taking a look.”
“Roger Teal. That’d be a good idea. Thanks in advance for a job well done.”
“Lightning is close and frequent,” Barnes said. “We’re hearing six or eight zaps a minute on the radio. We’re going to watch closely.”
“Not worth wasting a good airplane over. Stay safe and keep us posted.”
The frequency was silent for eighteen minutes before Barnes spoke again. “We’re cheating west a little. Wild light show ahead. Looks like the Fourth of July… Oh, my! This is the most incredible lightning. It’s constant from up here. Wish you guys could see this back home. Ah, we’re about thirty miles off the progged position, between cloud layers now.”
“Is it possible to stay on that course and give us a fix by 1300 Zulu? That last pass didn’t go so well. Central pressure reading was only an extrap.”
The a
ircraft’s sensing devices sometimes extrapolated pressure readings when they couldn’t get a direct measurement. It wasn’t a perfect reading, but it was better than nothing for the forecasters at the Hurricane Center.
“We’ll take a shot. Lots of convection now. We’re starting to get tossed around a little. The newsies ought to be sick any minute.”
Barnes smiled at Duggan. Few things were routine on a Hurricane Hunter mission, but a journalist throwing up was one thing you could count on. They flew on in relative silence for another twenty minutes.
“See the hook?” Duggan asked.
“I see it,” Barnes said. The hook on the Doppler indicated a probable tornado. Not even a Hurricane Hunter wanted to mess with a tornado. The radar also picked up a nearly solid wall of lightning.
“I don’t know about you, but I got better things to do than play Dorothy.”
“Would be different if we had imminent landfall on the East Coast,” Barnes said. “But this one’s still two, maybe three days away. It might take a shot at the Bahamas, but we’ve done our job. I say we save our asses for another day.”
“Roger that.”
Barnes spoke to CARCAH again. “Change in plans. The window has pretty much closed. Looks like it’s covered by a curtain of lightning now. And we got a hook. We might dodge the tornado and get in, but I don’t want to get stuck in there. We’re about six miles from the center.”
“OK Teal. Don’t risk it. We could have used the fix, but we’ve got another plane en route anyway. Maybe Harvey will calm down a little.”
“We’re bouncing around pretty good now. It’s time to get out. See you at dinnertime.”
Barnes wondered if he would have tried to poke through if Harvey were closer to shore, more of an immediate threat. He knew the answer, but for now he pushed the thought out of his mind. There was still a lot of flying to do. Hugo carved a wide arc through the clouds and headed for home.
CHAPTER 20
National Hurricane Center
9:00 a.m.
When Amanda had her mind buried deep inside the anatomy of a hurricane, it always surprised her to find the sun shining. She shielded her eyes from the bright sunlight as she walked toward the single-story shoebox she called the Bunker. With its cinder-block construction, ten-inch thick walls and small windows, the building had been constructed specially to house the National Hurricane Center after Andrew had rocked the former building in Coral Gables in 1992, taking out communications equipment and breaking the wind gauge. The array of antennas on the roof of the Bunker, poking into the deep blue Miami sky, were better protected, and a backup power supply ensured the center would operate through any storm.
Amanda walked into the Bunker, poured a cup of coffee and went to her cubicle.
She hung up her straw-colored linen jacket. She had her work clothes on: Loosefitting blue jeans and a simple, white cotton t-shirt. The Bunker was mostly a man’s world, and Amanda felt relatively comfortable being one of the guys. Comfortable enough that she felt no need to play any games about hiding her femininity. Her T-shirt was snug fitting and had a deep v-neck.
Greg Chen stood up in the cubicle next to hers. “My hero,” Chen said.
“We’ll see,” Amanda said. She knew that Chen, like the other forecasters, was worn out. It had been a busy season.
“You’re a warm body,” he said. “And you’re here. If you know anything about wind, that’s a plus. Hey, what happened to you?”
Amanda didn’t want to talk about the bruise on her face or about Gert. She was especially in no mood to chat it up with her least favorite forecaster. “Had good luck with Gert. A little too good, but that’s history now. Which way is it blowing?”
“You’re certifiable, you are. The wind? You saw the eight o’clock?” Chen said.
“I saw it.”
“No changes. Harvey is just magnificent, isn’t he? Anyway, the GFDL is doing fine, so we’re sticking with it. No reason to change right now.”
Greg Chen had just delivered a small professional dig to Amanda, and she understood it. It was a subtle reminder at the handoff: Don’t change models if you don’t have to. Most storms moved predictably across the tropics and were forecast using one particular model that was based on history. It worked this way: It knew where a storm had been in the past few hours and what direction it had been moving, and it assumed that the storm would continue that same basic movement in the short run. The model relied on a vast databank of historical storms to predict the movement of a storm in a given location at a given time of year with given characteristics.
Typically, as a storm moved out of the tropics, the GFDL model took over, producing the most accurate forecasts. But there were other models, and the forecasters used their judgment in determining which to rely on.
It was tempting sometimes, when a forecaster started the shift, to take a fresh look at the models and add the vital but dangerous element of intuition and decide it was time to switch, that another model would do better under the changing conditions.
But unless something unusual cropped up, the GFDL would likely stay in charge.
Amanda wanted to remind Chen that she understood her job. “Windshield-wiper,” she said flatly.
Hurricane forecasters were always worried that changing the forecast—it’s going here, now there, now here again—would make them look wishy-washy and erode public confidence. They called it the windshield-wiper effect. The antidote was a smooth, even transition in the forecast and a tendency toward sticking with the one you inherited.
“Yes,” Chen smiled bleakly. “Well, I didn’t mean to tell you how to do your job.”
Chen put his coat on and headed out. Amanda sat down without saying goodbye.
Frank Delaney stuck his head over the wall of her cubicle. “Morning,” he said.
She didn’t look up, didn’t want him to see the bruise. She curled her fingers into a fist to hide the bandages.
“Morning Frank. You get any sleep last night?”
“Couple hours,” the director said.
“Stay here?”
“Yep,” he said.
“How’s Harvey looking to you?”
“C’mon, Amanda. I’ve been worried sick. You didn’t even call. How bad was it?”
Amanda regretted her flash of anger as it happened. Everything—Amanda and Jack and Juan nearly drowning in Gert, her father in the hands of Kim Butler, and now a sensation of longing for Jack Corbin while still missing Sarah—it all welled up into a fountain of frustration, and she let it out with a sharp attack.
“You’re not my damn father, Frank. Butt out.”
Delaney stood there, waited. Amanda took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.” She turned her head to face him.
“Apology accepted. I’m not trying to be your father. But I am your employer, and you could have used some rest instead of doing what you did. I’m also your friend, and I was worried. Nice bruise.”
“I’m a bundle of nerves, Frank. What I need is to get back to work. What’s up with Harvey?”
“Couldn’t see the eye on satellite a few hours ago,” Delaney said. “Recon reported that it enlarged to about fifteen miles during the night, but it’s tighter now.”
Not every hurricane had the characteristic eye associated with the storms. As a storm developed and changed, the eye grew and shrunk, normally ranging from ten to twenty miles across. A small, circular eye usually indicated a healthy storm, one well organized and likely to strengthen. Forecasters likened the shrinking eye to a twirling ice skater, who spins faster and faster as she pulls her arms in.
“Mission controller said the pilot on this morning’s recon pass swears it’s concentric, though kind of sloppy,” Delaney said. “But he didn’t get a very good look.”
The rare concentric eye, or ring inside a ring, often indicated a temporary weakening while the storm reorganized. Other conditions—a warm sea and absence of upper-level shearing winds—would likely contribute to that reorganization.
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“What’s the pressure?” Amanda wondered if the Hurricane Hunters had already transmitted new readings since the eight a.m. advisory was produced. “Latest is 942, but that’s an extrap. My gut tells me it’s accurate.”
“So he’s reorganizing,” Amanda said.
“Looks that way,” Delaney said. “I was hoping the whole damn thing would just fall apart. It’s going to be a long day. Listen, Amanda. If this heats up, I’m going to really need you to be fresh tomorrow and Friday. No fourteen-hour crap today.”
“I’m fine, Frank.”
“No you’re not. You’re tired, just like me, just like Chen. Just like everybody. Thing is, we can all handle this storm when it’s a thousand miles away. When it gets close, you are in the hot seat, and I want you rested. Understand?”
Amanda thought for a moment. She ran the next two days through her head. If Harvey did take a turn to the north, she would call Joe Springer and make sure he would evacuate early, before the rush. Then she thought of her father in the Seaside Nursing Home out on Coney Island. She didn’t want to think about him, but she couldn’t help it. She knew how vulnerable his building would be in a hurricane. Guilt pounded at her temples for having ignored that thought for so long. She wondered if Kim Butler had figured out the evacuation. She reminded herself to call Kim. Her father was nearly helpless on his own, and Amanda more than anyone knew the danger he might face. If Kim Butler failed, there was no one else who would help him. She wondered if she could find the courage herself. He could be ornery and difficult to deal with. Then again he was so sweet yesterday.
“OK, Frank, I won’t kill myself today. But there’s just one thing. You know my dad’s up on Coney Island, and—”
“Harvey heads that way, I’ll push you out the door myself,” Delaney said.
“Thank you, Frank.”
“And, listen, I need a couple favors from you, too.”
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