by Peter Hernon
Hessel had known Lauren and her parents for years. In his early fifties, he had thinning black hair, high cheekbones, and gaunt cheeks. He didn’t like wearing a uniform and was dressed in a ski sweater, jeans, and boots. He and Lauren had attended high school together. They’d even dated a few times back then, nothing very serious, an occasional movie in Paducah or a boat trip on Kentucky Lake. Hessel’s wife, Judy, was a good friend of Lauren’s.
The sheriff listened quietly and sipped coffee from his thermos as Lauren described what Atkins and Elizabeth had seen inside the dam and her own close call out on the lake. He’d driven over from Mayfield as soon as she’d called. He’d never seen her like this, almost frantic.
“We’ve got to let people know the dam’s in danger of failing!” Lauren was practically shouting in his face. “They won’t have a chance…”
The sheriff glanced at his watch. It was about 2:15 A.M.
“You two get in the car,” he said. “We’ll start right here in Gilbertsville. Then we’re going to do some hard driving. We’ll head down to Reidland, then cut across the Highway 101 bridge into Paducah. We’ve got some ground to cover. I know every deputy, volunteer fire chief, and ambulance dispatcher in two hundred square miles. They’ll help us get the word out. We gonna raise some hell.”
Bobby got in the back of the patrol car and Lauren had just opened the passenger-side door when she noticed the lights on the parking lot. The poles had started to sway.
“Look at that,” Hessel said.
Then the ground exploded. Knocked off her feet, Lauren fell across the hood of the car. Another violent shake sent her staggering backward. She landed hard on her side.
The sheriff tried to get out to help, but the car was rocking up and down with such force he was pinned to his seat. The plate-glass window of the convenience store shattered. A young woman working there stumbled out the doorway, screaming and holding her hands to her ears, trying to blot out the thunder coming from deep in the earth. The parking lights were swaying so hard the poles snapped off at the base.
“There’s… your… earthquake!” Hessel shouted, holding on to the steering wheel with both hands.
He was trying to sit upright in the bucking car, which started rocking side to side—hard, rapid movements that made him clench his teeth. He looked in the back seat. Bobby’s eyes were wide open as he gripped the front seat and tried to hang on.
The shaking finally quieted. And the noise. Hessel wasn’t sure how long it had lasted, but he felt like he’d taken a physical beating. His left shoulder was going to be black-and-blue from being slammed repeatedly into the car door.
“Listen!” Lauren said, picking herself up off the ground.
The sheriff heard it—a loud, rending crack, followed by a roar that was different from the earthquake.
Hessel realized what he was hearing.
It was rushing water, a flood.
“The dam’s gone,” he said. He started the car’s engine. “Get in, girl! We’re going to make a run through Gilbertsville. Try to give those folks a warning.”
Two miles upstream, the mile-long dam had given way. First the exterior walls had broken and split outward, the water rushing through the cracks, rapidly widening them. The steel flood gates were pushed aside as the water boomed through the jagged breach. The hydrologist on duty in the dam’s powerhouse had sounded a warning siren moments before he fled for his life. The wail of the siren was drowned out by the rushing water.
Gunning his engine, Hessel raced into Gilbertsville. He didn’t know how long it would take the water to reach the resort town, which was spread out on low hills near the western shore of the Tennessee River.
Not long, he figured. Maybe a couple minutes.
The river ran through a narrow, twisting valley until it emptied into the Ohio at Paducah, fifteen miles downstream. The highway was on high ground. The sheriff thought they might make it to Paducah ahead of the flood, but he’d have to drive like hell on a treacherous, two-lane road.
Siren blasting, they tore into Gilbertsville. Lauren operated the portable bullhorn. Hessel headed down a steep road into the heart of town, which had been shaken to pieces.
Lauren tried to keep her nerve up by concentrating on her job. She didn’t want to think about her own home and the boat dock.
“The dam’s out!” she said, her amplified words booming into the darkness. “Everybody get out! There’s a flood!”
The horror of what she was seeing almost choked off her words. Many of the buildings had collapsed. Some still stood with entire walls sheared off. Roofs had caved in. Walls had buckled. The shaking had set off car alarms.
A few people staggered through the wreckage. Thrown from their beds, they looked dazed, in shock.
The sheriff swerved around downed power lines that hissed and threw white sparks, splintered trees, smashed houses. He headed back up the hill that led out of town, racing toward the highway. They’d done all they could.
Lauren looked back up the valley toward the lake. She saw the glint of something silver-white in the darkness. It was massive and moving fast.
“Here it comes!” she said, watching the flood wall roll into view.
The leading edge, a crest thirty feet high, was pushing smashed barges, pleasure boats, and a pile of twisted logs.
“I see it,” the sheriff said, glancing in his rearview mirror.
He realized this was a race they weren’t going to win.
MAYFIELD, KENTUCKY
JANUARY 13
3:05 A.M.
THE JARRING STRENGTH OF THE AFTERSHOCK stunned Atkins and Elizabeth. Incredibly powerful, it knocked them down in the road.
“That was at least a mag 7,” Atkins said, pulling himself up off the ground. His clothing, caked with mud, had frozen solid in the cold air. The temperature had dipped below freezing.
“Aftershocks in that range are unbelievable,” Elizabeth said.
“It’s not like California, is it?” Atkins asked.
“It’s not like anything since maybe Alaska,” she said. The monster Good Friday earthquake that had struck Anchorage in March 1964 registered a magnitude 8.6. The epicenter was under Prince William Sound, a hundred kilometers away. Parts of the shoreline had risen as much as ten meters. But even there the aftershocks didn’t compare with these.
The earthquake had knocked over Mayfield’s two main power transformers and toppled a string of electrical towers. Even in the dust and murky darkness, Atkins and Elizabeth could make out the dimensions of the disaster. On the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale it would have scored the maximum value, a XII.
Developed in 1902 by the Italian seismologist G. Mercalli, the scale assigned intensity values based on observations of physical damage on a scale that ranged from I to XII.
Atkins knew the definition for Level XII by heart:
Damage total.
Waves seen on ground surface.
Lines of sight and level distorted.
Objects thrown into the air.
The grim description fit Mayfield perfectly. As in Gilbertsville, twenty miles east, people were already out in the streets, wandering with flashlights amid the rubble, broken glass, and smashed foundations that had once been their homes. Many of the frame and brick houses looked like they’d been blown up. The damage was extensive, the debris pulverized.
They’ll have plenty of dead here, Atkins thought as Elizabeth and he made their way through the ruins of what had once been an attractive town of 10,000 residents. They were heading for the high school where he’d left the Explorer. Located in the center of town, it was only a few blocks from the railroad tracks, but it would take nearly an hour for them to cover the distance.
Atkins shuddered when he considered the potential carnage in Memphis. Barely 120 miles due south, the southern city was known for its fine old brick architecture. So was St. Louis, 150 miles to the north. All those unreinforced brick buildings were certain death traps.
The United Sta
tes wasn’t ready for anything like that, but from what he’d seen in Mayfield, the time of innocence was over. This quake was a killer.
Two-story homes had been knocked off their foundations. Trees were down everywhere, snapped off at the base of their trunks. Water gushed from ruptured fire hydrants, filling the gutters and sewers to overflowing. Atkins knew that wouldn’t last long, only until the water left in the shattered mains ran out. After that, the town would be without fresh water for drinking—or fighting fires. And fire was almost a certainty after a big earthquake, a fact often overlooked even by survivors.
The worst damage was centered around the courthouse and senior high school. The school buildings were destroyed. At first glance, the courthouse looked as if it had miraculously escaped damage. The huge gold-painted rotunda appeared to be in one piece.
Then Elizabeth saw what had happened.
“It collapsed in on itself,” she said.
The post-Civil War five-story building was now only three stories tall. The other two, crushed together, weren’t even visible. Elizabeth had seen the same thing in Northridge, California, where an entire four-story apartment complex, more than five hundred units, had folded up. That one area was where most of the deaths had occurred.
The ground lurched again, a strong vertical movement. Atkins looked up at the darkened courthouse just in time to see it pancake to the ground in a cloud of dust and flying bricks. For a few moments, the onion-shaped rotunda balanced precariously on the rubble, then tilled to the side and shattered.
“We’ve got to get some instruments set up,” Atkins said. “These aftershocks are really something.”
Getting into the field was his immediate, overriding priority. Any seismic data they gathered about the location and strength of the aftershocks would be crucial in plotting what had happened underground. And more important, in figuring out what could still happen. Atkins had one seismograph left in the Ford Explorer he and Walt Jacobs had used. He wanted to get it hooked up and running.
Nearly one hour after the quake had struck, they found the Explorer parked in the lot behind the smashed high school. A large tree, it looked like an oak, had toppled next to it, covering the hood with its branches, but not causing any serious damage. Elizabeth’s rental car wasn’t as fortunate. A forty-foot television aerial had collapsed, slicing it in two.
MEMPHIS
JANUARY 13
3:40 A.M.
WITHIN FORTY MINUTES OF THE QUAKE, THE National Guard helicopter dropped Walt Jacobs and the other seismologists at the University of Memphis. The big UH-60 Black Hawk barely touched down before it peeled off after getting an urgent medical evacuation request from a nearby hospital that had sustained severe damage.
Staggered by the widespread destruction he’d seen—it was all around him—Jacobs wasn’t himself when he finally made radio contact with Atkins and Elizabeth. He’d been criticized for equipping each team that had gone to southern Kentucky with a shortwave radio.
He’d insisted on it and taken the heat for the modest extra expense. Now he was vindicated. The quake had destroyed the telephone and cell phone systems, knocking over relay towers and snapping land lines. Communications had broken down throughout the Mississippi Valley.
Without the shortwave, Jacobs wouldn’t have been able to talk to the two geologists closest to the quake’s epicenter.
But this was no time for self-congratulation. It took him nearly an hour before he was finally able to raise Atkins on the radio. Noticing the red light blinking on its console, Elizabeth had switched it on as Atkins changed into dry clothing in the back of the Explorer.
Jacobs got right to the point.
“It was a magnitude 8.4,” he said, his voice strained. “It hit at exactly 2:16 in the morning. The epicenter was five miles west of Blytheville, Arkansas. That puts it at the northwestern axis of the new fault that runs south beyond Memphis.”
Atkins slid into the front seat. He’d heard what Jacobs had said about the magnitude. He wasn’t surprised.
“Do you think you two can get over to the epicenter?” Jacobs asked.
“If we can find a way across the river,” Atkins said. “Any chance of getting a helicopter?”
“None,” Jacobs said. Civilian and military helicopters—anything that could fly—were making emergency medical rescues. They were already overwhelmed.
It was absolutely essential they get instruments set up near the epicenter as soon as possible. Strong motion seismographs would help pinpoint the locations of the aftershocks and determine the depth of the focal point. By recording the distribution and pattern of the aftershocks, they could estimate the potential for more damage.
“In case you can’t, we’ve got some more options,” Jacobs said. “They’ve got some strong motion seismographs at Arkansas State University over at Jonesboro. I’m sure they’ll be setting them up as soon as they can get into the field. I know two of the seismologists over there. They’re only forty miles from the epicenter, and they’re good people, so don’t try anything stupid trying to get there. John. We’ll be all right.”
The transmission started to break up with static. The radio went silent for a few moments. When Jacobs came back on the air, Elizabeth said, “What’s happening in Memphis?”
There was another burst of ground static. When it cleared, Jacobs said, “Memphis as we knew it no longer exists.” He made no attempt to conceal his emotion. “You have no idea what it’s—”
The voice was suddenly lost in static. Elizabeth glanced at Atkins.
“As I look out my office window on Cottage Avenue, I can see fires to the east,” Jacobs said. “I can hear sirens all over the city. Most of the university buildings have been heavily damaged.” The library, dormitories, and student center had been shaken to pieces.
“Our own building is missing part of its northern wall,” Jacobs said. He started to mention Kim So and lost it.
Slumping back in his chair, it took him a few moments before he could trust his voice over the air.
One of their best graduate students, Kim had been in the computer office early that morning, crunching data about the New Madrid Seismic Zone. A piece of the brick chimney had fallen through the roof, crushing her skull. They’d found her lying near her computer.
“Walt, how’s your family?” Atkins asked. He remembered that Jacobs had told him his wife and daughter lived in the city.
“I don’t know,” Jacobs answered. His throat was so dry he could hardly speak. “I haven’t been able to get through to them. It’s a brick house, John. A goddamned brick house, and I’m a seismologist. I’m supposed to know better!”
Then, for a few minutes, they lost contact with Memphis.
“Where did he say the epicenter was?” Atkins asked. He had a topo map spread across his lap and a dome light on.
“Just west of Blytheville.” Elizabeth had already checked the map. The epicenter was about fifty miles south of New Madrid, the focal point of the first of the massive quakes in 1811-1812.
Atkins looked for the closest bridge across the Mississippi. There was one at a small town in extreme southern Missouri. Caruthersville. Crossing to the Tennessee side of the river near Dyersburg, it was about forty miles southwest of Mayfield and ninety miles north of Memphis.
Atkins wondered if the bridge was still standing.
NEAR RAITLAND, KENTUCKY
JANUARY 13
3:00 A.M.
BOBBY MITCHELL STARED OUT THE PATROL CAR’S rear window. They’d just rounded a curve, hugging the west shoreline of the Tennessee River, which flowed through a deep valley cut. Bobby was watching for the first sight of the flood wall.
“What do you see, boy?” the sheriff shouted, his eyes locked on the blacktop. He was driving dangerously fast. From the highway, it was a one-hundred-foot drop through trees straight to the river. They were racing toward Raitland, Kentucky, the next town in the path of the flood surge. Paducah was only fifteen miles away.
“I ca
n’t see anything,” Bobby shouted.
“You sure can hear it,” the sheriff said. He had his window down. The approaching flood was a steady roar in the distance.
Lauren was trying not to think about what had happened at Gilbertsville. She wanted to block it forever out of her mind. There was no way the town, or anyone in it, could have survived that massive wall of water.
At Hessel’s urging, she tried to raise the police dispatcher in Raitland. The radio scanner mounted on the dashboard of the car hissed static. Lauren pressed the search button. A woman’s voice came on the air.
“That’ll be Georgetta Williams,” Hessel said. “Tell her to put her husband Bob on. Let me talk to him.”
Lauren did so. There was a long burst of static. “Bob’s dead,” the woman said in a dull monotone. “He’s lying out in the street. A power line fell on him.”
“There’s a flood coming your way, Georgetta,” Hessel said, grabbing the microphone. “The dam broke at Kentucky Lake. You’ve got to get out of there.”
The woman’s shrill laughter stunned Lauren. Coming over the static of the police radio, it sounded disembodied, ripped from her soul.
“Sure,” she said, still laughing hysterically. “I’ll go get my husband, and we’ll get the car and leave.”
The radio clicked off.
Hessel punched the gas pedal. The patrol car’s high beams were boring into the darkness. He was racing straight down the yellow lane divider. He could tell the softer aftershocks by the way the car vibrated. He felt the shaking in the steering wheel.
They hit Raitland a few minutes later, turning off the highway and heading down a long, steep street, their siren going full blast. Most of the town was laid out on a crescent-shaped plateau just above the river.