by Peter Hernon
JANUARY 13
2:16 A.M.
THE FIRST STRONG TREMOR HAD JOLTED GOVERNOR Tad Parker and his wife out of their bed in the third-floor bedroom of the governor’s mansion. A heavy mahogany bookcase crashed to the floor, narrowly missing Parker’s head. He was vaguely aware of his wife’s screams.
Parker tried to stand, but the shaking sent him sprawling. He tried again and was upended so violently it knocked the wind out of him.
Frankfort, the capital of Kentucky, was about 230 miles northeast of Memphis and roughly midway between Louisville and Lexington. All three cities had felt the earthquake that had struck Memphis three days earlier. There had been a lot of property damage, mainly cracked foundations and fallen chimneys, but no one had been killed.
But Parker knew this one was deadly.
He crawled to the door, got to his knees, and tried the light switch. The electricity was out.
Parker cursed himself for drinking too much wine at dinner. He’d met with his campaign advisers and had allowed himself to be overserved, something he rarely did. He usually stuck with one small glass of burgundy. This time he’d had four or five and had only recently gone to bed.
As the ground shook, glass shattered in the pair of French doors that opened onto the bedroom balcony.
The chandelier in the dining room jingled like a wind chime as it swung back and forth. Then it fell with a splintering crash of broken glass.
Large gilt-framed pictures were knocked from their mountings. A china cabinet pitched over, spilling nineteenth-century Wedgwood and French crystal onto the floor.
Crawling on all fours, Parker cut his hand on a fragment of glass.
“Tad, we’ve got to get out!” his wife screamed. She tried to hold on to the bed’s headboard, but the heaving ground action sent the massive four-poster sliding across the floor, knocking her legs out from under her.
Parker was as frightened as he’d ever been in his life.
When the earth finally stopped moving, he sat with his back against a wall, too stunned to get up. He stayed there with his wife next to him for five minutes before he finally managed to get dressed in the dark, slipping on a pair of trousers and a pullover.
He got a flashlight from the bathroom. The mansion was a shambles. Wide cracks had opened in the walls.
The ground started shaking again.
Parker realized those must be aftershocks. They had to get outside.
With his wife following in her bathrobe, a coat thrown over her shoulders, Parker hurried down the grand staircase to the first floor. He went out the front door just as a car from the Kentucky State Police pulled into the driveway.
A young officer got out. He delivered the terrible news with crisp professionalism.
“The dam at Kentucky Lake is gone, sir.”
Parker felt as if he’d been kicked in the teeth. He slumped against the open door.
That can’t be true.
As he tried to comprehend the immensity of what he’d just been told, Parker struggled to follow what the trooper was saying. He’d already moved on to another subject—the Department of Energy’s Gaseous Diffusion Plant at Paducah.
Parker knew it well. He’d lobbied hard to keep the plant in operation amid rumors that the DOE wanted to phase it out.
He squeezed his hands to his temples and tried to think clearly. It was so difficult, but he had to focus.
“The plant manager called, sir,” the trooper continued. “He wants Paducah evacuated.”
“What are you talking about?” Parker stammered.
“They have a leak of some kind. He said something about poison gas.”
Parker had just toured the uranium-enrichment plant with a delegation of Japanese visitors. He knew how they shot uranium in the form of uranium hexofluoride gas through a series of ceramic and steel separators, which filtered out impurities. The pipes ran for miles it seemed and were forty inches in diameter.
He remembered what one of the plant engineers had told him: The biggest danger was the accidental release of gas. When mixed with oxygen, it was lethal. The separators were sealed under pressure. If they ruptured, they’d go off like Roman candles, spewing clouds of poison gas.
“Will you authorize it?” the trooper asked.
Authorize what? Dammit, man. Just let me think, Parker thought.
The trooper was staring at him, waiting for an answer.
“The evacuation,” he said. “They want to do it right now.”
The ground shook, just enough to make Parker clutch the mansion’s porch railing. He sat down on the front steps. He was suddenly aware of how bright the stars were. The sky was filled with stars.
He’d never seen them so bright. Then he realized why: all the lights were out in Frankfort. The city was in total darkness.
NEAR CARUTHERSVILLE, MISSOURI
JANUARY 13
5:30 A.M.
MARSDEN GAVE THE FERRY AS MUCH POWER AS the engines offered. At such driving rpms, he worried about burning them up. The barge was a hundred yards off their port bow. Marsden tugged on the steering wheel. The ferry slowly responded, nosing away from the hulking shape that was riding low in the water and rapidly bearing down on them.
“We might just make this,” Marsden said.
Picking up speed slowly, the ferry was making plodding headway against the current.
Atkins turned to take another look at the approaching barge and saw a sudden burst of flames. Almost simultaneously, there was a strong explosion. Slammed to the deck, Atkins struggled to his feet. The ferry, engines open wide, was making a rapid turn as the current shoved it upstream. Large pieces of the barge, hurled far into the water, burned with a white intensity.
Elizabeth was on her knees, bent over Marsden.
“He’s unconscious,” she said. “He must have hit his head on the radio console.” Marsden had a deep gash just above his left eyebrow. Elizabeth pressed a handkerchief on the wound.
Atkins grabbed the steering wheel and tried to get the ferry back on course, headed downstream. It was no use. They’d swung around too far in the current and were facing upstream, toward the waterfall. The engines weren’t powerful enough to get them turned around again.
In a matter of minutes they were swept past the island and the ferry landing they’d left thirty minutes earlier. They were being pushed quickly upriver.
In the dim, gray light, Atkins could just start to make out the rough outline and dimensions of the waterfall. What he saw left him speechless.
The rim or edge curved toward the Missouri side of the river and appeared to be five or six hundred yards long. The water below was boiling. He saw clouds of foam rising up over the falls.
Atkins realized in amazement that he was gazing at the scarp of a fault that had pushed up from the depths and breached the Mississippi. That thought riveted his attention as much as the sight of the waterfall. He could also hear it now, a pounding roar. He thought again of a thrust fault and what it did beneath the earth, how the hanging wall moved sharply upward while the footwall dipped. Thrust faults were common in mountain chains, but exceedingly rare in this part of the country.
Elizabeth had managed to stop Marsden’s flow of blood. “I don’t believe I’m really seeing this,” she said, looking out the pilothouse window at the river. She was as moved as Atkins. The force of the cataclysm, seen up close, was beyond anything in her experience.
She pointed out how the height of the waterfall—they were still too far away to see it clearly—appeared to drop off sharply at both ends. On the side closest to the Missouri shore, the drop looked considerably lower. And the water below it was less turbulent.
Their only chance, Atkins thought, was to try to get close enough to the Missouri side so they could go over the falls at its lowest point. There was no way to avoid going over. But if they could maneuver to where the drop-off was minimal, they might be able to slide over without too much risk. At least such was his hastily formed plan.
; Atkins told her what he was going to try.
“How far is it?” she asked.
“A mile. Maybe a little more. Here we go.” He swung the wheel over and aimed for the shore. If he could keep the speed up and stay ahead of the current, he might be able to steer instead of being shoved along by the river.
Atkins kept heading toward a cluster of tall trees on the Missouri shore that he was using as a marker.
The sky was lighter. It was the hazy twilight before dawn. Atkins noticed how the quake had ripped long, gaping chunks out of the shoreline.
When they were four or five hundred yards from the falls, he got his first good look at it and almost froze up. It was the biggest thrust fault he’d ever seen, or ever read about. Far below the surface of the earth, there’d been a strong vertical displacement of the rock, driving one side of the fault upward, the hanging wall, while the other side, the footwall, dropped. The sharp upward movement had created the waterfall.
He thought it was forty feet high, maybe more.
“We’re coming up on it,” he shouted.
He kept the ferry angling toward the Missouri shore.
They were almost there. Another two hundred yards and they’d be right on top of it. Realizing they were going too fast, Atkins threw back the throttles and tried to straighten out the bow.
At the last moment, just as they were approaching the edge, he saw that the drop-off was at least ten feet. Better than forty, but still not a safe drop. They were going to take a hit.
“Here we go!” he yelled. “Hang on!”
The ferry nosed over and slammed down in the water in a tremendous burst of spray.
Afterward, he had only fragmented impressions: the stern up in the air, suspended. The jolting impact as the bow crashed down in the churning water. The way the ferry pitched dangerously on its side, almost capsizing. Mainly, Atkins remembered his shock when he looked down the length of that curving wall of water as it poured over the huge upthrust in the middle of the river.
But he had no time to do much more than glance at this spectacle—and at the wreckage of the towboat and barges that had gone over earlier and were capsized in the swirling water. He was fighting to control the steering wheel as the ferry rocked in the powerful eddies below the falls.
They made a complete circle, then another, the ferry pitching wildly, threatening to tip. Water crashed over the lower deck. Atkins worried they’d be sucked into the vortex of boiling water at the base of the waterfall. A great whirlpool had formed there at mid-river, where water pouring over the edge of the scarp collided with the downstream flow from the bridge. He threw the wheel hard to starboard and leaned on it until slowly, a few yards at a time it seemed, they were out of danger.
The Missouri shore was less than a hundred yards away. Atkins steered in that direction. Much of the shoreline around the ferry landing had collapsed. Only a few of the piers were still intact. There was no way to tie up there.
Elizabeth managed to rouse Marsden. “Where are we?” he asked, getting up groggily. “We’re hardly moving.” Then he saw the waterfall off to the right.
“We went over that?” he said, blinking his eyes.
“Can you get us into shore?” Atkins asked.
Marsden took the wheel and sized up the situation. A few minutes later he’d nosed the ferry into an overhanging section of riverbank that hadn’t collapsed. The current, even in that close, was exceptionally strong and he had to keep the engines running at full power to hold the bow into the shore so his deckhand could jump off and tie up to some trees. It took a few minutes before he had the bow and stern secured.
“Thanks for the ride,” Marsden said, smiling at Atkins. “Sorry I missed it.”
He followed them on unsteady legs down to the deck. The Explorer had come through the pounding with a four-foot dent along the passenger side, but it was essentially in good shape. Atkins was relieved when the engine started. He’d been worried about water getting under the hood and short-circuiting the electrical wiring.
The view of the waterfall from the pier was breathtaking. The roar of the water pouring over the edge made it hard to talk without shouting.
“Can we give you a lift somewhere?” Atkins asked.
Marsden shook his head. “I better stick with Agnes here,” he said, grinning. “I wouldn’t want something to happen to her.”
He disappeared for a few moments. When he returned, he carried a pump-action Remington shotgun, which he handed to Atkins. He also gave him several boxes of shells.
“No arguments,” he said. “You take this with you. Someone might want to try to take that Explorer. A good four-wheel-drive vehicle is gold at a time like this. I wouldn’t let it out of your sight.”
Atkins started to refuse, but Marsden almost shoved the shotgun into his chest. “It’s loaded. Just flick the safety off, pump it, and fire.” He gave Elizabeth a plastic trash bag filled with a few loaves of bread, some canned food, and soda.
Atkins laid the weapon on the back seat. “Good luck, then,” he said, smiling at Marsden.
“And to you, friend.”
Using an electric winch, Marsden lowered the off-ramp. They’d be able to drive right onto solid ground. The ferry was tied up at the edge of a muddy soybean field about half a mile from the highway.
OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY
OAK RIDGE, TENNESSEE
JANUARY 13
3:11 A.M.
FRED BOOKER WATCHED HOW THE STRONG WINDS blowing down from the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains affected the fires. Sheets of flame shot up whenever the wind stiffened. The earthquake had severed the gas lines, which were burning fiercely all over the Y-12 complex, probably ignited by sparks from fallen wires.
Electric cables and transmission wires were snapping all around him. Streams of white-red sparks were going off like rockets. Broken wires crackled on the ground.
Booker was alone. The two other men he’d been working with at the Shock Wave Lab had left the complex. Staying behind a line of fire trucks, he’d gotten as close as he could to Building D-4 at the western edge of the complex.
Dating from the Manhattan Project, D-4 had been used for end-stage enrichment of U-235 uranium. The biggest structure in the containment park, it was 640 feet long and 412 feet wide. Liquid mercury and the uranium and plutonium cores of mothballed nuclear weapons were stored there in special lead-lined bunkers. There was no danger of an explosion, but if they caught fire, the leaking radiation would be deadly.
It was definitely a hot zone. A firefighter’s nightmare.
The quake had knocked the hell out of D-4 and many of the other cavernous buildings that lined Carbon Avenue. A section of the front wall and roof had collapsed.
And to Booker’s amazement, the ground was still shaking.
This damn thing isn’t over, he realized.
Four fire engines had pulled to within fifty yards of D-4. Mechanical aerial ladders were spraying long, arcing jets of foam on the roof and walls.
“I want everyone evacuated within a one-mile perimeter of this building,” a fire captain said.
Booker recognized the man from the frequent safety meetings he’d attended before he retired. He was in charge of Y-12’s disaster response team. His name was Tim Duncan. Like the other firefighters who’d gathered around him, Duncan wore a white radiation suit. In his fifties, Duncan was a short, heavy-chested man with a walrus mustache. He looked stunned by the scope of the disaster and was trying his best not to show it.
“I’d feel a hell of a lot better if I could get a good layer of foam down on those mercury storage tanks,” Duncan said. He wasn’t about to send any men into the building, not with the ground still shaking and the risk of a mercury explosion or a radiation leak.
Booker stepped forward and showed his ID. Duncan recognized him. The physicist was still wearing his thin, antistat suit from the Shock Wave Lab. With all the adrenaline pumping, he wasn’t even aware of the biting cold.
“I
might be able to help you,” Booker said. “Send someone down to the robotics lab. Jeff Burke will probably still be there. Have him bring Neutron down here.”
Duncan looked puzzled.
“That’s one of the new robots they’ve been working on. If you need to check out the inside of D-4, it can get the job done. It might even be able to spray some foam.”
Twenty minutes later, a dark gray Dodge van pulled up behind the fire trucks. Jeff Burke got out, and Booker helped him lift the robot out of the back.
Neutron had none of R2D2’s cuteness. All business, it vaguely resembled a television-sized metal box equipped with a computer screen, viewfinder camera, and a high-intensity spotlight that could be electronically raised or lowered. Depending on the terrain, the robot used either wheels or tractor treads. Made of a titanium alloy, it was equipped with two six-foot mechanical arms that could easily lift two thousand pounds.
Its lightweight frame was attached to a Hawkin Directional Platform, which permitted it to swivel quickly and easily in a tight circle.
Neutron was still experimental, but Burke had worked out almost all of the bugs.
Duncan explained what he needed. He wanted the robot to spray as much fire-retardant foam as possible on the mercury and plutonium storage areas. Burke knew exactly where they were located in D-4. He’d direct Neutron’s movements by remote control and follow them on camera.
He used joysticks to operate Neutron’s arms and claw-like hands. Turning on the robot’s power supply, Burke had it pick up two of the big sixty-gallon foam canisters, which he and Duncan strapped to its back. The robot would operate the nozzles with its mechanical hands. The way the pincers gripped the equipment was eerily lifelike, Booker thought.
“Let’s do it,” Burke said.
Neutron rolled slowly to the front of the building, which resembled a ten-story warehouse. The front was made entirely of reinforced concrete painted a muddy red. With Burke working the controls, the robot tapped in a special code on the security lock, opening steel blast doors one-story tall. It then entered D-4, a powerful spotlight attached to the camera illuminating the way.