The Tsunami Countdown

by Boyd Morrison

  She closed the phone and began calling out Mia’s and Lani’s names again, angling up to Kalakaua Avenue so that she would have both the shops on the streets and the beach in view. She had only gotten a block when she saw a clothing store called Sweet that looked like it catered to teens. She entered the store and looked toward the back. She yelled the girls’ names in a manner that would have raised eyebrows on any other occasion.

  Televisions mounted along the walls normally showed music videos in a store as hip as this, but they were now all turned to various news stations. Most displayed the tsunami emergency broadcast warning. Others were tuned to national news networks that didn’t carry the signal.

  A young saleswoman who had been entranced by the broadcast whipped around when she heard Teresa call for the girls.

  “Ma’am,’ she said, smacking gum as she talked, “we’re closing for the evacuation.”

  Teresa took a photo of Mia from her wallet. It was a year old, but it was good enough.

  “Have you seen this girl?”

  The saleswoman looked at it and shook her head.

  “She probably took off. I’m leaving in a minute myself. Can you believe what they’re saying?”

  “I don’t live here, so this all new for me.” Teresa headed for the door to continue her search.

  “Yeah, but two hundred feet high? It’s scary.”

  That stopped Teresa in her tracks.

  “Two hundred feet?” she said. “What are you talking about?”

  “That’s how big they’re saying the tsunami is going to be. It’s got to be some kind of hoax, right?”

  Teresa thought about what Brad had said. “Oh my God! When he said it was going to be huge, I thought—”

  “What’s that?” The saleswoman pointed at one of the TVs.

  On one of the national feeds, the view had changed to a camera in a helicopter. It focused on the rocky black coastline. Two people could be seen waving to the camera from a cliff top high above the waves breaking on the rocks below. A graphic at the bottom of the picture said KA LAE, HAWAII, SOUTHERNMOST POINT IN THE US, LIVE.

  “Turn it up,” Teresa said.

  The woman aimed the remote at the TV, and they could hear the announcer’s voice.

  “… should not attempt what you see these people doing. Again, we are looking at a helicopter camera shot of the southern tip of the Big Island of Hawaii, the first place where we are expecting the tsunami to make landfall. Our exclusive coverage comes courtesy of KHAI, whose helicopter was over the volcano at Kilauea for another story today. Apparently, two intrepid hikers have decided they wanted to be the first to see the tsunami and have chosen a cliff-side vantage point. They appear to be at least fifty feet above the water, so we’ll have to hope they’ll be okay. They have not responded to repeated requests to leave the area.”

  The camera panned away from the hikers and to the sea. Nothing unusual was visible, but the announcer’s mood changed noticeably.

  “What’s that? I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but we are having some technical difficulties getting audio from the helicopter. We do have reports coming in that several airliners over the Pacific have reported seeing waves moving across the water in the direction of Hawaii at an incredibly high rate of speed, but none of those reports have been confirmed at this point.”

  The camera panned back down to the cliff. The announcer continued his inane narration but didn’t add anything beyond what they could see. The waterline had pulled back significantly from just a few seconds ago. The view shifted back out to the ocean again, and now they could see the first glimpse of white water far out to sea. It seemed to be moving slowly, but in just a few seconds it had moved much closer to shore. The camera continued to follow it, but Teresa couldn’t get a good sense of the size of the wave because there was no frame of reference.

  Finally, the camera had panned far enough as it followed the wave so that the shore was in view, but without houses or other buildings for comparison, it still looked unimpressive. The two people on the cliff’s edge must have thought so, too, since they didn’t move.

  But when the wave broke against the rocks, Teresa realized that they weren’t going to make it. She expected the wave to bounce against the rocks and reflect back into the ocean. Instead, it simply covered the rocks and continued to sweep up the cliff. Too late, the hikers realized the size of the wave and turned to run. Before they could get more than a few steps, the wave washed over them, and they disappeared as if they were ants being washed down a drain.

  Teresa gasped, and the saleswoman started to cough uncontrollably.

  “Are you all right?” Teresa asked.

  “Swallowed … my … gum,” the saleswoman said between coughs.

  Teresa ran out of the store, leaving the saleswoman to fumble with her keys, intent on locking the door to a store that would soon no longer exist.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  10:41 a.m.

  41 Minutes to Wave Arrival Time

  The established procedure of the tsunami warning system included notifying the Civil Air Patrol, an auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force that flew search-and-rescue missions and other operations that the military and government didn’t have the resources to do on their own. In the event of a tsunami warning, their duty was simple. Offshore and in remote locations, it was likely that surfers and boaters would not hear the sirens. Helicopters and planes that were equipped with loudspeakers would fly over the coastlines, broadcasting the warning. Each aircraft was responsible for a particular section of the coastline.

  During past tsunami warnings, the CAP had met with moderate success. In many cases, the surfers would heed the warnings and paddle in to shore. But there were plenty of others who just waved at the aircraft, obviously enjoying the chance to say they had surfed a tsunami.

  One of the CAP volunteers, an eager nineteen-yearold pilot named Matthew Perkins, flew a Cessna outfitted with a loudspeaker that he had installed himself. Although he had tested it extensively on the ground at Hickam, he hadn’t had an opportunity to drill with it yet. The tsunami warning would be his first chance to try it in action.

  He had made all the required preflight checks and then took off from the runway that Hickam Air Base shared with Honolulu International. It only took him a few minutes to get to his designated patrol area along Waikiki Beach.

  Off the coast of Diamond Head, Lani and Mia continued paddling alongside their two new friends. The view from this far out was spectacular. Lani was having a great time, but Mia was struggling.

  After having paddled all the way to Sans Souci Beach, Mia had gotten tired and asked the rest of them if they could turn back. Although Lani was getting sore, she could have gone on awhile longer and was disappointed Mia had given up so soon.

  The breeze had picked up, and the previously calm water now rocked their kayaks on undulating waves. At the rate they were paddling, their tired arms would take another half hour at least to get them back to their starting point on Waikiki.

  Lani was surprised to see all kinds of aircraft buzzing around. Tourist, news, and military helicopters were everywhere—way more than usual.

  Then she heard a small plane approach. It was flying parallel to the beach, almost as if it were coming in for a landing, but the runway was miles away.

  “What is that guy doing?” Tom said.

  “I don’t know,” Jake said.

  “Is he going to crash?” Mia asked.

  “No, look,” Lani said, “he’s just flying straight and level.”

  “Then what’s he doing?”

  As it got closer, Lani could hear words cutting in and out. She couldn’t understand what was being said. In between the words, there was nothing but static.

  “It’s probably just some kind of advertisement,” Tom said.

  “Yeah,” Jake said, “but the doofus’s speaker is broken or something.”

  Lani heard a word more distinctly.

  “Did he say onami?” she said.

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nbsp; “See,” Tom said. “It’s probably Konami. That’s a video game company. It’s an ad.”

  “Well, it’s not working,” Jake said.

  The plane passed over them two more times, but they ignored the annoying whine of the engine and kept paddling lazily back to Waikiki.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  10:43 a.m.

  39 Minutes to Wave Arrival Time

  As Reggie analyzed the data from the DART buoy, Kai had been keeping an eye on the evacuation via one of the cable channels and was horrified by what he had seen. On most channels, the Emergency Alert System broadcast was being repeated over and over. In the last few minutes a new warning from the governor had been broadcast, perhaps to give the warning more weight, but the content wasn’t significantly changed from the one Brian Renfro had so powerfully relayed. There was still no mention of a meteor impact, and that may have been one reason that so many people were either ignoring the warning or were confused about what to do.

  About ten minutes before, Kai had begun watching the TV more closely because he wanted to see how the evacuation was progressing. He tuned to the national MSNBC feed, which didn’t broadcast the EAS warning because their main audience was the continental United States. The network relayed the feed from one of their affiliate’s local Honolulu camera crews.

  A reporter standing on Waikiki Beach motioned to the scene behind him. Some people ran in panic. Packed with cars, the road along the beach moved so slowly that the vehicles were almost idling. Many more cars could be seen trying to merge into the traffic from the garages of hotels lining the strip. Police attempted to direct the traffic at several of the intersections, but the sheer volume made it virtually impossible for the vehicles to make headway.

  Still other people strolled along the beach completely unperturbed by the evacuation. The reporter, his close-cropped hair rigidly resisting the wind swaying the trees behind him, stopped an obese man in swim trunks and a towel slung over his shoulder.

  “Sir,” the reporter said, “you don’t seem particularly concerned by the tsunami warning. Can I ask why?”

  The man shook his head dismissively. “It seems like we get these warnings once a year. I just wait until about fifteen minutes before the wave is supposed to get here, and then I head back to my condo.”

  “Your condo?”

  “Yeah, it’s right over there,” the obese man said, pointing at a white building behind him. “Eight stories up with a great view of the beach, so I just watch from there. Usually there isn’t much to see, but hey, maybe today will be different.”

  “You sound like you consider it entertainment.”

  “Well, it’d be pretty amazing to see a real tsunami, don’t you think? But I’m sure this is another false alarm.”

  “Are you aware that the warning now says the wave could be two hundred feet high?”

  “That’s just crazy. What are the chances of that?”

  The man continued his walk, leaving the reporter to head over to a Lexus SUV, one of the cars making tortured progress along Kalakaua Avenue. In the background, along with a few individuals running in terror, crowds of people could be seen walking leisurely along the street, as if they were being herded in a particular direction by some unseen guide. Kai found the scene infuriating, but he knew it was typical behavior in an evacuation.

  The Lexus owner, a deeply tanned man in a tank top and a hideous comb-over, had his window down. His eyes kept darting in the direction of the ocean as he talked. At first, Kai thought he was concerned that the tsunami might come in while he was still in his car.

  “Sir,” the reporter said, “do you think the traffic will let you get to a safe location in time?”

  “Oh, I’ll be safe,” the driver said, his eyes continuing to flick away from the camera. “I’m heading down to the Ala Wai marina to get my sailboat. I don’t want to see it get sunk because of some stupid tsunami.”

  “Are you planning to tow it back home?”

  “No, I don’t have a trailer. I’m going to take it out to sea. I gotta protect my property.”

  “What about your car?”

  “My car?” It looked like the first time the guy had considered what would happen to his car.

  “Yes, you’ll have to leave it at the marina, right?”

  “Dammit!” he yelled, pounding on the steering wheel. “I knew I should have brought my son with me.”

  The camera pulled back to the reporter, but Kai had seen enough. He turned to Reggie.

  “These people aren’t getting it. We need to do something.”

  “Like what? The inundation maps we have are worthless. Even if we could develop new ones in the next few minutes, we don’t have enough time to distribute them. Besides, we don’t even know for sure how large the biggest wave will be.”

  Kai sighed at the futility of the situation. The published inundation maps and evacuation signs were now woefully inadequate. They would lead the evacuees to supposedly safe locations that would be wiped out by the first seventy-five-foot tsunami. Kai didn’t want to think about what would happen when those areas were hit by a two-hundred-foot monster.

  And it looked as if some people weren’t following even the established instructions, let alone the new warning telling them that the current inundation maps were useless. They didn’t understand the severity of the situation, and unless Kai did something fast, many of those people would be killed.

  Brad, who had been manning the phones, came back into the operations room. When he told Kai about his conversation with Teresa, Kai felt the blood drain from his face. His daughter was somewhere out there, and he had no idea whether she was safe or not. That was when the personal nature of the upcoming disaster fully hit him.

  “Isn’t there something we can do to help her?” Brad said. “Call the police to find her?”

  “Are you kidding?” Reggie said. “Half the people on the island are probably calling the police right now.”

  “Well, we’ve got to do something! What about the governor? She said we should call if she could do anything for us.”

  “Oh, that’ll look great,” Reggie said, “using our connections for personal reasons while the rest of the people fend for themselves!”

  Brad raced over to Reggie, who had a good four inches and a hundred pounds on Brad, and got within an inch of his face. “I don’t give a shit how it looks! That’s my niece!”

  A snarl twisted Reggie’s face, and Kai pushed himself between them before it got ugly.

  “Hey! Hey!” he said, pulling Brad back. “Ease up! I know it’s tense in here, but let’s just bring it down.”

  Brad’s idea was tempting, but even if Kai called the police or the governor, what could he tell them? That the girls were somewhere on Waikiki—maybe? Kai didn’t even know that for sure.

  “We’re not calling them,” he said. “The police are already doing what they should be doing. They have a duty, just like I do.”

  All Kai could do was hope that Teresa would find them in time or that they would call to tell him they were in a safe place, if they knew what that was.

  Reggie went back to the computer. Kai escorted Brad to the other side of the room so he could cool off for a minute.

  “Brad,” he said, “I want to thank you for everything you’re doing today.”

  “Lucky for you, I was free today. And I don’t have to warn my employees. They have the day off.”

  Kai realized what he meant. Hopkins Realty had its corporate offices across from the Ala Moana shopping center, which was located only a few hundred feet from the beach in Waikiki. Outwardly, Brad might have seemed blasé about the business, but Kai knew it meant a lot to him to run the company his father had started.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about Hopkins Realty until you said that.”

  Brad shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

  “But the office. The files …” Kai said.

  Brad smiled. “Believe it or not, my insurance covers tsunamis.”


  Kai stared at Brad in disbelief. Most insurance policies didn’t cover tsunamis unless you specifically purchased an expensive rider. They were more popular now, especially after the Asian tsunami, but still pretty uncommon.

  “Hey,” Brad said, “my big brother is the assistant director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. I had to get it.”

  Kai smiled at that. At least there was one thing he could feel good about.

  “The phones have been ringing nonstop,” Brad said, looking at notes he had written. “We’ve gotten calls from everyone. New York Times, CNN, Fox, ABC, NBC. CBS even has a crew out by the front gate. I told them they couldn’t come in—”

  “You mean they’re here?”

  “They were filming some story over in Ewa and got over here as soon as the warning went out. They’ve been trying to get in to interview you. I told them you were too busy.”

  “All the data analysis in the world won’t help if people don’t understand what’s going on. What do you think, Reggie?”

  Reggie grudgingly nodded. “Why not? It might be better than a phone interview.”

  “We’ll show them the video from Johnston Island. Maybe that will convince some people to move faster. Brad, open the gate and tell them that only the reporter and the cameraman can come into the building. Anyone else will have to wait outside. I don’t want a mass of people in here.”

  In two minutes Brad ushered in a slender Asian woman in a blue blazer, followed by a bearded cameraman wearing jeans and a Detroit Tigers baseball cap.

  “Dr. Tanaka, I’m Lara Pimalo,” the reporter said, shaking Kai’s hand firmly. She nodded toward the cameraman. “This is Roger Ames. Thank you for meeting with us. I know you must be extremely busy.”

  “We are,” Kai said. He held up a finger. “My one condition on you being here: if I ask you to stop filming, you’ll do so immediately. Okay?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “Good. The reason I’m letting you in here is because the evacuation is going poorly. We need to motivate more people to leave. Quickly. I believe I have something here that will help.”