Out of Crisis

by Richard Caldwell

  “Cortana, expand the view on monitor two.” Roland’s computer responded to the voice control system. It expanded the view to include all of the remotely monitored seismic equipment in the northwest quadrant of the country. “OK, Cortana, zoom in . . . closer . . . closer.” He drilled down to the seismic equipment inside Yellowstone National Park. If his seismic computer model was as accurate as he predicted, the activity at Mounts Rainier and St. Helens caused by the CSZ movement could be a prelude to something in the Wyoming calderas: the Yellowstone supervolcano. And that could be bad. That could be really, really bad.

  The Yellowstone Caldera was a thirty-by-forty-mile crater created by a supervolcano eruption 640,000 years ago, give or take a few millennia. Although a significant eruption hadn’t occurred there in centuries, the area surrounding the caldera, and the entire Yellowstone Plateau, was home to nearly constant minor volcanic and earthquake activity. The area just south of US Route 191, which passed less than two miles from the caldera and north of Shoshone Lake, typically experienced over one thousand earthquakes annually. Most were small, less than a magnitude 3 on the Richter scale. However, occasionally the place went crazy. In 1985 over three thousand earthquakes were recorded in fewer than four months.

  It looked to Roland like this year could break that record. If things were as bad as he was beginning to suspect, the record might be broken this week. But it wasn’t just earthquakes that worried him; it was the volcanic activity they could cause. Even a series of minor quakes could have a cumulative effect. A long string could start things moving in the semielastic basalt magma intrusion zone. In the section of Yellowstone that he was studying, the intrusion zone was only about three miles beneath the earth’s crust.

  Only the Lord knew what a 5- or 6-scale tremor might do in a relatively fragile area. It would be far more than most people expected. The Richter scale was logarithmic, based on 10. A magnitude 4 was ten times as powerful as a magnitude 3.

  The volcanic explosivity index, or VEI, measured the amount of material ejected out of the volcano, how high that material was calculated to go, and how long eruptions were expected to last. Like the Richter scale, the VEI was logarithmic. Mount Vesuvius and Mount St. Helens were estimated to have a VEI of 5. The supervolcano sitting beneath the Yellowstone Caldera had an estimated VEI of 8. That potential made Yellowstone over one thousand times as powerful as the eruption that buried Pompeii under ten feet of ash and pumice in 79 AD.

  Contrary to popular belief and action movie depictions, it wasn’t lava that destroyed Pompeii and its neighbor Herculaneum; it was a rapid and pervasive accumulation of ash, pumice, and cinders that caused death and destruction. Things would be worse today, far worse, even in the sparsely populated Northwest. Aircraft would be unable to fly for months. Vehicle and emergency generator engines would choke on the air and grind to a stop. Rivers would be clogged, electrical grids would fail, and crops would wither and die for hundreds of miles around. And the effects on animal respiratory systems would be incalculable. Roland and numerous colleagues estimated that a full-scale eruption of the supervolcano could spread over three feet of ash within a radius extending three hundred miles from Yellowstone.

  Roland caught himself clicking his ballpoint pen again and put it down. He drummed his fingers, picked up the pen, and started clicking again.

  The ash and sulfur dioxide spewing into the atmosphere would slow global warming down for a few decades. Maybe it would even mitigate the self-inflicted wounds the climate change deniers were doing to themselves. But try as he might, Roland couldn’t put a positive spin on what he was imagining.

  Click, click. Roland dropped his pen and tore himself away from the drama unfolding on his row of computer monitors. He picked up his office phone and punched the intercom number for his supervisor and friend, Larry Ferguson. “Larry, I think the shit’s about to hit the fan in Yellowstone. Maybe Mount St. Helens and Rainier as well. The needles are jumping all along the San Andreas and the Cascadia, and now things are heading east.”

  “Please press one to continue in English, para continuar en Espanol pulse dos,” Larry answered in a faux computer voice.

  Ignoring Larry’s attempt at humor, Roland continued: “I’m going to take a road trip up to Yellowstone and see what our new ground-penetrating radar picks up around the caldera. I think there is a lot more going on than our seismic gear can show us, and it’s showing a helluva lot. Do you want to tag along? We can be there in less than six hours.”

  The line was silent for a second, then, “I might as well. It’s not like I have plans for tonight. Or a social life, for that matter.”

  “Great,” Roland said. “I’ll start packing the truck as soon as I hang up, then head home and crash for a couple of hours. How about I pick you up at your apartment at say oh five hundred tomorrow.”

  Larry groaned.

  “Oh, come on, Larry. I’ve been giving the situation a lot of thought. We should discuss a plan of action if things turn out to be as bad as I’m thinking they are, what we are going to recommend, and who we’re going to recommend it to. I know there’s a generic evacuation plan sitting on the shelf somewhere. Probably in your office. But the thing’s older than I am.”

  “OK, Roland, don’t get your panties in a wad just yet. While you’re packing up, I’ll see if I can find the evacuation plan and any other what-if documents we have stashed away. And an emergency recall roster for Wyoming.”

  “All right, Larry, I’ll see you at oh five hundred, but make that recall roster for the entire Northwest.”

  Roland hung up the phone and powered down his computers.

  6

  The Farm

  Two years before the day of

  David stepped through the veranda doors into a lobby reminiscent of grand old resort hotels like The Greenbrier or The Broadmoor. Although it wasn’t nearly as large, it was just as opulent. A faint aroma of apples and cinnamon permeated the air, giving it a homey feeling despite the majesty.

  “Restored to her original days of grandeur,” Milt noted as the others streamed behind them into the lobby.

  A long, burled-walnut reception desk with polished brass rails bordered one end of the room. Behind the counter were row after row of wooden mailboxes, each adorned with a hanging set of room keys. In the center of the room, a brightly colored Persian rug covered most of the gently worn, antique heart-of-pine floor. A brace of leather couches bracketed a long wooden coffee table, which perfectly matched the reception desk. The lobby quietly whispered wealth and luxury.

  Milt guided the group toward an adjoining dining room. “There are some new fixtures, but we tried to use the original, reconditioned furnishings where possible. The main building has one hundred and twenty guest rooms. Envision-2100 members are welcome here on a first-come, first-served basis as long as it isn’t reserved for special events. Like it is today.”

  Judson strode up beside David. “A local, semiretired couple, the Washingtons, oversee general activities. They seem to love it here, and we’re thrilled at the way they take care of the place. But most of all, we can’t get enough of Ms. Mattie’s cooking. You’ll see.” His eyes twinkled.

  Followed by the other board members, Milt and David entered the spacious dining room filled with several large, round tables for eight covered in spotless white linen. The table nearest the entrance had six place settings of silverware and crystal.

  A spry, elderly black couple hovered just past the door, near one end of a buffet line. The woman, who must’ve been knocking on seventy, wore a solid black dress and a starched knee-length red apron. Her salt-and-pepper hair was pulled up into an impossibly tight bun.

  The man, early to mid-seventies, about six feet tall, was fence-rail thin and stood just as straight. He had close-cropped grayish-white hair and sported a meticulously groomed beard. His dazzling-white, long-sleeved shirt was tucked neatly into black slacks. But it was hi
s shoes that caught David’s eye. Black cap-toe lace-ups whose spit shine gleamed like silver.

  Milt steered David toward the couple. “David, I want you to meet Mr. and Mrs. Washington. They’re the folks who run this place.”

  “You just call me Mattie, Mr. Secretary; everybody else do. It’s an honor to meet you in person. You’re the third secretary of state that I’ve met. Ms. Rice and Mrs. Clinton are both brilliant ladies, regardless of how you feel about their politics. From what I hear, you didn’t get skipped when they passed out the brains either, and if you don’t mind my saying so, you are by far the best looking of the three.” She took the arm of the man standing beside her. “Mr. Secretary, this is my husband, Lucas.”

  Lucas thrust his hand out to David. “Watch out, Mr. Secretary. Mattie will talk your head clean off your shoulders if you give her a chance, especially if you get her started on politics or the blues.”

  David chuckled. “Well, Mattie, I’m a big Stevie Ray Vaughn fan myself. And I try to avoid political discussions. I get more than enough of that stuff at work.”

  Mattie moved to the end of the table and started removing the lids from the steaming food warmers. She waved the group forward. “Lunch is ready, Mr. Secretary, and since you are our guest, you have the honor of going first.”

  David scanned the buffet line. The warmers contained meatloaf, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans. There was also a medium-sized glass bowl filled with a tossed salad. At the end of the buffet sat a colossal coconut cake‍—David’s favorite dessert. Somehow he knew that wasn’t by accident. These folks did have a phenomenal inside track.

  As David filled his plate, Milt leaned toward him. “Everything’s fresh here. No canned or prepackaged food at all. Mattie wouldn’t stand for it.”

  After everyone was seated, Lucas offered iced tea from a crystal pitcher dripping with condensation. Once everyone had their drinks, he placed another full pitcher on the table. He and Mattie quietly left the room, closing the doors behind them.

  David politely waited for one of his hosts to start eating, even though looking at his plate made his stomach rumble. He didn’t have to wait long. Elton and Melissa dove in.

  Milt speared a bunch of green beans. “As I mentioned, David, I’ve been ‘volunteered’ to facilitate our discussion this afternoon. Judson tells me that you know at least a little bit about Envision-2100.” Milt shoved the beans in his mouth.

  David dabbed his mouth with his napkin. “I know what I’ve heard on the news and social media, although I have zero confidence in the validity of the sources. I did a Google search after talking to Judson last week. However, I didn’t have the time to go much further than the Wikipedia page. So, basically, I don’t know what I don’t know.”

  Milt and everyone else at the table smiled at David’s candid assessment. Then Elton interjected, “Why don’t you give him the CliffNotes version of our background, Milt. That way, we’ll all know what he knows, so we can call bullshit on any media slants he might have heard.”

  “Thank you for cutting straight to the chase, Elton,” Milt shot back. “I’ll do just that, and I’ll start with Genesis.

  “Way back in 2010, Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates convinced a group of billionaires to sign what came to be known as the Giving Pledge. Initially, this was a promise made by each signatory to give away at least half of his or her wealth to some charitable cause. Judson, Nelson, Elton, and several others who are now part of Envision-2100 were early adopters of this movement.

  “However, at some point, a core group became somewhat disillusioned at the overall lack of direction and structure they were seeing, or instead weren’t seeing. ‘Disillusioned’ may not be the best word to describe how they felt, but hey, I’m the one leading this discussion.”

  “Disenchanted, disillusioned, cynical—choose your adjective,” Judson interjected. “We all know what you mean; no use trying to church it up. Buffett’s Bunch—my term—had admirable intentions. But in my opinion, they were just throwing money left and right. Everyone had his own cause or charity, which is fine, but there weren’t any clearly defined objectives, no end goals.”

  Nelson pointed a fried chicken leg at David. “As Zig Ziglar was fond of saying, ‘If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.’”

  Milt wolfed down a massive bite of meatloaf, then continued: “Everyone was acutely aware of suffering and poverty around the globe. But eventually they concluded it would be best to think globally and act locally.

  “Ever since the end of the Civil War, the United States has been far and away the most generous country in the world. We follow every disaster, every famine, every political upheaval. The Lord knows we have a damn-long list of problems ourselves, and our intentions and methods are sometimes suspect at best. But at least for the time being, we are the country that the rest of the planet looks to when the crap hits the fan.

  “China is trying to change its image, but they have a lot of catching up to do. And the previous administration would have totally fucked things up if they had survived for a second term, but we’ve almost recovered from that four-year fiasco. So, Judson decided it was time to drop back and punt, to use one of Nelson’s football analogies.”

  Nelson looked up from his plate. “Well, Milt, you Atlantic Conference boys know a lot about punting. Let me know when your story gets around to actually running the ball.”

  Everyone at the table, including Milt, chuckled, impressing David with their camaraderie and the respect the group seemed to share for one another.

  Milt swallowed another bite of his mashed potatoes before continuing. “Judson got a sense that some folks in the Buffett-Gates entourage shared his ‘focused charity’ sentiment, so he pulled a group together for a discussion dinner at his estate in Oregon.” He chuckled. “You might see a ‘meet while you eat’ theme here. And speaking of theme, when I say he pulled a group together, I mean he had his private jet shuttle them in from all over the country.

  “This core group, which included Nelson and Elton, met virtually nonstop over a three-day weekend, with discussions fueled by cases of Napa’s finest and more than a few bottles of fifteen-year-old single malt. I wasn’t there, but it’s my understanding that there was no shortage of spirited debate. Close enough, Judson?”

  Judson pointed at Milt. “That’s a fair assessment, Milt. We were pretty much saying the same thing but just saying it a little differently. In the end, our consensus was uncannily close to each individual’s opinion.”

  “And that consensus,” Milt continued, “was that, as a whole, the world is a pretty fucked-up place. Regardless of any group’s best intentions, the reality is that you can’t make a global impact using a helter-skelter, scattergun approach. It will require a well-thought-out strategy, a laser-focused plan designed for methodical execution. And Buffett’s Bunch weren’t inclined to take that approach.

  “So, out of that initial meeting at Judson’s—which some of us refer to as the Weekend at Bernie’s, if you remember that old comedy‍—the core Envision-2100 group was formed. They concurred on several points that would eventually come to serve as the springboard of our platform.”

  “Are you going to share those points, Milt?” Melissa asked, eyes twinkling.

  Milt grinned. “You already know the answer to that. The first point was complete agreement that leadership by the United States would be the best, perhaps the only way, to make a lasting global impact. The second point was that although the US Constitution was the most perfectly conceived document ever developed, the government it formed had failed to allow it to evolve as it was designed to do. As a result, instead of being self-perpetuating, it had, over the years, become self-corrupting.

  “Beyond these two primary areas of consensus, everyone had personal ideas of what was needed, and on the path necessary to accomplish it. That’s when Elton suggested that they should formali
ze their objectives for the next century and lay out the milestones required to reach them. Thus, the name Envision-2100. The name stuck and eventually became the rallying cry for the group.”

  “It’s certainly appropriate,” David said. “And it’s catchy.”

  “Glad you like it,” Elton said.

  “At Elton’s suggestion,” Milt continued, “it was decided to commission a team to formally and objectively evaluate the state of the state. In other words, they wanted to develop a written analysis detailing the good, the bad, and the ugly of the US government, what was working and what needed to be fixed or replaced. The group empowered Judson, Nelson, and Elton to assemble a diverse panel of experts to prepare a document that they could agree to use as the cornerstone for Envision-2100’s moral and philosophic compass and which would serve as Envision-2100’s not-too-far-in-the-future political platform. More on that shortly.”

  Milt swept his hand toward Nelson. “Nelson spearheaded this effort and assembled an eclectic group of subject matter specialists to consolidate the core group’s philosophies, access regional, national, and global issues, and then hammer them into a strategic plan that will be the focus of Envision-2100’s energies and resources. The team included a physician, educators, retired military and law enforcement officers, social workers, civil rights activists, and representatives from various STEM disciplines‍—science, technology, engineering, and math.”

  As Milt paused to drink from a crystal glass of iced tea, David dabbed his lips with his napkin and wiped his fingers, then spread the linen back over his lap. Although he still had no idea why the board had invited him to this meeting, the group’s positioning and dynamics drew him in.

  Milt continued: “I served as the government, legal, and constitution expert and carried the flag for environmental causes. Nelson challenged the group to formalize its assessment and have the first draft of their plan ready for the core group’s review in six months. Nelson’s deadline posed a monumental challenge, but the exceptionally well-compensated and, I might add, highly motivated task force jumped on the task like a duck on a June bug.”