Cascadia

by H W Buzz Bernard

“Your idea isn’t bad,” he’d said softly, “but, if I’m right,”—and he knew he’d never be sure if he was or wasn’t until it was too late—“there’s not enough time left for the ‘decision makers,’ as you call them, to act. Bureaucracies, while they may mean well, function in environments filled with sludge and molasses wrapped in red duct tape. I need to launch a rocket.”

  Deb had glared at him, yanked her hand from his, and stalked from the room.

  Now he surveyed the people filing into the community center and noted Deborah’s absence. He also noted, save for a small station from Coos Bay, there were no TV cameras present. Nor did there seem to be any representation from the large daily newspapers in the state such as The Oregonian or Register-Guard.

  A reporter he knew from the Daily Astorian had seated herself in the front row, but the only other news hounds in the room seemed to be from the small weekly and biweekly presses that dotted the coast. Obviously, the short lead time for the conference had not allowed the bigger media outlets, such as those in Seattle and Portland, to dispatch correspondents. Or maybe they just weren’t interested. Rob knew their thinking could well have run along the lines of It’s just another whacko announcing the End Times.

  The vast majority of attendees appeared to be emergency managers, police, and municipal officials, mainly from towns along the North Coast. They included the city manager of Manzanita, a beer-bellied, aging autocrat who crashed down in a chair and glowered at Rob.

  Pete Cameron, the Coastal Threats Expert, entered the room, gave Rob a quizzical what-the-fuck look, and seated himself next to the newspaperwoman from Astoria. They apparently knew each other. The lady took out an iPad and began taking notes as Pete whispered to her.

  As Rob continued to wait for the conference to begin, the woman named Cassie, whom he and his son had met in the Ghost Forest several months ago, slipped into the community center. She stood against a rear wall and nodded almost imperceptibly at Rob.

  The room appeared about three-quarters full as Lewis stood to introduce Rob. He concluded his introduction with a plea. “I ask that you listen to Dr. Elwood with an open mind. What he’s about to tell you is in no way to be construed as a warning with a scientific basis. Absolutely not.” Lewis paused, and allowed the words to hover over the audience.

  After a moment, he continued. “What he’s going to present, as you will hear, is something that borders on being . . . well, metaphysical, and not based on hard science. But, we, he and I, after long consideration, decided it was important enough to shine a public spotlight on. If you’ll listen carefully and objectively, I believe you’ll understand the doctor’s concerns, and mine, and thus be able to report or act on them as you see fit. Each of you will have to weigh the pros and cons of action or inaction.”

  Pete Cameron, the Threats Expert, stood. “If Dr. Elwood’s concerns are not based on science, then isn’t this press conference an exercise in futility? How can you expect anyone to develop a responsible initiative to something that’s apparently been stirred up with ‘eye of newt and toe of frog’?”

  Rob glared at Pete, a little fireplug of a man who seemed constantly in motion, perhaps burning off nervous energy. He’d counted on Pete, with whom he had a casual, professionally based friendship, as an ally. After all, they both harbored apprehensions about the same thing: coastal preparedness for earthquakes and tsunamis. But now? Here I am, taxiing for takeoff and I’ve already got engine trouble.

  Lewis took a step toward Pete and went on the offensive. “Thanks for keeping an open mind, Dr. Cameron.” The phrase, wrapped in sarcasm, came out like a lance hurled by a white knight. “I’m sure others here are impressed with your professional credentials and reverence for science. Perhaps your concerns will turn out to have merit, but I respectfully request you curb your acerbic prejudgment and allow Dr. Elwood a fair hearing.”

  Although Lewis towered over Pete like a gangly scarecrow, Pete held his ground. “I don’t think—”

  Lewis interrupted. “Maybe that’s the problem, sir.”

  To the accompaniment of scattered snickers and muffled laughs, Pete sat and didn’t attempt another retort. But the look on his face told Rob that Lewis’s jibe had scored a hit and that he wouldn’t be getting any support from Pete.

  Rob walked to the podium and began his presentation. As he talked, rehashing and condensing what he and Lewis had discussed the previous day, he watched the facial expressions of those in the audience. He realized then, Deborah had been right. They weren’t getting it. They obviously understood his fear regarding the immanency of a catastrophic event, but they weren’t buying into the genesis of his apprehensiveness.

  He finished his explanation in about twenty-five minutes and then, with growing trepidation, asked for questions.

  Pete Cameron went first. “With all due respect, Dr. Elwood, and I’ve known and respected you for quite some time, what you’ve presented isn’t even pseudoscience, it’s witchcraft. There isn’t one iota of evidence, physical or statistical, that Cascadia is more likely to rupture on the Fourth of July than on any other date.”

  Rob returned fire. “That’s my point, Pete. But maybe you were too busy formulating your own prejudged negative response to catch it. I said, pay attention now, there is no scientific way to predict earthquakes. So maybe we have to look at other options when it comes to divining the future in the discipline of seismology. Maybe we shouldn’t be afraid of dipping our toe into the waters of the metaphysical.”

  “Dipping our toe?” Pete snapped. “Pardon my French, but bullshit. You just dove in headfirst and buck naked.”

  A few chuckles floated through the room.

  Rob rolled his eyes. “Maybe so. But to follow up on your metaphor, it was a plunge I felt I had to take. The consequences, if I didn’t speak out and a full-rip nine hit followed by a forty-foot surge, seemed more than I could accept.”

  Pete began pacing back and forth in front of the first row of chairs. “God, you just don’t get it, do you? You just don’t understand the irreparable harm you’ll do when your forecast—”

  “It’s not a forecast.”

  “Okay, okay. It’s not a forecast, it’s a scenario. Does that satisfy your silly semantics?”

  Rob nodded and smiled. At the same time, he pictured dragging Pete behind a commercial trawler through Tillamook Bay.

  “All right,” Pete continued, smirking. “Do you understand the immense damage you’ll do when your scenario busts? Not only to your reputation and career, but to all the work that’s been done in attempting to educate the public regarding earthquake and tsunami preparedness?

  “When the holiday comes and goes and there is no disaster, the response of anyone who bought into your scenario”—the word came out the vocal equivalent of a sneer—“will be, ‘These guys are smoking dope. Why should we ever listen to them again?’”

  Rob didn’t believe that necessarily would be the case, but he had no evidence it wouldn’t. “You’re presupposing failure,” he countered. A weak response. The image of Pete and Tillamook Bay returned. He wondered how long a guy would survive being keelhauled by a fishing boat.

  “Of course I am.” Pete pivoted to face the assemblage. “I don’t want anyone in this room to think I’m endorsing Dr. Elwood’s vision. I’m not. Maybe he’s not a charlatan, or maybe he is, I don’t know, but he is grievously misguided, and I don’t want him misguiding you.” He spread both arms in front of him like a preacher blessing a congregation.

  An emergency manager whom Rob recognized from an adjacent county stood and addressed a question to Pete. “Is there any way to supplement Dr. Elwood’s vision with real science? I mean, I’ve heard that an earthquake prediction system is in the works.”

  “There is no proven method of predicting when and where an earthquake will strike,” Pete answered. He seemed to relish taking over the stage from R
ob. “What you may have heard about is an early warning system that’s being tested by the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network. Understand it doesn’t predict quakes, it only triggers a warning after one is detected.

  “The system is not operational, and even if and when it is, which is probably a year or two down the road, it would provide alerts with only small lead times.”

  “How small?” someone in back asked.

  “Worst case for Cascadia, maybe thirty seconds. Best case, up to four minutes.”

  A murmur of disappointment rippled through the community center.

  An elderly man seated near the edge of the crowd stood. “Hold on here. I’ve lived on the North Coast most of my life. We’ve had tsunami warnings before and they always were put out in plenty of time, like hours ahead of the wave, not that they ever amounted to much. I don’t get it. What’s so different now?”

  “The difference,” Rob said, “is that the tsunamis we’ve experienced in the recent past, your lifetime, were distant tsunamis, caused by megaquakes hundreds or even thousands of miles from the Oregon coast. Places such as Alaska or Japan. The fact they were so far from us gave us adequate time to issue warnings. Also, by the time the tsunamis arrived here, they were always significantly diminished with the water rises amounting to only a few feet.

  “If Cascadia ruptures, that happens right here.” He tapped the floor firmly with his foot. “It won’t occur hundreds of miles from here. The time between the quake and arrival of the tsunami will be a matter of minutes, not hours. And it won’t be diminished. We’re talking forty feet, maybe fifty, not four or five.”

  The reaction from the attendees seemed subdued, which didn’t surprise Rob. Most of them were in the emergency preparedness business and already knew the difference between distant and local tsunamis.

  “Dr. Elwood,” a woman in the audience said, “how certain are you that the event you described, what some people have called ‘The Big One,’ is really going to happen?”

  “Absolutely positive.” He waited a beat, then added, “But that’s not the question you meant to ask. Scientists know that destructive quakes and tsunamis have hit here repeatedly over the centuries, and that they will again. We just aren’t sure when.”

  “But you claim to know,” someone shouted, his words accusatory and wrapped in cynicism.

  “No, I don’t know. I strongly suspect, however, and I’ve tried to illuminate as clearly as I could my reasons for that suspicion. Look, I’m not a hundred percent sure, or even eighty percent. Believe me, I’ve got my doubts, too. Remember, I’m a scientist, not a mystic. Let me repeat, for all the arguments I laid out earlier, I felt compelled to make my concerns public, and then let the public decide what actions, if any, should be taken.”

  “That’s a cop-out, sir,” a burly emergency manager from Seaside growled. “We’re not the experts here, you are. The trouble is, we’re not hearing a geologist, we’re hearing a witch doctor.”

  And so it went for more than forty-five minutes: legitimate questions, vitriolic attacks, and scattered expressions of support. Overall, the audience seemed evenly split among believers, skeptics, and outright doubters. Rob figured that’s about as good as he could have expected.

  Pete accosted him after the session ended. The newspaperwoman from Astoria accompanied him.

  “Jesus, Rob,” he questioned, “how could you pull a stunt like this?” He shook his head in an obvious sign of disapproval and disgust. “You’ve really stepped on your flopper big time with this one.”

  The female reporter arched her eyebrows and blinked, then turned a pale shade of red.

  “Better make that ‘stepped on your poncho’ for print purposes,” Rob suggested.

  Lewis injected himself into the conversation, approaching Pete. “You don’t even want to give him a chance?” He words carried a veneer of venom.

  “He would have been more credible if he’d used a Ouija board for his presentation.” Pete rocked back and forth, like a toy metronome, from his left foot to his right. “Let me warn you, doctor, when I’m asked by the media what I thought of this little dog and pony show, I’ll have a one-word response—crap.” He wheeled and stalked away, followed by the reporter.

  Cassie had worked her way from the back of the room to the podium and now stood in front of Rob.

  “Hi,” she said, “I’m Cassie. Remember me? We met a few months—”

  “Of course, I remember.” They shook hands. “I remember something else, too. That you warned me of the fates a few of the Old Testament prophets, ‘oracles of doom’ I think you termed them, met. If I had to guess, I’d say I’m about to rediscover their demises, at least figuratively.”

  She smiled, an expression that seemed both understanding and, ironically, sad. “Yes. Not only that, but you seem to have stumbled into the ‘prophet in his own land’ syndrome, too. In Manzanita, you see,”—she swept her arm around the room—“you’re just one of the gang who went a little whacko.”

  Rob expelled a long breath, allowing his shoulders to sag. “You sound almost as if you’ve been down this road yourself.”

  “It’s a long, hazardous path,” she said softly. “The trouble is, even if you’re certain you’re right, few if any listeners believe you.”

  He studied her for a moment, then blurted out a question that had formed in his mind, but that he hadn’t meant to articulate. “Who are you?”

  “Just someone who’s interested in ancient cultures.” She turned to leave. “I’ll be around for a few more weeks. We’ll probably see each other again.”

  She slipped from the room, almost as if she were a fairy tale character, ephemeral yet eternal.

  Chapter Ten

  Reunion

  Manzanita

  Wednesday, July 1

  AT PRECISELY TWO p.m., as scheduled, at least for the fictional Mr. Davenport, Shack stepped into the office of ALEXIS WILLIAMSON, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW. A puff of wind, bearing scents of salt and seaweed, accompanied him into the small building. No one greeted him.

  “Have a seat, I’ll be right out, Mr. Davenport,” a voice said. It came from somewhere in back, and somewhere in the faraway past. Shack recognized it instantly. Barely detectable were the honey threads of the Deep South that once had been subtly woven into Alex’s words. Words, a few of which, he suspected, she now regretted. He glanced toward the exit. I still have time to make a run for it. Instead, he seated himself in a comfortable leather chair and surveyed the room.

  Above a set of long, low wooden shelves crammed with law books and journals, broad shafts of sunlight reflected off a dozen or so framed certificates, photos, and awards mounted on a pine-paneled wall. Alex being awarded her law degree. Alex speaking at a gathering of some sort. Alex hiking along a forested trail. Alex standing next to a young woman, perhaps her daughter. So she did marry. Good. Maybe I didn’t irreparably screw up her life. He continued to study the pictures. Oddly, no shots of Alex with a man. Meaning what? Maybe nothing.

  An interior door clicked open, and a few bars of Benny Goodman’s “Big John’s Special” wafted into the room. Shack had forgotten how much Alex loved big bands and swing music. But then, he’d probably forgotten a lot of things about her. He rose as she entered the room.

  He swallowed hard. He’d also forgotten how striking she could appear. Statuesque fit the bill, but perhaps that wasn’t appropriate for an attorney. His mind struggled for a description. Professional seductiveness? Maybe. Her midnight-black hair, now streaked with silver, reminded him how old she was, how old they both were, how much time had passed.

  She halted, open mouthed, when she spotted Shack. Her hazel eyes fixed him in a withering gaze. “You,” she said, the word tinged in a hard frost.

  He remained rooted in place, taken aback by her icy greeting, unable to formulate a response. Finally, he found a few words
. “Yes. I hope you don’t mind me showing up this way.”

  “I do,” she snapped, “I really do.” She didn’t suggest he be seated again.

  “Alex—”

  “So I assume you didn’t change your name to Davenport and that you really don’t have any legitimate business with me?”

  He paused before responding. “Maybe I do. If you’ll give me a chance.”

  “I gave you a chance twenty-five years ago, you bastard. I think that told me all I needed to know about you.”

  When he’d been a young Air Force lieutenant, he’d been dressed down by senior officers more than once, but never with as much vitriol as loosed by Alex. He raised his arms in submission. “I come in peace. But if you want to vivisect my character, you’ve every right.”

  “You’re damn right I do.” Her eyes flashed an angry message, of an old wound not forgotten.

  Still, the depth of her ire puzzled him. In one sense, she seemed to have moved on with her life, created professional success and built self-worth, maybe to a greater degree than he had. Yet, after a quarter of a century, she still burned with profound anger over a personal slight. Okay, maybe not so “slight.” But he found the intensity of her indignation puzzling after all these years.

  “Look,” he said, “I came, believe it or not, to apologize for what I did to you, for the way I just kicked you to the side of the road. Yes, I was an asshole, a shithead, a bastard. I have no defense for that. All I can say now is that I’m sorry. I didn’t show up here hoping to repair our relationship.” He lowered his head. “More than anything, I think I just wanted to assuage my own guilt by making sure you were okay.”

  “Better late than never, huh?” Her words shot out edged in venom.

  “Yes,” he answered firmly, lifting his gaze to meet hers. A tiny counterattack.

  “So, you’ve spoken your piece.”

  “And?”

  “You’re free to get the hell out of here.”

  He stared outside, looking through the backward lettering on her window into a sun-speckled afternoon where pre-holiday clusters of pedestrians strolled up and down Laneda Avenue.