The Tsunami Countdown (6 page)

9:35 a.m
.

A
s the Japanese students filed out to their van, Kai followed Reggie back into the warning center’s telemetry room. Reggie’s
calm was now replaced by an edginess Kai had only seen a few times. “Kind of an odd fluke,” Reggie said. “Don’t you think?”

“What’s happening?” said Brad, entering the room. He saw the tension, and his eyes lit up. “Is it a tsunami?”

“Look, Brad,” Kai said, “I don’t mind if you want to hang around, but we could get very busy. If you’re going to get in the
way, you’ll have to leave.”

Brad put up his hands in a gesture of appeasement. “No problem. I just want to watch. This is fun. Usually, your job is so
dull.” He retreated to the other side of the room and took a seat.

Kai leaned over Reggie as he typed into his computer. “You think the busted tide gauge is too coincidental?” Kai asked.

“I don’t know,” Reggie said. “We detect a seismic disturbance in the general vicinity, and that’s the exact time for the tide
gauge to go on the fritz?”

“It hasn’t failed since I’ve been here, but you said it has in the past?”

“Well, it has broken down two times in the past three years: once from a short circuit and once from a storm that knocked
over the satellite uplink antenna.”

“Is there a storm in the area?”

“I just checked. There is one, but the storm is northwest of Christmas Island. Shouldn’t be affecting it.”

“How big would the tsunami have to be to take out that tide gauge? Is it a mark seven?”

“Yeah. The wave would have to be at least eight meters high to take out a mark seven gauge.”

Over twenty feet high. High enough to cover the entire island.

“Who’s our contact on Christmas Island? Steve something?”

“Steve Bryant. He does a little maintenance on the gauge from time to time. No answer, either at his home or his office. In
fact, I can’t even get his voice mail. It won’t ring through. All I get is a fast busy signal.”

“Let’s try again. The phones down there aren’t very reliable. You keep trying to get Steve, and I’ll call the operator.”

The operator didn’t have any better luck getting
through, so Kai had her attempt several different numbers they had in the Rolodex for Christmas Island. None of them went
through.

“Can you get the main island operator for me?” Kai asked.

She tried without success. Just that fast busy signal again.

“All I’m getting is an out-of-order tone, sir,” she said.

“Is that unusual?”

“The power goes out down there on a regular basis. It always shuts everything down, including communications. Comms also failed
once when there was a fire at the switching station on the island, but we haven’t had any problems lately. It’s probably just
a power outage. Would you like me to continue trying?”

“Yes, please.” Kai told her who he was and asked her to call him back when she got through. Their inability to get through
to anyone was troubling, and Kai couldn’t help feel like there was pattern to all of this that he was missing. Still, he didn’t
have the hard data to show that it was anything other than a coincidence.

Reggie didn’t have any more luck contacting someone than Kai did.

“Any signal from the tide gauge?” Kai asked, hopeful that it was just a temporary glitch.

“Not a blip,” Reggie said.

Kai told Reggie the operator’s theory about a power outage.

“That’s a fine idea,” Reggie said, “but the tide gauge has a battery backup.”

Kai had forgotten about that. “It has enough juice for twenty-four hours, right?”

“Up to twenty-four hours at full capacity. Of course, that’s if the battery is charged. Steve has been known to put off tide
gauge maintenance in the past. It’s possible the battery is dead. Then a power outage would definitely take the gauge offline.”

“So we were expecting a wave to reach Christmas Island at 9:25 a.m.,” Kai said, summing up the series of coincidences. “The
tide gauge was supposed to send a signal at 9:30 a.m. But there was a power outage on the island that started sometime between
when we received the last tide gauge reading at 8:30 and when we were supposed to receive the 9:30 signal. And because the
battery backup was not charged, the power outage knocked out the comm equipment on the tide gauge.” Despite the skepticism
in his voice, the scenario was possible. Kai would have felt better if the 8:30 signal had also failed to come in, but there
it was on the log sheet, right on time.

Reggie opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated.

“What?” Kai said.

“Well, I just thought I should bring it up. Do you want me to send out a warning?”

“A warning?” Brad said. “Oh, this’ll be good.”

“Brad, please,” Kai said, putting up his hand to show that he wasn’t in the mood for Brad’s giddy enthusiasm. He needed to
concentrate.

Sending out a tsunami warning would be a bold step. The situation didn’t fit any established scenarios. Kai would simply be
going on gut.

Issuing a tsunami warning was not a responsibility that he took lightly, particularly because he’d been on the job for less
than a year. Doing so would cause a massive disruption to businesses and tourists in Hawaii, not to mention the enormous cost
associated with an evacuation.

In 1994 a huge earthquake near the Kurile Islands in Russia measuring a magnitude of 8.1 prompted the PTWC to issue a tsunami
warning for the Pacific region. Despite getting tide measurements at Midway and Wake islands that indicated a surge could
be expected in Hawaii, they couldn’t predict how big the waves would be. In fact, a tsunami did arrive, but it never rose
above three feet. The tsunami warning had cost the state an estimated $30 million.

More recently, the PTWC had issued a warning based on a magnitude 7.6 quake off the coast of Alaska, but when tide data showed
that no destructive waves were expected, the warning was called off forty-five minutes
later. The financial cost had been minimal, but it didn’t help the public trust the system. Many news programs had repeatedly
shown videos of frightened residents evacuating the city, even after the warning had been rescinded. The false alarm was implicated
as just another failure of federal disaster readiness, even though they had followed procedure to the letter.

If Kai issued a warning based on just his hunch and it turned out to be another false alarm, not only would he be criticized
by everyone from the governor to the NOAA administrator, but the public would get so frustrated by the repeated false alarms
that they might start to ignore subsequent warnings. A repeat of the full 1994 warning now would be even more expensive than
it had been then, at least $50 million.

“So you think we should issue the warning?” Kai asked Reggie.

“No, not at all. I just wanted to throw it out there. But you’re the one who gets the big bucks to make the call.”

Kai paused. The signal loss was a strange coincidence, yes, and he couldn’t help thinking that there was some small nugget
of information that he wasn’t seeing that would offer an explanation for what was happening. But the raw data didn’t justify
a tsunami warning. Historically, the earthquake just wasn’t strong enough. Even with a stronger earthquake, a tsunami was
unlikely.

“Kai?” Reggie said. “What should we do?”

Kai sighed. Despite his misgivings, he just couldn’t issue a warning. Not yet. Not without knowing more.

“We’re going to wait,” Kai said. “Let’s hope the power comes back on soon and we can get on with our day.”

Reggie nodded and got back on the phone while Kai tried to ignore the nagging little voice in his head that said he was making
the wrong decision.

9:42 a.m
.

A
s Teresa now saw, the Memorial Day holiday’s beautiful weather brought out not only the travelers from the mainland but what
seemed like every local on the island. Waikiki was packed. By the time they pulled into the Grand Hawaiian’s parking lot,
it was nearly full. “But Aunt Rachel let Lani get her ears pierced,” Mia said as they got out of the Jeep. “And my friend
Monica got a tattoo on her ankle.”

Teresa popped open the hatch. “If you think I’m going to let you get a navel piercing, you’re dreaming.”

“Mom, please!”

“You’re too young. And don’t even start with the tattoos.” Mia had been bringing up the subject of belly button piercing for
over a month.

“What is the difference between getting my belly button pierced and my ears pierced?” Mia’s voice was headed into whine country.

“One is harmless decoration, and the other is an advertisement for sex. You’re not mature enough for it. We can talk about
it again when you turn eighteen.”

Mia pulled a boogie board out and slammed it to the ground.

“Be careful with that!” Teresa said. “Are you trying to prove my point?”

“Mom, I’m almost fourteen. I know a lot of girls my age that have them. And it’s not sexual.”

“Sure it isn’t.” Teresa locked the car and headed toward the sunlight beckoning from the garage exit. “Come on.”

Mia reluctantly picked up her board and followed her mother.

“Lani,” Mia said, “don’t you think Mom should let me get my navel pierced?”

“I don’t know,” Lani said. She obviously didn’t want to get involved.

Teresa stopped at the exit. “Mia, while I’m in charge, you are not lifting up your shirt to show some boy your navel ring,
which is about the only thing it’s good for. And yes, I realize you are about to be prancing around the beach in a bikini
in a few minutes anyway, but that’s the way it is. Got it?”

Mia ground her teeth, but said nothing.

“Good,” Teresa said. “Let’s go find some beach and have fun.”

They emerged from the garage onto Kalakaua Avenue, the main drag up and down Waikiki. To the west, the view was obscured by
the hundreds of high-rise hotels and condominiums that extended to the office buildings of downtown Honolulu. In the other
direction, Kalakaua stretched past the last hotel on Waikiki about a half mile away, where it passed the zoo and finally ran
into Diamond Head, the massive extinct volcano that served as Honolulu’s dominant landmark.

Teresa, followed by Mia and Lani, plunged into the throng of people crowding Kalakaua Avenue and crossed the road to Waikiki
Beach. They passed a magnificent banyan tree and stepped onto the beach itself.

As Teresa searched for a spot big enough for the three of them, she heard people speaking Japanese, French, German, Spanish,
and a few languages she couldn’t place. Like all beaches in Hawaii, Waikiki was open to the public, so a mishmash of all walks
of life mingled with the guests of the expensive resorts.

Two boys, both about sixteen, walked past. Tan and lean, they looked like younger versions of Brad. They gave the girls an
appraising look and the taller of the boys spoke to them as they went by.

“The surf’s a lot better by our condo.” He pointed his thumb in the direction of Diamond Head.

The girls laughed, and the shorter boy yanked his friend
and kept walking. Despite what Teresa had said earlier, the boys’ attention to her daughter tickled her, but she hid her amusement.

They walked for a little while and stopped at an open patch near an impressive hotel called the Outrigger Waikiki. Teresa
dropped her bag and started spreading out her towel. She had a clear view to the breakwaters on either side, and the waves
coming in were good-sized, but still mild enough for safe boogie boarding.

“How’s this?”

Mia made a show of propping up her boogie board in the sand. “Mom, Lani and I want to walk down the beach.”

“We just got here. Don’t you even want to get in the water? Look how blue it is. It’s gorgeous.”

“Yeah, it’s great,” Mia said, stripping down to her bikini. “But I saw some great T-shirts back there, and I want to get some
souvenirs while we’re here.”

Lani piped in, now down to her bikini as well. “Yeah, and we want to get new dresses for the luau tonight.”

Teresa wasn’t very concerned about letting the girls go off on their own. Mia had been babysitting for a year now, so walking
around the beach, especially with someone else, wasn’t worrisome. Teresa looked at her watch. It was still a couple of hours
until lunchtime.

“All right. But I don’t want you to come back with a piercing.”

Mia sighed. “I promise.”

“How long do you think you’ll be gone?”

The girls looked at each other and shrugged in unison.

“There’s a lot to see,” Mia said. “Maybe an hour or two.”

“You have some money?”

Mia waved her wallet. The babysitting money she wasn’t using to pay off her texting bill.

“Sunscreen?”

“We put it on at the house.”

“Okay. But be back by eleven thirty. After a morning in the sun, I’m going to be starving.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Mia said as she and Lani turned toward Diamond Head and began walking. “You’re the best.”

“Bye, Aunt Teresa,” said Lani.

Teresa gave them a wave. She was actually relieved to have a little uninterrupted time alone. After she liberally applied
sunscreen, her plan was to immerse herself in a good mystery novel for a peaceful morning. As she spread out her towel, a
beep caught her attention. She fished through her bag and saw that the display on her cell phone said, charge phone. She powered
it down and tossed it back in her bag.

9:57 a.m
.

I
t had been half an hour since the tide gauge reading from Christmas Island was supposed to be transmitted, and Kai was growing
more worried by the minute. Reggie’s calls to Steve Bryant still went unanswered. “What the hell is going on down there?”
Reggie said to no one in particular.

The phone rang, and Kai swept the receiver up in the hope that it was the operator with good news.

“Dr. Tanaka, this is Shirley Nagle, the operator you spoke with earlier.”

“You got through?” Kai asked hopefully.

“Well, no, I haven’t,” she said. Kai slumped in disappointment. “But I wanted to call you back, since you said it was so urgent.
I asked another operator here, Chris, if he had any other ideas. He said that, in addition to the under-sea cable, there’s
a backup satellite hookup on the island. But the funny thing is, I’m not getting through on that, either.”

“Why is that funny?”

“Chris swears up and down that the satellite transmitter has a backup generator in case of power loss, so I should be getting
a connection, even if the main island power is down. But I’m getting nothing. No signal whatsoever. It’s like the island isn’t
there anymore.”

“Jesus,” Kai said, the implications too terrible to grasp.
It’s like the island isn’t there anymore
.

“Excuse me?” Shirley said.

“Nothing. Can you please keep trying to reach them?”

“Sure. We’ve already got a couple of other people on it. I’ll let you know as soon as we get through.”

Her voice sounded upbeat, but Kai didn’t share her optimism. He had the terrible feeling that they’d never hear from anyone
on the island again.

There were at least three thousand people on Christmas Island. Kai couldn’t accept the possibility that it had been wiped
out by a tsunami on his watch. He felt the beginnings of a headache and popped a couple of aspirins from a bottle in his desk.

Reggie saw the look on Kai’s face. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

Kai told him about the satellite transmitter.

“I think a tsunami hit Christmas Island,” he said. “A big one.”

“How is that possible?” Reggie said.

“I don’t know. Could it have been a landslide? Maybe the seamount has been building for a while and now a major eruption triggered
a landslide down the face of it.”

“No way. There have been no major seismic disturbances in that region for the past ten years. I checked the database.” Reggie
was already working on his bid to get credit for his discovery. “The seamount couldn’t be big enough to cause a major landslide
at this point.”

“And the quake magnitude? Have we gotten confirmation back from NEIC yet?”

“I just checked again,” Reggie said. “NEIC estimates 6.9.”

The Southeast Asian tsunami resulted from a quake with a moment magnitude of 9.0, over one thousand times more powerful than
this earthquake. An earthquake as small as 6.9 had never spawned an oceanwide tsunami. There just wasn’t enough energy or
motion of the seafloor to generate large waves that could travel great distances.

The conditions didn’t add up. The earthquake shouldn’t have spawned a tsunami, and yet they couldn’t get any signal or communication
from Christmas Island.

Kai picked up the sheet with the wave arrival times. Johnston Island would be next in about twenty minutes, then the Big Island
twenty minutes after that, followed by Oahu an hour and twenty-five minutes from now.
Johnston Island had a real-time tide gauge, so that would be their next chance to get data about a potential wave.

“When will we get the wave height data from the DART buoy?” Kai asked Reggie.

“The max wave height at the buoy will be about five minutes after it reaches Johnston. The captain on the
Miller Freeman
said they’ll have the satellite uplink ready in ten minutes, which will be just enough time. So it looks like the tide gauge
at Johnston is our first chance to see if it’s really a tsunami.”

Up to this point, Brad had quietly been watching events unfold, content merely to spectate, but now he couldn’t resist interjecting.

“You mean, you’re willing to wait more than twenty minutes until you know for sure?” he said.

“What do you want us to do?” Reggie responded. “Evacuate a million people because of a downed power line?”

“Do you want to take the chance that they could be killed because you thought it was just a downed power line?”

“I’m just saying that we need more evidence,” Reggie said defensively. “I mean, sure, if we had a 9.0 earthquake on our hands,
I’d issue the warning in a second. But to completely wipe out Christmas Island and our tide gauge, the tsunami would have
to be huge—at least twenty feet
high. There’s no way a 6.9 quake causes a tsunami that big.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ve researched every major tsunami in the last sixty years,” Reggie said. “There is absolutely no historic precedent for
it. Besides, do you realize how much an evacuation costs? We’ll be crucified if we’re wrong, especially with this kind of
flimsy data. I say we wait twenty minutes. If the tide gauge on Johnston craps out, too, then I’m all for a warning.”

Twenty more minutes. For a massive evacuation, every minute would count. With less than an hour before a potential tsunami
hit the southern tip of the Big Island, Kai had to make the call. In his mind he imagined the headlines vilifying him for
a massive unnecessary evacuation. The internal NOAA investigations into why he ignored long-established procedures. The political
reprisals condemning yet another federal employee who couldn’t handle the position. As Kai thought about it, the retaliatory
consequences became clear to him. His tenure would be cut short by what would be seen as a lack of judgment, that he didn’t
have the experience for the job.

On the other hand, something deep down was telling him that this wasn’t just a power disruption. He couldn’t pinpoint where
the cognitive dissonance was coming from, the subtle clash of information that was telling his subconscious
mind it didn’t fit together. Logically, there was little reason to be worried about a major tsunami. But they couldn’t rule
it out, either, and that’s what scared him the most.

In the end, Kai’s choice simply came down to what was best for his family. His daughter was on the beach that morning. His
wife was in a hotel no more than a hundred yards from the ocean. He could live with losing his job because he made a poor
decision; he couldn’t live with himself if his wife and daughter died because he made a poor decision.

“We’ve already waited thirty minutes,” Kai said softly. “We can’t wait any longer.” His doubt made him sound unconvincing.
When Kai realized Reggie and Brad were looking at him, hoping to see confidence, he cleared his throat and stood up straighter.
“Reggie, send out the warning. I’ll get on the phone and talk to the duty officer over at Hawaii State Civil Defense.” Like
the PTWC, HSCD would be minimally staffed on a holiday.

“Are you sure?” Reggie said. “We’ve got even less to go on than the one we issued last year.”

A mixture of concern and support etched Brad’s face. Even as a bystander, he knew this was a tough call.

But Kai’s moment of hesitation was over. He couldn’t let his misgivings influence others, diminishing the sense of urgency
about the evacuation. If a real tsunami was coming, they needed to act quickly and decisively.

“I’m sure. Do it. Issue the warning.”

“Okay,” Reggie said. “I’m glad it’s your call. I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”

Reggie went to the computer and started typing in the commands that would issue a tsunami warning to every government agency
in the Pacific. Kai had just made a $50 million decision.