Curtain Fall: Second Edition, Disaster, Preparedness, Survival, Awakening (The Gatekeeper Book 1) (5 page)

The screen momentarily jumped back to the newsroom, and then back to what looked to John like a shot of the Old’ Faithful geyser at Yellowstone National Park. A female news reporter, dressed in a warm looking light- blue parka, with a yellow scarf wrapped tightly around her neck, occupied center screen. She was gesturing behind her with gloved hands, and she appeared harried, even nervous.

John grabbed the TV remote and released the mute, and then thumbed the volume to a higher setting. When the volume reached a discernible level, he stood and dropped the remote on his desk. He just managed to catch the last few seconds of the reporter’s delivery, but it was enough to make the hair on the back of his neck and arms stand up.

Now unrestrained, the reporter’s voice continued with, “. . . an increased level of seismic activity in and around the Yellowstone Caldera. However, I’ve just learned from the USGS that the increased activity is nothing to be concerned about. The recent tremors, though more powerful than they have been in many years, are not unusual given the area’s long history of seismic activity.”

John’s immediate impression was that she was lying. Well, not actually lying, but she definitely wasn’t telling the whole story. He knew this
because she wasn’t very good at masking her body language. She was emotional, scared even, and could barely contain herself on the camera.

He wondered what she wasn’t saying, and why it upset her so much. There was clearly more to the story than she was allowed or willing to say. John was captivated by the report, and he continued to read everything he could, taking it all in, processing what he saw and felt, and looking for patterns.

The image on the screen returned to the newsroom, and the anchor, also a female, but older and much more distinguished and in control of her emotions, asked, “Is there any reason to be concerned about what’s happening there, say a possible eruption even?”

For some reason the reporter seemed irritated by the anchor’s question. It was as if the dreaded question was finally asked, and she really didn’t want to answer it. John thought it was a good question, but he could tell it was canned. Still, America was watching. The reporter from Yellowstone National Park said, “No, Cindy. There is no reason to worry about a possible eruption. The USGS, and the Park Rangers, assure us that everything’s fine . . . that there’s nothing to worry about up here. They say it’s just more of the same.”

In an attempt to recover from the discomfort brought on by the eruption question, the on-location cameraman panned over to cover the tourists gathered around the Old Faithful Visitor’s Center. “And as you can see, Cindy,” she said, “by the number of vehicles parked in the visitor’s center parking lot, there are no restrictions on travel in or through the park today. And there are no anticipated closures planned for the immediate future.”

“As if that’s a true indicator that everything’s fine,” John scoffed aloud. He felt a deep chill settle into him. There was something about the report that really bothered him, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

The image on the screen returned to the news room, but John was too deep in thought to notice. He was trying to unscramble the report, and figure out why it bothered him so much. John muted the TV and carefully considered every word he heard, as well as the reporter’s body
language. He was trained to read body language, so he knew she was lying, but what was the lie?

If the Yellowstone Caldera was about to erupt, would the news channels be willing, or even allowed, to broadcast it across the country? John felt there was more to the seismic activity around Yellowstone than the news channel was willing to admit. Maybe they didn’t want to create a panic? He knew geologists weren’t always right. Even with their nearly accurate predictive analysis of Mount Saint Helens, there were unknowns.

John tried to recall if he heard mention of the Yellowstone Caldera in recent news, but he hadn’t. While it was true he did see the occasional documentary on Yellowstone, he remembered only one show that talked about the Caldera itself.

Most of the statistical information he learned about the Caldera came from various official and unofficial websites, but after hearing the news report, he actually believed the situation at Yellowstone was much worse than anyone was willing to say.

What sealed his suspicions of deceit was the reporter’s comment about how everyone, “shouldn’t be concerned.” John knew, from experience, that when you want people to panic - tell them not to. When you hear the words, “Please remain calm and head for the nearest exit,” that it’s time to move, and move quickly. Those kind of words invite panic.

A knock on the door startled John from his thoughts.

“Oh! Hey, Tony,” said John, and he turned to see his junior associate standing in the doorway.

Tony occasionally stood in for John during staff meetings, but he didn’t hold the title of supervisory assistant. That job went to Carl, a cantankerous old man who occupied the adjacent office. But Carl was rarely seen in his office since John passed him over for promotion. There was definitely no love lost between the two of them, or trust for that matter. Since uncovering the sour relationship, John learned to rely more heavily on Tony. Fortunately for John, Tony was more than eager to handle the responsibilities Carl willingly neglected.

“You okay?” he asked. “You look a little, I don’t know, distressed?”

“I’m fine. I was just thinking about the meeting. Are you head’n up?”

“Yeah. Want me to wait for you?”

“Nah. You go on ahead. I’ve still got to collect my notes. I’ll see you up there in a couple of minutes.”

Tony nodded and walked away, moving down the hall toward the elevators. John gathered his things and, upon leaving his office, turned in the opposite direction of the elevators and headed toward the stairwell. The last thing he wanted to do at the moment was engage Tony with idle chit-chat. All he could think about was the news report from Yellowstone.

He reached the stairwell and recalled what he had learned about natural and man-made disasters. He knew all types of disasters could be devastating in their own right, but none had ever resulted in such devastating results as to cripple the entire country.

As far as John was concerned, the big disaster events like Coronal Mass Ejections and celestial impacts, were ranked up there with Hollywood science fiction films about alien invasions. Therefore, he quit worrying about the details of the potentially violent, earth ending disasters, and began to concentrate on preparing for the more believable disasters, the ones that offered some hope of survival for humanity in a mildly post-apocalyptic environment.

He realized that a large-scale earthquake could cripple the country, but he found no evidence that such a quake ever occurred. He didn’t rule it out, but he did think it was unlikely, given the large expanse of the country. As long as some part of America remained unaffected, there would always be hope for recovery, and a return to law and order, or so he liked to believe. But that was before he discovered the significance of super volcanoes, and learned that one sat about a thousand miles away.

As he began jogging up the stairs, John remembered a few facts about the Yellowstone Caldera that never seemed to concern him before. The Caldera erupted, as a super volcano, at least three times during the past two-million years. The most recent eruption was something like
six-hundred-thousand years ago, and it had been a significant geologic event. There have been other significant events relating to the Yellowstone “hot-spot,” as it was called. One such event occurred as recently as thirteen-thousand years ago, but that events wasn’t of the “super” category.

John let the number, thirteen-thousand, roll around in his mind. Most people would agree that that was a long time ago, but John knew, relative to the earth’s life, that thirteen-thousand years really wasn’t very long. In fact, that amount of time was little more than a blink of an eye for dear Mother Nature.

He also remembered reading that the Yellowstone Caldera was something like forty-thousand years overdue for its subsequent eruption. John loved how scientists could come up with such troubling information as easily as, “Have a nice day.” But he wondered why all of it bothered him so much. It didn’t bother him yesterday, but it sure was now.

He considered the reporter’s words about there being an increase in seismic activity, and it was that element of the Caldera that piqued John’s interest in Yellowstone many years ago. What intrigued him most was that a huge magma dome under the Caldera was steadily lifting the surface of the valley floor, inch by inch. Until recently, the increase in elevation was considered normal, but now that the raise was happening at an accelerated rate, about three inches a year, or three times faster than normal, it was changing the surrounding ecosystems.

John slowed to a walk and considered the implications of a Caldera eruption more carefully. He knew the change in elevation was dramatic, that it was depriving the nearby woodlands of essential ground water, essentially killing the surrounding forest, but that didn’t mean an eruption was eminent. He also remembered that the Caldera was something like thirty to forty miles in size. It would take a tremendous amount of pressure to make that much surface area lift an inch, let alone blow sky-high.

The Yellowstone Caldera is a super-volcano of super volcanos, and John considered adding it to his list of preparedness considerations, but
he figured he lived far enough away to survive it. But then he read that the last eruption actually covered half the country in ash. From that point forward, John decided to include volcanic eruptions, and surviving volcanic ash, to his prepper considerations.

He also decided to remain attentive to all news associated with Yellowstone, but as time went by, and life got busy, he forgot all about Yellowstone. At least until the recent news report, and the flood of information that came rushing back to the front of his mind.

John knew the effects of such a disaster would be catastrophic to everyone in North America. An ash fall of such magnitude would devastate crops, kill cattle, disrupt ground and air transportation, contaminate fresh water supplies, and cause a massive and lasting power outage. The effect on air travel would be global. Aircraft would not be able to fly for months, if not years, because there would be so much fine particulate matter in the atmosphere that it would freeze jet engines. “Oh, and let’s not forget potential climate change,” John said aloud. His voice reverberated up and down the empty stairwell.

The effects of a Caldera eruption would introduce such a cataclysmic change that food would become scarce, and society, as we know it, would essentially collapse. John paused at the top of the stairs to collect his thoughts. He had to clear his mind before entering the meeting. He knew an eruption could very well mean the end of the world as he knew it, and he was about to sit in a meeting that meant absolutely nothing to him, his family, or his future.

J
ohn may have been physically sitting in the staff meeting, but his mind was elsewhere. He was thinking about ash, volcanic ash, and lots of it. Somewhere deep within the recesses of his mind, he kept pulling up statistics about the release of ash if the Yellowstone Caldera erupted. He knew it would be somewhere in the ballpark of 26,000 times the amount of ash released by Mount St. Helens in May of 1980.

Ironically, John was reminded of the Mount St. Helens eruption quite often. He had a mason jar filled with volcanic ash sitting on his bookshelf at home. John’s father had filled three mason jars shortly after the eruption sent ash falling across ten states. Most of the ash went east, with the prevailing winds, but a generous amount had fallen along I-5. His dad stopped to collect the ash samples from three different locations as he drove north, toward Tacoma, in Washington State.

John remembered how excited his father was when he brought home three jars of ash. At first, John thought it was silly to have three jars of ash when one would do, but when he opened up each jar he better understood his father’s interest and excitement. The consistency of the ash in each jar was different.

John learned from his father that the finer ash was the first sample he collected. The ash was very fine, like gray baby powder. Because it was light, his father explained, it traveled the furthest from the volcano, and was the first to be collected. John was even more amazed at the ash in the third jar, the one collected closest to the volcano, or about thirty miles from the eruption site.

The ash in that jar was flaky, and much more crystalline than the other samples. John rubbed the ash between his fingers and marveled at its consistency. It felt a little like powdered glass. Intrigued by the samples, John asked his father if he could have one of the jars. His father agreed, and John chose the sample in the first jar, the one filled with the fine, powder-like ash. He didn’t know why he picked the first jar - he would have been happy with any one – but there was something about the ash that seemed important, relevant to him.

Rebecca cleared her throat and John refocused his attention. She was studying him, her brown eyes keen, attempting to penetrate John’s apparent apathy toward all things business related. “Are you okay?” she asked, with mild curiosity etching her expression.