Seattle Quake 9.2 (6 page)

Soon after, the steep incline of the second block began to crumble and slide toward the Bay. High-rise apartment buildings teetered, and then broke into splintered sections. Small parks and adjacent streets quickly succumbed to the eroding earth, snapping buried water pipes, sewer pipes, telephone cables and power lines. In unison, a stretch of land one block wide and five city blocks long started a painful slide into the sunken waterfront. Saturday shoppers lost their balance, fell to the ground, and then became buried in moving earth and debris.  Others tumbled off high walkways while driver-less cars rolled down hills. Atop the rising waters of the bay, a ferry urgently blasted its’ horn.

Five blocks east of the water, hundreds of small yellow tiles snapped off the ceiling of the Convention Center tunnel all at once. The freeway began to twist and turn, cement behind the tiles cracked, and then crumbled – sending unthinkable, horrifying chunks down on helpless motorists. Coming fast from behind, the drunk in the station wagon plowed into the back of a hatchback and started a chain reaction, multiple car pileup.

The first gigantic jolt raced through the city at 14,000 miles per hour. In the Seattle Center, flag poles shuddered and swayed, the Center House buckled, the Space Needle leaned and children screamed. South of Seattle, Boeing's runway violently rolled, sending the still moving 777 off the end and into a field.  Parents helplessly watched their children fall off water slides and amusement rides, and old wood and brick buildings collapsed in rapid succession.

*

At KMPR, only forty-six blocks from the epicenter, everything popped at once -- the walls, the floor, the windows, and the ceiling. The old soldier was still talking, but Collin wasn't listening.  Instead, his eyes darted around the room. He too heard the explosion in the ground. Collin threw his earphones down and started out of his chair.

*

One hundred and twenty-one blocks north of KMPR, Sam Taylor stood near the eighteenth hole, wet his finger and tested the air. There was no wind. He set his golf ball on the small plastic tee, carefully placed his feet, wiggled his butt, and took a swing. He missed. But the ball flipped into the air anyway. It dropped back to earth, rolled in the opposite direction and oddly picked up speed. Greatly disturbed, Sam watched it cross the green toward two other men with equally perplexed expressions. But before the ball reached them, it mysteriously dropped out of sight.

Suddenly, the ground split apart. In an instant, the fracture widened causing both men to lose their balance and plunge into the deep, foreboding fissure headfirst. Sam started to take a step toward them, but just as suddenly, the ground under him shot up, buckling him at the knees. Next, came the horrifying rumble in the earth.

*

Downtown, horrendous shock waves quickly replaced the initial jolt. The deadly rolls forced one side of the city to rise one fifth of a second before the other. The top floors of the tall buildings swayed forward and back, while the middle floors bulged one way, and then the other – straining to keep up with the rapid movement of the foundations.

In the Bay, the churning water was still drawing away from the sunken waterfront.  In the marinas, more boats snapped off moorings and joined sailboats, ferries, fishing vessels and cargo ships in the deadly upsurge of a massive wave. Directly across from the waterfront, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and grandparents on the beaches of West Seattle stared, unable to take their disbelieving eyes off the murderous rising water. Others struggled against the viciously thrashing ground to run inland. And still, the water climbed.

*

The sway of the top floors of the Winningham Blue Building caused Seely to slide into the inside wall of the bathroom foyer, only to slide back out the door again. Jenna's head banged against a wall one moment and her knees knocked against another the next. She screamed, "Momma!"  But the unyielding, relentless rumbling in the earth coupled with the heinous discord of the tortured building muted her cry.  Ceiling tiles broke free and pitched downward, exposing steel rafters and gray insulation.  Blood gushed from the top of Seely's forehead and began to run down the side of her face. Another tile hit her left jaw, causing an immediate red mark that would soon bruise.

In the rooms beyond, the extreme sway of the top floors caused pictures to swing away from walls only to slam back again. Desks repeatedly shifted from side to side, inching ever closer to windowless outside walls. Computer equipment toppled, plaster crumbled, file cabinets fell and papers whipped into a sea of white. And still the earth heaved, the building screeched and the thunder roared.

*

The giant shock waves expanded in a perfect circle causing Seattle's hills, suburbs and waterways to violently and repeatedly pitch. Not long after, precariously placed cans and jars fell off shelves in Portland, Oregon. Windows cracked, loose bricks toppled and people ran out of buildings in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Just off the coast of Washington, a ship lost at sea in 1856 rolled on its side. In Yakima and Spokane, wood split and foundations cracked. In Boise, Idaho dogs yelped and cats scurried out of rooms. Swimming pools jiggled in Northern California, and before the earth fully absorbed the initial quake, a church bell rang in Mexico City.

*

Under Seattle, only a fraction of a second passed before the next mammoth wave hit, and then the next and the next -- each churning, twisting, rolling, heaving -- and violently moving everything on the face of the earth with it.

In KMPR's attic, the glass in both the booth and the outer windows shattered the instant the first wave hit. Only half out of his seat, Collin struggled to keep his balance. His mike tipped over and his console bounced a foot high with his arm and elbow banging against it. The hanging Dallas Cowboy replicate swung wildly and the ceiling fan increased an exaggerated circular motion. He took a step toward the stairs. But the convolutions made his foot take too long to hit the floor, and then his knee was higher than it should have been. He took another step and another, each time at war to keep his balance, but movement was slow and excruciatingly difficult.

His facial muscles tightened and his whole body shook with fright, but when his foot sank again, he lunged for the doorknob. The upward movement of the room caused him to miss and nearly fall on his face. He regained his balance, braced his feet, reached for the knob again, got hold of it and yanked.  But the twisting, buckling walls made the door rapidly tilt this way and that; throwing it out of alignment and making it impossible to open. Collin froze. Wall and ceiling plaster cracked, and then crumbled to the floor and the dangerous swinging ceiling fan hung just over his head. Suddenly, the electrical rubber casing around the fan’s cord split down one side exposing blue, black and red wires.

Objects fell off shelves and repeatedly bounced on the floor. A book slid forward, and then back and the horrendous roar in the earth seemed to be increasing. At last, he noticed a hand gripping his leg.

Crouched just inside the sound proof booth, even Max's shouts were lost in the thunder. One arm protectively over his head, Max ignored the control room door relentlessly banging against his body, let go of Collin's leg and motioned him down.

Reluctantly, Collin obeyed and sunk to his knees.

"She's not down there!" Max shouted. But Collin returned with a blank stare.  Max drew closer and tried again, "She's not down there, man!"

Finally, Collin understood. On all fours, he fought the ferocious arching of the building, inched his way into the control room and crept under Max's console. He was too tall, and the bouncing movement caused his head to bang against the underside of the table. He lowered his head, only to find his shoulders taking the blows. Collin leaned forward, wrapped his arms around a bolted metal leg and glanced back. Max was lying on his side in the fetal position with his hands folded over his head.

More plaster plunged to the floor, its white powder sending clouds of choking dust into the air. The continuous rumble in the earth sounded like a high-speed freight train, no farther than an arm's length away. Finally, the phone booth-sized, teetering transmitter shifted and fell, hitting the console, and then crashing to the floor. Collin panicked and spun his body around. He shoved the equipment away with his feet and started out.

But Max lunged for Collin's shoulders. He pulled him back under the console just seconds before the hanging light fixture dropped to the floor, sending exploding bits of plastic in all directions. "No, man, you'll die out there!"

"We'll die in here!" Collin struggled, but Max held on. The heavy amplifier bounced, thrashed and slid closer. Something wet began pouring over the edge of the console, its liquid flowing at odd angles. More chunks of ceiling plaster fell from above, shattering on the transmitter before bouncing to the floor.

And still the earth moved

Right before his eyes the huge fissure on Sam's golf course closed, trapping the two men between tons of earth. Four feet from it, another quickly opened spitting mud, sand and water fifteen feet into the air. And on the top of the waterspout was Sam's rapidly spinning golf ball.

His sudden island measured ten feet by sixty feet and repeatedly rolled with the convulsions of the ground. On both sides, a patchwork of broken green slabs twisted and turned, sank and rose. On the edge of the course, trees danced, tipping one way and then the other while water in the pond surged north, only to surge south again. In the distance, a man attempted to run.  He fell, struggled to his feet and fell again. Stunned and still on his knees, Sam slowly lifted a hand and held on to his bright red golf cap.

*

During the initial earthquake, only forty seconds passed before the walls of the fault caught on another snag, once more binding the earth's unfathomable strength. Yet the quake sent out its violent waves for more than four minutes.  Finally, its overpowering roar decreased, but then it was replaced by another, more frightening sound – the sound of a billion rusty nails being pulled from age-old wood, as rock against rock ground to a screeching halt.

*

In the control room of KMPR, the rumbling finally began to subside and the retching heaves of the earth tapered into kinder, gentler rolls. Wood, steel and concrete yielded its tortured anguish to less frightening rattles and clatter. Finally – it stopped.

His whole body trembling, Max cautiously loosened his grip around Collin's neck and let his body relax. He reminded himself to breathe, closed his eyes and laid his head on the floor. Then he waited.  He waited for the white dust to stop drifting downward, the earth's screech to become softer and for distant car alarms to grow louder. Somewhere outside, a window lost its final battle and shattered on a sidewalk.

The top of the Winningham Blue Building was still in motion. Slowly, it too tapered off until finally, the forty-third floor came to a full standstill. Somewhere in the midst of the chaos, Jenna stopped screaming. Now her cheeks were stained with dried tears and she was seated on the buckled floor with one of her bruised and battered legs straight, and the other bent outward and back. For a long moment she did not move, listening instead to the hellish screech in the earth. When it began to fade, she rested her head against the wall and watched Seely's chest rise and fall.

The older woman had somehow managed to move out of the doorway into the foyer and now she lay on her back with her head jammed against one wall and her feet against the other. Seely's face was gaunt and her eyes were closed. Still Jenna did not move. Little by little, the squeal in the earth grew softer and yielded to a sound not unlike that of a faraway train, moving slowly and patiently on its tracks.

*

A full minute after the shaking stopped, Collin's eyes still darted. His body remained tense and his breathing shallow. The room smelled of dirt and white plaster dust still filled the air. Somewhere, a book fell off a shelf causing him to jump. He too waited and watched until at last, he drew in a long, deep breath. His voice was unnaturally calm and quiet when he turned to look at Max, "Where did she go?"

Max still had his eyes closed. A bruise from the banging door was already beginning to darken under his short-sleeved shirt. His tan pants were speckled with blood and his head ached, "Candy took her shopping. Tomorrow's your birthday and Beth wanted to surprise you."

Collin hesitated, half afraid to ask the next question, "Where?"

"South Center."

"Where the hell is South Center?"

Max struggled to sit up in his half of the cramped space. "I'll show you, if I can find the map. First we gotta get out of here." He turned and twisted his body until he could put his feet against the fallen transmitter. "Help me move this thing, will you?"

But Collin didn't budge. Instead, he glared at Max. "How far, just tell me how far?"

"I don't know, man. Ten, maybe fifteen miles."

"Fifteen miles? It might as well be a hundred. Did Candy take the boys?"

"Yes, but maybe it's not so bad down there."

Collin rubbed his face with both hands, and then began to shift his weight until he too could put his feet against the transmitter.  "Maybe. What about your Dad, where is he?"

"Golf, probably."

"Golf?  That's good. Not much can fall on you on a golf course."

In the back of the air crane high above West Seattle, Jackie was aghast.  Her eyes shifted from monitor to monitor and her heart felt like it was stuck in her throat. Four minutes before, a voice recorder hidden in the bouquet of flowers sent terrifying screams into her earphones just before the earth exploded. The chopper's first camera captured the sudden rise of the Southern half of the city and the abrupt drop of the Northern half, sending pictures to her screen of thousands of tons of earth sliding into the Bay. Commands from her keyboard instructed the second camera to zoom in on the tormented Winningham Blue Building just in time to watch the sixth and seventh floors collapse.

And now, the third video recorder was aimed at a passenger ferry, a cargo ship and a multitude of smaller boats rising with the waters of Elliott Bay.

Several miles north, the USS Carl Vincent slowly sailed down Puget Sound. Caught standing on the deck in dress whites when the quake hit, the confused and befuddled crew dashed below and were just now slowly reappearing.

When the small red box flashed at the bottom of the screen indicating a call from Evan Cole, she ignored it. Instead, Jackie studied the graph on the upper monitor. Seely was alive but her heart rate was way too high. She took a deep breath, and then opened a line to Michael on the ground, "Michael, Seattle just had...”

"You think I don't know? I saw it start on the monitor and ran outside. It's big Jackie, the whole place went nuts."

"Even that far away? Are you alright?"

Michael tried to calm himself. Standing in the middle of the landing pad, the only cleared land for miles, he held a satellite phone to his ear and watched the tops of the swaying pines finally come to a standstill. "Yes, I'm okay. You've got a couple of trees on your trailer though, and I don't know if we can get to the standby fuel tanks. Is she alive?"

"Barely, but the building could go at any moment. Michael, we have to find a way to get her out. Let me call you right back." She disconnected him, and then connected the waiting call. "Mister Cole, we have a problem."

"What kind of problem?"

"Seattle just had a major earthquake."

Seated in first class, Evan Cole instantly snapped out of his tired, listless state and sat up straight in his chair, "How major?"

Jackie didn't quickly answer, her eyes held instead on her view of the rising tsunami, "It's very bad, sir. You wife is alive, but ...”

*

The gigantic wave in Elliott Bay crested and began to curl, sending frothy, white foam over its top edge toward West Seattle's beaches. On the backside, the fully loaded cargo ship's bow lifted completely out of the water. Terrified men jumped overboard, railroad cars on the deck began to slide and the passenger ferry rammed into its port side. Instantly the ferry's hull splintered into chunks of wood and metal. The rushing water hurled the damaged ferry and its precious human cargo over the top of the wave, forcing it toward West Seattle. The quick thinking captain of the transport ship turned hard to starboard and steered down the backside of the wave.

At an unimaginable speed, the five hundred foot high crashing wave thrust the ferry, several small boats and tons of water onto the West Seattle beaches and up the side of the sloping hill. Instantly, the ferry broke apart hurling her human cargo into the violent water. The edge of the Tsunami gushed upward, and then it paused for several agonizing moments before it began a deadly withdrawal – sucking belongings out of houses, cars off of streets and barely alive people off of beaches. And now, the wave was headed back toward Seattle's waterfront.

*

His cap in hand, Sam cautiously stood up in the middle of his sudden island.  Slowly, he turned full circle. The golf course was a total disaster. Whole clumps of trees were tipped in opposite directions and the pond was empty. Car alarms blared in the far off parking lot and somewhere, a woman screamed.

Timidly, Sam lifted his eyes to heaven. "Okay, so I lied about being a Prophet." Just then, he heard faint yelling in the distance. Normally hidden behind a large knoll, the clubhouse was oddly visible from the eighteenth hole, and a man stood near it waving his arms. Not far from the fifteenth hole, another man and a woman got to their feet. Sam watched as they disappeared into a ravine, and then reappeared on the other side.

Suddenly, he heard more rumbling. Frightened, he quickly got back down on one knee and waited. But the earth didn't shake. Instead, a 757 passed overhead, lowered its landing gear and continued its gradual descent toward SeaTac Airport. Sam held his breath and watched until the plane flew out of sight. Painfully, the seconds ticked by until at last, he heard the urgent thrust of the plane's engines, and then caught a far off glimpse of it, a tiny speck climbing and turning east.

Inside the 757, a stunned Evan Cole helplessly watched out the window as the jet flew over block after block of a devastated and shattered city.

*

Jenna still had not moved. Broken plaster, pieces of mirror, strips of insulation, shards of blue glass, splinters of wood, and ceiling tiles littered her lap and the floor around her. At length, she lifted her trembling hands and covered her face. The blare of a cargo ship horn seemed to be growing louder and now she could hear the odd sound of rushing water. Thoughtfully, she pondered the peculiar vibration and the disquieting noise.

Four minutes earlier, the Winningham Blue Building sat high on a hill, three full city blocks away from the Bay. Now only the Federal Building stood between it and the tsunami. High above and unable to comprehend, Jenna listened to the rebounding wave crash against the land, its lapping foam spilling into broken windows on the Winningham Blue's demolished sub floors.

Again the tsunami sucked the carnage away, taking a dropped bouquet of flowers with it and retracing its path back across the bay to West Seattle. Twice more it slammed against opposite shores before losing its strength and dissipating. At last, the bay settled into its new boundaries and the surface of the water became calm and smooth.

Except for the strange "shhhh" of an elusive train, Jenna’s world grew silent. Slowly, she pushed the rubble off her lap, and then gently untwisted her leg. It wasn't broken. Blond hair lay matted against her forehead. She reached up, touched it, and then examined her fingertips. Whatever the liquid was, it wasn't blood. Finally, she turned her attention to the older woman. "Don't you die on me, I need you. …Seely?"

Seely struggled to open her eyes and force breathless words from her lips, "I think...my heart…is going to explode."

"I know what you mean, mine too. Did you break any bones?"

Seely closed her eyes again, "I...don't know."

Out of sight in the hallway, a chunk of plaster broke free and fell, sending more particles of brown dust into the air. Jenna let out a startled squeal. She waited, the terror welling up inside her, but nothing else moved. "We've got to get out of here, we're forty-three floors in the air." Abruptly, she started to rise.

But before she could, Seely tightly grabbed her arm, "No...stay here."

"Why?"

"Aftershocks."

Jenna's eyes steadily grew larger, and then her expression abruptly changed to fury, "You mean it's going to start again?"

Seely nodded.

"Oh, no!" In a panic, Jenna broke free of Seely's grasp, got to her feet and darted across the fallen door into the hallway.

Too late, Seely grabbed for her again. But the sound of Jenna's movements were already fading down the debris filled hall. Seely allowed her arm to relax and concentrated instead on regulating her breathing. A little while later, she lifted her hand, wiped some of the blood away from her eye and then wiped her hand on her clothes. She thought she was going to make it through, but when she started to get up, she felt a sharp pain in her chest. She clutched it and quickly slumped back down.

Seely's eyes darted in search of her purse, but it was gone – lost beneath mountains of rubble. Defeated, she slumped, closed her eyes and listened to her hurting, pounding heart. Then the building groaned and shifted and Seely's eyes shot wide open. Something in another room fell and crashed to the floor, but soon the world quieted again until nothing was left but the eerie, muffled sound of the phantom train. At length, Seely closed her eyes and tried to rest.

Another two minutes passed – long, empty, quiet minutes with nothing rattling, breaking or moving. Seely took a cautious, deeper breath and opened her eyes. Dust still lingered in the air, tears began clouding her vision and her voice quivered, "Please God,... let my little family…be alive."  She settled down again and was quietly lost in thought, but then she began breathlessly muttering to herself as if to fend off some unthinkable loneliness. "I never should have…let them send us to…Seattle." Again she was quiet, her mind spinning, her heart aching and her tears freely flowing. At last, she pulled her thoughts together enough to whisper, "Jenna, don't…get in the elevator."