'Asteroids move at 25,000 miles per hour. It would get here in less than ten days. And there aren't nearly enough telescopes around the world to find every chunk of rock flying around out there. I know, because I'm in Spaceguard.'
'Spaceguard?' She stifled a snicker. It sounded like an alien star fleet squadron. Gail wasn't surprised Gentry belonged to something like that.
'It's a group of astronomers around the world who spend their time cataloguing all of the asteroids in the solar system. I've discovered two myself.' He said it as if he'd invented electricity.
'So if you're all looking,' Gail said, 'you should have seen one big enough to cause a tsunami.'
'Not necessarily. In 2002, an asteroid came within 75,000 miles of Earth, well within the orbit of the moon. The asteroid was 100 meters in diameter, big enough to destroy a major city if it had collided with Earth.' He paused for effect.
'It missed,' Gail finally said.
'Right. Barely. But the date of closest approach was June 14. The asteroid was detected on June 17. Three days
'We don't know it has happened.'
'We will soon.'
As if to punctuate Gentry's remark, the phone rang. Gail expected it to be HCD calling to get an update, but it was a scientist from Goddard for Gentry. He took the phone from her and said 'yes' a few times before scribbling on a pad and hanging up.
'Come on,' he said. 'I've got an email.'
He left Gail's desk. She followed reluctantly.
'What is it?' she asked.
'Something you'll want to see. Lucky for us, the new LANDSAT was in the right place at the right time.'
Gentry plopped himself at his computer and logged into his email.
A series of images popped up. Gail drew in a sharp breath at each one, ignoring the odor wafting from Gentry.
Until this moment, she hadn't really expected to find anything, but what she saw made her a convert. She was a believer.
The implications of the photos flew through her mind. An airliner carrying hundreds of people had already been lost because of what she was looking at. Now she knew that was only the beginning.
'Oh my God,' she said, horrified at the thought of the destruction to come.
'I know,' Gentry said, grinning at the pictures on the screen. 'Isn't it cool?'
Chapter 25
As Reggie analyzed the data from the DART buoy, Kai had been keeping on eye on the evacuation on one of the cable channels that wasn't broadcasting the EAS and had been horrified by what he had seen. That's why he was now talking to the press.
On most of the channels, the EAS broadcast was being repeated over and over. In the last few minutes, a new warning from the governor had been broadcast, perhaps to give the warning more weight, but the content wasn't significantly changed from the one Brian Renfro had so eloquently relayed.
There was still no mention of a meteor impact, and that may have been one reason that so many people were either ignoring the warning or were confused about what to do.
About ten minutes before, Kai had begun watching the TV more closely because he wanted to see how the evacuation was progressing. He tuned to the national MSNBC feed, which didn't broadcast the EAS warning because their main audience was the continental US. The network took advantage of one of their affiliate's local Honolulu camera crews.
A reporter standing on Waikiki Beach motioned to the scene behind him. Some people ran in panic. Packed with cars, the road along the beach moved so slowly that the vehicles were almost idling. Many more cars could be seen trying to merge into the traffic from the garages of hotels lining the strip. Police attempted to direct the traffic at several of the intersections, but the sheer volume made it virtually impossible for the vehicles to make headway.
Still other people strolled along the beach completely unperturbed by the evacuation. The reporter, his close-cropped hair rigidly resisting the wind swaying the trees behind him, stopped an obese man in swim trunks and a towel slung over his shoulder.
'Sir,' the reporter said, 'you don't seem particularly concerned by the tsunami warning. Can I ask why?'
The man shook his head dismissively.
'It seems like we get these warnings once a year. I just wait until about fifteen minutes before the wave is supposed to get here, and then I head back to my condo.'
'Your condo?'
'Yeah, it's right over there,' the obese man said, pointing at a white building behind him. 'Eight stories up with a great view of the beach, so I just watch from there. Usually there isn't much to see, but hey, maybe today will be different.'
'You sound like you consider it entertainment.'
'Well, it'd be pretty amazing to see a real tsunami, don't you think? But I'm sure this is another false alarm.'
'Are you aware that the warning now says the wave could be 200 feet high?'
'That's just crazy. What are the chances of that?'
The man continued his walk, leaving the reporter to head over to a Lexus SUV, one of the cars making tortured progress along Kalakaua Avenue. In the background, along with a few individuals running in terror, crowds of people could be seen walking leisurely along the street, as if they were being herded in a particular direction by some unseen guide. Kai found the scene infuriating, but he knew that was typical behavior in an evacuation.
Before the World Trade Center towers collapsed, some people took as long as ten minutes in their offices before deciding to leave. And even then, most of them set a slow pace going down the stairwells, taking at least twice the time that engineers anticipated when they designed the buildings. Another 135 people did not even have that presence of mind. They were so paralyzed by the situation that they made no attempt to escape and were still in their offices when the buildings collapsed. Now Kai was witnessing all of these behaviors in real time.
The Lexus owner, a deeply tanned man in a tank top and a hideous comb-over, had his window down. His eyes kept darting in the direction of the ocean as he talked. At first, Kai thought he was concerned that the tsunami might come in while he was still in his car.
'Sir,' the reporter said, 'do you think the traffic will let you get to a safe location in time?'
'Oh, I'll be safe,' the driver said, his eyes continuing to flick away from the camera. 'I'm heading down to the Ala Wai marina to get my sailboat. I don't want to see it get sunk because of some stupid tsunami.'
'Are you planning to tow it back home?'
'No, I don't have a trailer. I'm going to take it out to sea. I gotta protect my property.'
'What about your car?'
'My car?' It looked like the first time the guy had considered what would happen to his car.
'Yes, you'll have to leave it at the marina, right?'
'Damn it!' he yelled, pounding on the steering wheel. 'I knew I should have brought my son with me.'
The camera pulled back to the reporter, but Kai had seen enough. He turned to Reggie.
'These people aren't getting it. We need to do something.'
'Like what? The inundation maps we have are worthless. Even if we could develop new ones in the next few minutes, we don't have enough time to distribute them. Besides, we don't even know for sure how big the biggest wave will be.'
