Rachel had watched in horror as Kai and Lani fled the wave and lost sight of them when they got to Kalakaua Ave, the palm trees and other buildings obstructing her view. She immediately tried to call Kai's cell phone to see if they were all right, but all she got was a fast busy signal, indicating all lines were jammed. She tried her walkie- talkie with no success.
When she couldn't see them any more, she turned her attention back to the tsunami coming in. From her vantage point on the 28th floor, she was far above the maximum height of this tsunami, but as the wave grew, it looked like it would never stop.
'Will you look at the size of that thing?' said Max.
The boats that had been left stranded were picked up by the wave. The smaller boats capsized immediately or they were borne by the wave as it rammed into the shoreline and buildings, smashing them into unrecognizable pieces. The people who had been running from the water were simply swallowed up.
The tsunami crashed into the huge luxury yacht's bow, driving it backward, but most of the energy went around the yacht, and it floated on top of the water only a short distance from where it had been resting, its propellers churning at full speed to keep it from coming ashore.
The dredging barge that had been attempting to leave the inlet to the Ala Wai Canal was not so fortunate.
The barge was part of a project to dredge the accumulated sludge at the entrance of the 25-year-old canal. The captain had tried to get the barge and its equipment out to sea before the tsunami hit. However, the barge lacked quick maneuverability, and in the chaos during its escape, it had drifted too close to shore. The receding water left it stranded, broadside to the tsunami, helpless to move. The chipped red letters of the company name 'Western Sea' stretched along the stern. When the tsunami reached it, the wave picked up the 300-foot-long barge like a toy and threw it back toward the hotels lining the beach, on a direct collision course with the Grand Hawaiian.
'It's coming right at us!' Rachel said. 'Hold on, everyone!'
Many of the guests had crowded up to the window to see the wave come in, but most of them ran to the back of the room when they realized what was happening. Screams and yells filled the restaurant. Max and Rachel stayed at the window, transfixed by the tsunami's ease at moving the massive ship.
As the water rumbled toward them, the building began to shake as if a minor earthquake had jolted it. The glass vibrated in sympathy with the motion.
When the wave reached the original shoreline, the Western Sea barge rotated so that its bow pointed straight inland. As the wave was about to smash into the Grand Hawaiian, the barge rotated just enough so that the vessel cleared the building they were standing in, but it now headed for the second of the Grand Hawaiian's twin towers.
The barge's bow plunged into the Akamai tower with immense force. The horrible sound of pulverized steel, glass, and concrete was audible 28 stories up in the Moana tower. The top of the bow impacted at the sixth floor and came to a stop after pushing at least 30 feet into the interior, the tsunami keeping up the pressure as it climbed higher and covered the barge, sweeping the jumble of dredging equipment on its deck into the building. The stern of the barge, buoyed by the water, rose up and snapped off from the bow, which was firmly wedged in the building. The stern half, free of the rest of the barge, glanced off the building and floated around the Akamai tower and out of their view.
Vast amounts of debris choked the water. Cars, boats, pieces of buildings, trees, all combined into a miasma of detritus flowing inland. Rachel knew that bodies must be mixed in with the wreckage, but thankfully she was too far up to make out those details clearly. For as far as she could see on either side of the hotel, water filled the streets of Honolulu to a depth of 70 feet. Anyone caught in that would have needed a miracle to survive.
Rachel mentally ticked off her options. Evacuating the guests by going back downstairs was futile. Even assuming the wave would retreat enough to let them out onto the streets, there wouldn't be enough time before the next wave for them to reach safety. Their only hope was to be saved by air.
She gestured toward the helicopters-both military and civilian-buzzing around the city. Her best hope was to follow Kai's suggestion.
'We have to try to get one of them,' she said to Max.
As she opened her cell phone to dial 911, the only way she could think of getting help, she happened to glance across at the Akamai tower. With a gasp, she pointed to a window about three floors below them where a man with a goatee leaned precariously out of a window with a cell phone in his hand, peering down at the barge sticking out of his building. The sun reflected off his bald spot, and his flowered shirt rippled in the breeze. Even from this distance, the desperation on his face was apparent.
'He's trapped,' Rachel said, 'and he knows it.'
The dredging barge had been driven into the middle of the tower like an enormous spike, most likely crushing the stairwell and any escape in that direction. The distinctive spire roof of the Akamai tower, in contrast to the flat roof of the Moana tower, provided no place for a helicopter to land.
'My God!' Max said. 'He's not going to jump, is he?'
'I don't know,' Rachel said, waving her arms and banging on the window, trying to get his attention.
A woman, as dark as the man was fair, ran to the man and hugged him, followed by three children. The man didn't seem to hear Rachel, but the biggest of the children, a boy, caught sight of her in the restaurant and pointed. The man returned Rachel's wave and motioned with his hands, asking what they should do.
'What now?' Max said.
'I don't know. But if we don't get a helicopter, none of us is getting out of here alive.'
She had just started dialing again when shouts of alarm coursed through the room. Every light in the restaurant went out, and the air handling system fell silent. The power was gone.
All of Oahu's three major power stations sat on the coast, the biggest in Nanakuli, the others at Barber's Point and Honolulu. They perched on the edge of the ocean with good reason.
First, the oil and coal they needed to operate could be supplied much more efficiently if the power plant had a dock where the tankers and colliers could offload. Second, the immense heat generated by the plants required access to cooling water, and the sea was an obvious source. And third, the vast acreage of flat land needed for the huge plants was primarily concentrated on the edges of the island, with mountains making up most of the interior.
Of course, disaster planners had considered their proximity to the coast, but the utmost concern were hurricanes that battered the Hawaiian Islands on a periodic basis. In those cases, the tidal surge was never higher than 15 feet, and the power plants were well above that level. Tsunamis were considered, but historically they rarely reached more than 30 feet in height.
A mega tsunami was unprecedented, so large that disaster planners had not thought it was a realistic possibility. The chances of it happening were so remote that planning for it was not deemed economically prudent.
And so, when the 80 foot high tsunami struck the coast of Oahu, the wave submerged all three power plants to a depth of 30 feet, causing all of them to shut down. Any higher waves to come would destroy them completely.
Not only were the power plants smashed, but the wave washed away most of the power lines and their towers. Where lines remained intact, the water caused short circuits in the system. The power substations that weren't submerged couldn't handle the massive overloads, and the surviving circuit breakers tripped.
The island of Oahu was in blackout.
A few locations, however, still had power. Backup generators and batteries continued to power critical functions in hospitals and at the air traffic control tower of Wheeler Army Airfield.
Only one other major system continued to function. Small backup generators or batteries were included in the design of every cell phone tower.
On the tenth floor of the Seaside, next to the stairwell, a second set of stairs led up to the roof. When Brad,
