Amber’s hands flew to her mouth, and her eyes grew wide. Mitch stood next to her, his mouth open, unable to speak. The remote dropped from Cami’s hands and clattered to the table.
When Cami's vision blurred, she turned away from the TV and wiped her face. She couldn’t—she couldn't look at the images of destruction and death, all up and down thousands of miles of coastline. She couldn't give in to the panic that threatened to rip her apart. She couldn't let go of the hope that Reese made it to the mainland. She had to be strong. She had to be strong for Reese and Amber…and now Mitch.
"I'm going to…” Cami cleared her throat. "I'm going to fire up the oven.” She wiped her face again and stepped away from the table. “We need some food, and I’ve got a couple frozen pizzas out there."
“I lost my appetite,” Amber mumbled, still staring at the TV.
The lights flickered again, and the TV went black. "That's why," Cami said, pointing at the screen with a pizza cutter. "If the power goes out, we’ll need to eat or preserve the food in the fridge and freezers before it goes bad."
"That's what we have the generator for, mom," Amber muttered sourly.
"We don't have that much gas for the generator, sweetie,” Cami replied. “We've got enough to get us through a couple days—maybe a week—if we ration the power to just running the fridge and freezer long enough to keep things cold. But if we need to use lights or run the well pump to get water—all that's going to take electricity."
The lights dimmed almost to the point of going out and held there for a moment, before flaring back to full intensity.
“I don’t like this at all,” Cami said, hugging herself.
Amber turned the TV back on. "They didn't say anything about power outages—other than Charleston itself."
"Yeah, but I think your mom's onto something…” Mitch said, a pensive look on his face. “Everything’s interconnected—if there's a big surge or something that knocks out power to the coast, it could ripple back this way, right?"
Cami nodded, opening the freezer and pulling out a frozen pizza. "That's what I'm afraid of. You guys okay with veggie-max?" she asked, holding up the plastic wrapped pizza.
Mitch nodded enthusiastically, and Amber made a face. "Do we have one with pepperoni?"
Cami dug through the freezer, eventually pulling out a second pizza. "We'll fire up two. The leftovers will be good for tomorrow, too. And you're right, I think there’ll be a ripple effect—especially if the power is being affected all up and down the eastern seaboard." Cami turned on the oven to preheat, then shook her head, staring at the dial.
"Every time there's been a hurricane or…or a blizzard, or anything like that—even during Superstorm Sandy, people got service reestablished because volunteers and power companies further inland diverted repair crews to the coast.” Cami turned to face the others, leaned against the counter and crossed her arms. "When the power goes out, everybody knows it's eventually going to come back on. It's just a matter of time."
"Yeah," Mitch said, sitting down at the table. "But…what if the power goes out everywhere?”
“That would cause the power further inland to go out…” Amber said.
“Which forces the people that would've come to the coast to take care of their own communities first, right?” asked Mitch.
Cami frowned. "This could get bad guys. We may be out of the flood zone, but if power goes out…and it spreads inland, we could be looking at a cascading failure."
“A cascading…what?” asked Mitch.
"It's when systems break down, like the power grid,” Cami explained, “which causes other systems—like communications—to break down. A cascading failure intensifies as it grows, which allows it to intensify further…it just keeps getting worse. Like, for example, the tsunami hitting the coast."
"That's bad enough in itself," Amber muttered as she took a seat next to Mitch.
"Normally, I'd agree with you,” Cami said, pulling down three glasses from the cabinet. “But I think we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg here. Yeah, the waves probably killed hundreds of thousands of people," Cami said, her voice tightening as she tried not to think about Reese among those staggering numbers of dead and missing.
"But we’re not just talking about one state,” Amber added. “There could be thousands of businesses, millions of people displaced from their homes.”
“And now they’re all refugees,” Cami said. “There’s no way we have enough stockpiled resources to take care of that many people suddenly all in need of food, water, and shelter.” Cami opened the fridge and pulled out a 2-liter of Coke. "And if the power goes out and it spreads, that's going to be huge." She placed three plates on the table and looked at the others.
"Without power, we can't get gas. Factories can't make medicine. But no gas means no transportation, no transportation means no plane flights or overland trucking, and things come to a standstill really quick."
Mitch held his hands up. "Okay, okay—so things could get really bad. But say the electricity goes out all the way to the Mississippi. That's pretty bad, but that won’t take out power in California. People will still be able to ship supplies and help from the west coast, right?"
Cami sat down. "I don't know…I just don't know. If things ripple fast enough, in theory the power could end up being knocked out across the
