Rogue Wave

Chapter 34

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, Jake, and Tom reached the top of the stairs, the rushing water just below them, Kai ushered everyone up the last flight of stairs and onto the roof.

The flat expanse of faded and peeling white paint was broken up by a few large air conditioning units and not much else. Kai ran to the edge of building and looked down. At this height, he would normally see multitudes of beachgoers thronging the promenade far below. Instead, breathtakingly, the water was now only 15 feet beneath them. It had not reached the top floor, but it was only a few inches below it. Water surged like a river around the corner of the building, taking all kinds of debris with it.

Kai was relieved that the building hadn't collapsed with the first wave. But he had no idea if it would stand up to the next one. Not that it would matter. The next wave was going to be another five stories high, completely covering this building.

He knelt by Lani.

"Are you all right, honey?" Kai said.

She nodded and gave him a tight hug. "I can't believe you came to get us. How did you know where we were?"

"You were on TV. Then Jake led us to you when we got to the Grand Hawaiian. Was it your idea to send him there?"

She nodded again. She was a smart kid.

"Is mom OK?"

"She was at the hotel. I'm sure she's fine." Although Kai tried to project a confident calm, he was in fact practically sick with worry about Rachel. He knew this thing was far from over, and he didn't think she'd be safe where she was for long. Neither would they.

Kai took out the walkie-talkie and tried it first, knowing that the cell phone system was less reliable. After a few tries, he got through to his wife and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Rachel, are you all right?"

"Kai! Thank God! Please tell me you got Lani."

"I have her right here. She has an exciting story to tell you."

Kai passed the walkie-talkie to Lani and walked over to Brad. He was taking pictures of the flooding with his cell phone, which had been in the dry bag.

"What do we do now?" Brad said, snapping a photo of a boat floating past the eighth story of the building behind them, the twenty-story building they should have been in if only they'd had another minute to run over to it. Kai took Brad aside so that the kids wouldn't hear them, and Teresa joined them.

"We wait," Kai said. "The water will recede. When it does, we need to make a run for higher ground. In the meantime, maybe we can wave one of those helicopters down."

"We're not the only ones," Teresa said. "Look."

She gestured to the other buildings around Waikiki and Honolulu. As far as the eye could see, buildings were topped with people leaning over the sides or waving to the skies. There had to be hundreds of them, if not thousands. Seeing that, it struck Kai as strange that they were the only ones on the top of this building. He had the awful thought that perhaps the Seaside held other people who hadn't tried to evacuate their condos until the water was upon them.

To Kai's surprise, Teresa grabbed both him and Brad in an embrace.

"I can't ever thank you enough for saving Mia," she sobbed. "I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't come along."

"Hey, it finally got lame-o here on a motorcycle. Of course, my Harley is now rusting away under about 80 feet of Pacific seawater. But it was a helluva last ride."

Kai wanted to say it was going to be OK, that they were all safe now, but it couldn't have been further from the truth. They couldn't stay, but at the moment they couldn't go either.

Kai borrowed Brad's cell phone and dialed 911. The line was jammed and all he got was a busy signal. He tried again, with the same result.

He was about to call Reggie when Kai realized that it wasn't his own phone. His was in pieces on the side of Fort Stewart Road, washed away by now. Reggie's cell number, of course, wasn't in Brad's cell phone list, and Kai had become so reliant on that feature that he had no idea what Reggie's number was.

He resorted to calling his own number, knowing he would be routed to voicemail since his phone wouldn't answer. It rang through, and Kai punched in the remote access code while his greeting played. He had one message. It was received less than five minutes ago.

"Kai, this is Reggie," he said between wheezes. "I sure as hell hope you get this, because that means you survived. We're running up Fort Stewart Road right now. It is a madhouse. People everywhere. I haven't been able to get in touch with Alaska. I assume you got through to them, or I would have heard from you. But I'll keep trying. Once I get to Wheeler, we should have some dedicated phone lines."

Kai berated himself for leaving without making the transfer. He could only hope that Hawaii Civil Defense was in contact with the warning center in Palmer. For all he knew, they and the rest of the Pacific island nations were now blind to any new information because he had abandoned his post without even making sure someone else would pick up his responsibilities. His stomach twisted with guilt.

"I'll keep my phone on," Reggie continued. "The service has been spotty. I'm lucky I got through to your voicemail. If you're out there, give me a call and let me know you're okay. I hope I hear from you, boss."

The message ended. Kai memorized the number rattled off by the caller ID and saved it in Brad's phone's list before dialing another number.

"Who are you calling?" Brad asked.

"Reggie," Kai said. "Maybe he can send us a chopper."

The call immediately went to voicemail.

"Quick," Kai said to Brad, "what are the cross streets of this building?"

"It's hard to tell with all the streets gone. I know we're on Kalakaua." He pointed in the direction of the mountains behind us. "Lemon is that way. I think this might be Laka'laina running perpendicular."

Great, Kai thought. The only real estate developer in Honolulu who doesn't know the streets.

Lani came over, holding the walkie-talkie in front of her.

"Mom wants to talk to you."

Kai motioned for Brad to take it. "Tell her what we're doing and that we're all right." He didn't have to add, "for now."

Reggie's voice came on, and Kai left the message.

"Reggie, this is Kai. If you get this in the next ten minutes, we are on top of a white ten-story condo building called the Seaside on the east end of Waikiki. We think the cross streets are Kalakaua and Laka'laina. If you get this, send a helicopter to come get us. And call me. I lost my cell phone, so I'm on Brad's." Kai gave him the number and hung up.

"Do you think he'll be able to send one?" Teresa said.

"I don't know. But if he doesn't, we're going to have to try running for it."

"Running for it?"

Kai forgot that Teresa didn't know anything about tsunamis.

"This wave will recede as the next trough in the series of tsunamis reaches us."

"Series! You mean there are going to be more?"

She hadn't heard, and Kai didn't have time to cushion the news.

"We cannot stay on this building. We've got about 20 minutes before the next wave comes in and covers this condo."

"How many more are there?"

"I don't know." If Kai had made sure Reggie was in touch with Palmer, maybe he would have known for sure. "At least two. Maybe more. We've got to leave one way or another."

"How?"

"If a helicopter flies near us, we need to try to wave it down. If not, we'll go down the stairwell as the water ebbs. Once we reach the ground floor, we'll have 10 minutes before the next wave comes in."

"How far can we get in ten minutes?"

Under the best of conditions, they could run maybe a mile in ten minutes. But given their exhaustion and the debris that would be littering the way, that estimate was way too optimistic. And with waves this size, the water would surely reach more than a mile inland.

Kai studied the buildings around him. About five blocks away from the beach was another apartment building that was about twice the height of the Seaside.

"That building is 20 stories tall. If we make it up that one, it's a little farther inland. We can sort of leapfrog our way up to the Punchbowl as the next wave recedes. That's the closest point that's safe."

It wasn't a great plan, but it was all he had.

The smell of sea water was strong, much stronger than it should have been this high up. It reminded Kai that they were still in mortal danger.

He looked to the sky, trying to will one of those distant helicopters to come their way. He wanted to do something, but couldn't. Only 20 minutes until the next wave, and he was completely helpless.