The Tsunami Countdown

AFTERWORD

Asteroids are a very real threat to our planet. The story told in Rogue Wave is a dramatization of what would happen if one of them struck Earth, but it is not science fiction. When I visited the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center for my research, I spent three hours with the director, Chip McCreery, who graciously gave me a tour of the facility. The tour took place more than eighteen months before the Asian tsunami devastated Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia in December 2004. When I told him the plot to my story, he agreed that the scenario was indeed plausible.

The reason is that asteroids are very difficult to detect. As I mentioned in the novel, asteroid 2002 MN wasn’t discovered until it had already passed by Earth. If that asteroid had hit the middle of the ocean, we may not have known about it until the first waves hit populated shores.

In the future, one of those asteroids won’t miss. It may not be in my lifetime, but someday it will happen unless we do something to deflect the asteroid.

Spaceguard is a real entity scanning the skies for dangerous near-earth objects. They’ve identified Apophis, a near-Earth asteroid almost identical in size to the one in Rogue Wave. There is a 1-in-250,000 chance that it will hit Earth in 2036.

The computer models that I referenced in the novel are very real and are an example of extensive research into tsunamis caused by asteroid impact. Those models may not match up exactly with the size and frequency of waves I sent toward Honolulu in my book, but until we actually experience an asteroid impact, we have no real data. The computer models may be wrong.

None of that will stop me from vacationing in Hawaii, but when I’m lying on the beach, I’ll keep my eye on the ocean.