Flood

12

Pursuing the storm front up the river toward central London, the chopper flew over Tilbury, ten or twelve kilometers west of Canvey Island. There was a much more massive evacuation project going on from this heavily populated area, with traffic edging out of Tilbury to the north of the Thames and Gravesend to the south. Electricity substations were overwhelmed. The lighting in whole districts started to blank out. In the river itself a container ship had been caught, apparently as it tried to turn, and had pitched over, spilling containers into the water like matchsticks. That alone was a major rescue operation, Gary saw, with helicopters and what looked like lifeboats clustering around the stricken ship.

The chopper flew on.

“We need to understand this,” Thandie murmured. “Understand it, and do something about it.”

“Mean sea levels are up by a meter,” Gary said.

Thandie turned. “Who told you that?”

“It came from an eleven-year-old.”

Thandie grunted. “Well, she might be right.”

“It was a she, actually.”

“Of course it was.”

“Nobody knows for sure,” Sanjay said. “Trends are hard to establish. What we’ve actually seen are exceptional fluvial events, and exceptional incidences of tidal flooding, like this event. All over the planet. Ocean temperatures are rising too. The additional heat is fueling storms.”

“Like this one.”

“Possibly. The data’s patchy.”

Gary asked Thandie, “What do you think?”

“That the oceans are rising. The data might be patchy, Sanjay, but everything points that way. The secular trend will become apparent with time.”

“So how is this happening? A meter is a hell of a lot. When I was abducted that was an upper limit for the sea-level rise quoted for the end of the century, not for 2016.”

“I remember it well,” Thandie said dryly. “The good old days of global warming.”

“So what’s the cause? You say it’s not just glacier melting, the ice caps, or the heat expansion of the water itself.”

“All that’s going on, as it has been for decades,” Thandie said. “But this is something else.”

Sanjay said,“It’s an argument that’s been raging for a couple of years. And Thandie has some hypotheses-haven’t you, my dear?”

“Don’t patronize me, you smug Brit loser. Yes, I got some ideas. All I need is a way to validate them.”

“And then you can write your book and go on TV and scare everybody to death, while making a fortune in the process.”

Thandie lifted one gloved hand with a middle finger raised. Then she slowed the chopper to a hover. “Jesus Christ, look at that.”

Gary looked down at a six-lane road bridge that boldly spanned the river, fed by complex junctions to north and south. The north bank was lined by industrial developments, with wharves and jetties jutting into the river. Behind the industrial site was a broad splash of concrete and glass, brightly lit from within, from the air like a series of immense greenhouses. To the south he glimpsed an even more spectacular city of glass, set in what looked like a chalk quarry, with acres of manicured parkland.

“Where are we?”

“The Dartford Crossing,” Sanjay said. “That, my American friend, is the M25, the London orbital motorway. Even on a good day it’s a doughnut-shaped car park. And this is where it crosses the river.”

“And those retail developments?”

“Lakeside Thurrock to the north, Bluewater Park to the south. Shoppers’ paradises…”

Today these developments were having a very bad day indeed. Helicopters hovered, some of them big USAF Chinooks, their spotlights shining down on river water that lapped ever higher around the abutments and approaches of the big motorway bridge. The water had forced its way behind the industrial areas around Lakeside, isolating them, and was pushing its way into the retail development. By the crossing itself Gary saw an immense bowl where the roads snaked through toll booths, a bowl filling steadily with water. Car lights failed as they were submerged, and people swarmed like ants.

“The motorway’s jammed up,” Thandie called. “I’m listening to the police reports. The tunnel was closed already because of the threat of flooding, so the bridge and its feeder roads are clogged. Plus you have a lot of extra refugee traffic pouring in.”

As Gary watched, the lights in the northern shopping complex, Lakeside, went out. “Jesus.”

“The storm front is approaching the Barrier,” Sanjay said, peering into his laptop. “I guess this is the moment of truth.”

Gary asked, “So will the water overtop the Barrier?”

“Ah,” said Sanjay.“That’s the forty-billion-dollar question. It’s a 1960s design based on 1960s assumptions about future flood event probabilities. Even before this new sea-level rise phenomenon, the revised projections based on global warming were ringing alarm bells-”

“The police are asking us for help,” Thandie said, listening to her radio feed. “They’re organizing pickup zones. Kids, women with babies, the sick and injured. We can take some out to higher ground. Keep running until our fuel gives out.”

“Here it comes,” Sanjay said, staring at his screen.“I think the water’s overtopping the Barrier gates. My word.”

Gary looked at Thandie. “Let’s help.”

“Yeah.” The helicopter dropped out of the sky toward the darkened carcass of Lakeside.