The Tsunami Countdown (31 page)

Aftermath

W
hen the C-130 landed at Wheeler, Denise and Stan went their own ways, leaving Kai and Teresa to find treatment for the injuries
that Tom, Lani, and Mia had sustained. They were in the same circumstance as thousands of others who crowded around the edges
of the runway tarmac. Wheeler had its own small oil power plant, so it was self-sufficient in case of island power outages.
With all of the coastal power plants wiped out, it was one of the few places on Oahu that still had electricity.

Displaced residents and tourists from all over Oahu had converged on the air base as a safe haven. Thirty-five jets had been
forced to land because they didn’t have enough fuel to return to the mainland. They packed every bit of spare concrete at
the air field, including a long-abandoned runway. Since the base didn’t normally accommodate airliners, there were no motorized
stairs or walkways for the
planes to unload. Most sat there still full of passengers, while others had disgorged using their emergency slides.

Tripler Army Medical Center had rapidly filled to capacity with patients requiring use of its trauma center, so all other
injuries and illnesses were routed to a temporary triage center set up in a hangar at Wheeler. That’s where Kai took his daughter
for treatment.

Kai stopped, speechless, as he took in the enormity of what had happened. Before him was an image he had seen previously only
on TV. Row upon row of people were being tended to by dozens of men and women, some in uniform, some in scrubs, some in civilian
clothing. Because the disaster had happened so fast, only a limited supply of cots was available. Most patients lay on blankets
or stretchers on the hangar floor. Many of the victims moaned or wailed, some from injuries, others from the mental anguish
of their loss.

An Army lieutenant directed them to a second hangar, where they saw a similar scene of woe. A nurse found an empty space for
the children to lie down and gave them some blankets. When she found out that Teresa was a doctor, she took her aside, out
of earshot of the kids, who dropped to the floor, exhausted from the ordeal.

After a minute, Teresa returned. “They’re short of doctors,” she said.

“I’m not surprised,” Kai said. Hundreds of people lined
the floor in this hangar alone. He could only guess how many more there were.

“I need to go. Lani will be okay. I don’t think there’s any permanent damage. Tom’s shoulder will need to be checked out by
an orthopedist. And Mia needs an MRI, but that won’t happen until we can get back to the mainland. The nurse said nobody has
any spare clothes yet, so we’ll just have to dry out until we can get some.”

Tom massaged his shoulder, but he seemed more intent on looking around the hangar.

“When you find someone in authority,” Kai said, “let them know that Tom is looking for his parents.” Then he realized that
even after all he had gone through with the boy, Kai still didn’t know one important detail about him.

“Tom,” Kai said. “What’s your last name?”

“Medlock,” Tom replied, understanding why he was being asked. “My parents are Joseph and Belinda Medlock.”

“I’ve got it,” Teresa said. “We’ll find them, Tom.” More quietly, she said to Kai, “Listen, I’m just … Oh, God … I mean, Rachel
…” Before she could finish, she burst into tears and grasped Kai in a hug. After a few moments she pulled away. “I’ll be back
as soon as I can.”

Teresa took a breath to compose herself, then made her way toward the front of the hangar. Kai turned his attention back to
Lani and Mia.

Neither of them spoke. Mia stared off into the distance,
and Lani slowly flipped through the photo album Kai had saved. It was hard to believe these were the same girls who had been
so chatty this morning.

Kai knelt down and smiled at Lani.

“How are you feeling?” he said.

“I’m just coughing a little.”

“You’re going to be fine,” Kai said. “You’re going to be fine.”

“Why, Daddy?” Lani cried. “I want Mommy! I want Uncle Brad!”

Lani put her face in her hands and bawled loudly. Kai comforted her the best that he could, taking his own comfort in her
vitality.

“I know, sweetie,” Kai said. “I want them too.”

Eventually, her sobs lessened until she just moaned into his shoulder.

A warm puff of air tickled Kai’s ear. He turned just in time for Bilbo to lick his face energetically.

“Bilbo!” Lani said, and the dog sprang to her. Lani lavished him with coos and pats.

Kai looked up to see a massive brown hand held out to him.

“Glad you made it,” Reggie Pona said, pulling Kai to his feet, then throwing his arms around him. “I thought we’d lost you
a few times.”

“If you hadn’t sent help for us, you would have.”

“I saw Teresa back there,” Reggie said, pointing to the hangar entrance. “She seems okay. Are you girls all right?”

Lani and Mia nodded, focusing most of their interest on Bilbo. Kai knew Reggie wanted to hear about what happened. The dog
was just what the girls needed to comfort them after the ordeal.

“Let’s take a walk, Reggie. Lani, take care of Bilbo. I’ll be back in a little bit.” Kai saw her start to protest, so he held
up his hand to stop her. “I swear that I will not drive or fly anywhere without you. We’ll just be outside.”

As they stepped out of the hangar, two trucks screeched to a halt and began unloading passengers and supplies.

“Let’s get some privacy,” Reggie said, leading the way down the tarmac. “I saw a good place on my way here. You don’t know
how glad I was to hear you landed.”

Kai didn’t answer. After a few moments of silence, he said, “Is it over?”

“The DART buoy says we’re in the clear. That last monster was absolutely unbelievable. Three hundred feet! I mean, everything’s
gone for three miles inland in some places.”

“I know. I saw it when we were in the air.”

“Oh. Right.”

Another silence.

“Teresa told me about Rachel and Brad,” Reggie said. “I don’t know what to say. I’m really sorry.”

Reggie was tactfully leaving it open for him to say more, but Kai wasn’t in the mood to discuss the details.

“Who’s handling the warning duties now?” he said, knowing Reggie wouldn’t have left his post without making sure it was covered.

“George and Mary finally showed up. They’re on the phone with Alaska. I left them in charge so I could take a break and come
find you. The first wave won’t reach California for another two hours. The West Coast should be pretty well evacuated by then.
Given the TV coverage, you’d have to be a grade-A moron to stay by the ocean today.”

Reggie stopped at the base of what looked like a World War II–era watchtower at least seventy feet in height. Although it
hadn’t been used in years, it still looked sturdy enough.

“Should be a little quieter up there,” he said.

Kai shrugged and followed him up the stairs. At the top, they were treated to an expansive view that stretched all the way
to the shoreline five miles to the south. The fresh breeze felt good on Kai’s face, carrying away the stink of his sodden
clothes.

“This is going to get worse before it gets better, you know,” Kai said. “A lot worse.”

“Tell me about it. All the power stations are knocked out. It could take a year to build new ones. They’ve
already estimated at least three hundred thousand homeless on Oahu alone.”

“We’re two of them.”

“Right,” Reggie said. “I wonder where we’re going to sleep tonight.”

Kai wondered
when
he was going to be able to sleep again. All he could think of was Rachel, trying to fix her image in his mind before it faded.
The twinkle in her eye when she knew Kai was going to unleash a dreadful pun. Her delightful bray of laughter at Lani’s wrestling
matches with the dog. The touch of her lips. The smell of her hair when she curled up with him just before they fell asleep.
Without her, sleep would be a long time coming.

“Looks like we’ll have to bed down in the airport hangars for now,” Kai said. “With only one working runway in the entire
island chain, any airlift is going to go slowly.”

“Hell, I don’t know how they’re even going to get jet fuel up here to fill up all these planes,” Reggie replied. “I heard
someone from the government talk about resupplying Hawaii with the biggest ship convoy since World War II. Who knows how long
that will take? At least two weeks before it gets here. I bet they move half the population to the mainland—”

“Reggie,” Kai interrupted. “Do you mind if we just stand here for a few minutes and not talk?”

Reggie nodded and leaned against the railing. Kai just
wanted to have a moment to himself before facing the reality of the hardships to come.

So they stood there silently, reflecting on their losses and contemplating the future, staring at the flat blue ocean serenely
shimmering in the distance.

One Year Later

K
ai sat back from his laptop and stared out at Mount Rainier from his new house as he lost his concentration yet again. Even
this late in the spring, the lower slopes of the peak were still covered with snow. The cool weather of Seattle didn’t bother
him nearly as much as he remembered. He actually liked the crisp air now, but that wasn’t why he had moved back to Washington.
And it wasn’t the fact that Puget Sound was a hundred miles from the Pacific. Despite the move, the ocean was never far from
his mind, nor were the images of that terrible day in Honolulu.

It always struck him as odd that, with all the videography available from these kinds of time-stopping events, the most iconic
images seemed to come from photos.

The sight of the USS
Arizona
, exposed to the air for the first time in over sixty years after it was sunk on the day that pulled America into World War
II, washed inland and
coming to rest alongside the USS
Missouri
, the ship on which the Japanese surrender was signed, ending the war.

The photos of Honolulu taken from the lip of Diamond Head the day before and the day after the tsunami hit, one showing a
bustling metropolis, the other a landscape laid bare for miles.

The aerial photo of Punchbowl National Cemetery, a memorial to those who have died in the service of their country, teeming
with the life of those who were protected and saved from the tsunami by its very location.

It was the Punchbowl image with which Kai identified most, and the one he had framed on his wall. It represented everything
he did right on that day. He could honestly say that those people would not be alive if it weren’t for him and Reggie. It
didn’t let his conscience completely off the hook for all the thousands who had died, but it was what let him sleep at night
now.

He had come to terms with some of the decisions he made. Not all of them. But enough to let him not just mourn the dead but
to celebrate the survivors and remember the sacrifices some made so that others would live.

Survivors like Harold and Gina Franklin, who, when seeing the utter destruction of Christmas Island, improbably sailed with
the rest of the
Seabiscuit
passengers all the way to the Hawaiian Islands after they realized no one would be coming to rescue them. They and the nine
people with them remained the sole survivors of that lonely atoll.

Max Walsh, the assistant manager responsible for saving the lives of sixty-three veterans and their wives, who couldn’t have
known that staying for just a few more minutes on the Grand Hawaiian rooftop might have made such a difference in Kai’s life.

Sheila Wendel and her mother Doris, who touched down at Tripler Army Medical Center only a few minutes after leaving the Grand
Hawaiian. Jerry Wendel—for whom Rachel made the ultimate sacrifice—who survived surgery to relieve a subdural hematoma.

Paige Rogers and her children, who couldn’t return to their home in Los Angeles until two weeks after the tsunami hit.

Tom Medlock, who was reunited with his parents after three days of searching.

Others had not been so fortunate.

Darryl and Eunice Gaithers, the elderly couple from Mississippi who Teresa had met on the beach, probably returned to the
doomed Hilton and stayed in their room until the hotel collapsed. They were never heard from again.

As Kai suspected, the two videographers who had filmed the collapse of The Seaside never got to sell their tape to the networks.

The body of Jake Ferguson washed up on the beach five
days later. His family, who lived in Michigan and had sent Jake on vacation to visit his friend Tom, finally made it to Hawaii
to claim his remains six weeks after the disaster, consoling themselves only with the details Kai could tell them about Jake’s
heroic efforts.

These people endurance under extraordinary circumstances was a testament to the spirit of humanity, a spirit he saw in his
own family.

Rachel and Brad stood proudly in his memory as representatives of the best the human race can offer, as symbols of why people
would want to go to such great lengths to protect civilization from harm. He wished he could have understood everything that
went through their minds on that day, their last day. But he took pride in their actions, the same kind of selfless deeds
so many others performed on that terrible morning.

Kai took the same pride in his team, that their warnings saved countless lives around the Pacific Rim. Even though the effects
of the tsunami on the rest of the Pacific weren’t as powerful as they were in Hawaii, many island nations were devastated
and suffered horribly. Over 125,000 lives lost in total, 36,000 of them on the Hawaiian islands, but far fewer than had died
in the South Asian tsunami. And although the structural damage along the coasts of the mainland United States, Australia,
and Japan was catastrophic, only fifty-seven people in those locations lost their lives.

The recovery of the Hawaiian economy had been stronger than expected. Construction cranes from all over the world dominated
the Honolulu skyline. Not surprisingly, people had short memories and were rebuilding huge new hotels and houses right along
the reconfigured Hawaiian shoreline, certain that such a disaster would never again happen in their lifetimes. Kai hoped they
were right. But he was hedging his bets, and he knew others were too.

One of them was Reggie Pona. In his new post as assistant director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, Reggie gave Kai
a tour of the facility where it was rebuilt inside Diamond Head crater, right next to the Hawaii State Civil Defense bunker.
With more foresight and more money, that’s where it should have been located all along. Now the money was plentiful, and when
the next tsunami comes for Hawaii—and it will come—they will be supremely ready and able to handle it.

After the disaster, Kai felt the pull to teach. There was nothing left for him in Hawaii, and he enjoyed working with students.
He had applied for a position in the University of Washington’s geology department, and they gladly welcomed him. The job
didn’t allow him to forget about the past, but it did let him focus on the future.

“Kai,” he heard from the doorway, “we’re going to be late for the movie. Shut that down and let’s go.”

“Yeah, come on, Dad.”

He turned to see Teresa in the doorway, flanked by Lani and Mia. Teresa had finished her residency and continued on at the
University of Washington as an attending physician. Kai and Teresa were good friends, and they saw each other often, especially
because of the girls.

The emotions of that day were still too raw for him to date anyone. Someday, maybe, when the time was right, when his grief
for Rachel wasn’t so sharp, he’d be able to love someone again. But that time still seemed a long way off.

Kai often had doubts about what was right, that what he was doing with his life was worthwhile. He struggled with it every
day.

The night before the tsunami, Rachel and Kai had listened to Teresa’s stories about her experiences as a doctor with rapt
attention. Teresa dealt with death on a daily basis, which had affected her profoundly. Kai would never forget one thing she
said about it during that discussion, when she was telling them about a daughter who made it to her elderly mother’s bedside
in time to say her last goodbyes.

“She said she was happy that she was able to talk to her mother one last time,” Teresa said. “She said she was happy to see
her mother pass away peacefully.”

“You sound like you don’t believe her,” Rachel said.

“Oh, she smiled, and she seemed relieved to be there, but happy? No.”

“Why not?”

“Life never has a happy ending,” Teresa said. “It always ends in death. Death can be dignified or wretched, agonizing or painless,
horrifying or serene, untimely or welcome. But it’s always sad. Happiness comes from what you do with the time between the
beginning and the end.”

Now that Rachel was gone, Kai often wondered what she would want him to do with the rest of his life. As he closed his laptop,
he looked at Lani smiling at him, and he thought he knew.

Rachel would want him to be happy.