finger at his cell phone to enter a text message. The screen of his laptop glowed with a cascade of open program windows, and his iPad bonged with an incoming email tone. His finger did not pause when Boone led me to an ancient roller-shade map of the US.
“Yellowstone is here. Dr. Potter drew this red circle this morning. ”
That’s not coming off any time soon , I thought as I studied the thick line of scarlet Sharpie.
“ The last eruption basically obliterated everything within this oval.”
“ When?”
“ Six hundred thirty thousand years ago,” Dr. Potter muttered. His trendy rectangular glasses sat askew on his nose. He swept his hand toward his laptop’s screen in a disgusted now-look-what-you’ve done gesture. I circled around his desk to see images more current than the one offered by the cartographic fossil on the wall.
A dark mess of chocolate pudding plopped in the midst of the whipped topping clouds of a satellite loop. The mass burgeoned over the northwestern U.S., dry pudding mix edges caught and swept east by the prevailing winds.
Anyone with a grandpa who blares Weather Watcher on the TV all day knows weather moves east.
Apparently, crap shot into the air by Yellowstone moves east, too.
I studied the image until I found the familiar outline of Indiana. Almost due east, but far, far away from the pudding. This couldn’t possibly impact home.
“Where ’s your family?” I asked Boone. On the old map he pointed to the southeast corner of a rectangle with an undulating eastern edge and a western corner chewed off by Colorado.
Dr. Potter grunted. “My wife is in friggin’ Rapid City, South Dakota.” He aimed a pen at a spot enjoying sunny skies at the moment yet precariously close to the encroaching volcanic cloud. “She thought it was a good time to take the baby to meet her sister since I’m always so distracted at the beginning of term. I called her the minute I got the first alert from USGS. Barely seven a.m. out there, and I’m telling her to get the hell out, to drive north or south before she turned east, and I’m not sure she believed me. Now the circuits are all busy. No text, no cell, no landline.” He looked at Boone. “Did you call home yet?”
Boone nodded. “I told them what you said. I forgot my brother is on a hiking trip in Alaska. He’s off the grid. It’s just my parents. I mean, they have friends around, but they’re alone.”
“The ash will be there soon, and this isn’t some thunderstorm that’ll blow through in a few hours.” I wasn’t sure if he spoke of South Dakota or Nebraska and, when he thrust his fingers in his hair like he would pull out chunks by the roots, I decided not to ask.
Well, no wonder Boone flipped out this morning. Dr. Potter gave a wicked mind job. The sense of doom made me want to find a bomb shelter, or better, an end-of-days prepper to move in with. Sell my skinny body for a cot in an underground bunker. “Is it still erupting?” I asked.
Dr. Potter zoomed in on the center of the pudding. “The ejecta obscur es the caldera, but I’d say yes.”
I understood the last four words more than the beginning part. “What about the people?” I pointed at the dark circle on the satellite.
He cringed. “Dead or dying. I hope I’m wrong,” he added quickly. “The initial blast, though, would be devastating—look at the rate of expansion in between those first two images—and you can see what that ash cloud is like.”
“Ash?”
“The initial pressure wave may have leveled a hundred miles or so, depending on topography,” he said. “That’s followed by ash, maybe still mixed with gasses, dirt and debris. Not much fun to breathe and falling like snow. It’s probably dark as night and those poor people have no idea what’s going on. If some at the edge saw it coming, they might at least know what direction to try to run. The periphery may now be survivable.” He tugged at his hair again.
I shuddered. My mom had
“Yellowstone is here. Dr. Potter drew this red circle this morning. ”
That’s not coming off any time soon , I thought as I studied the thick line of scarlet Sharpie.
“ The last eruption basically obliterated everything within this oval.”
“ When?”
“ Six hundred thirty thousand years ago,” Dr. Potter muttered. His trendy rectangular glasses sat askew on his nose. He swept his hand toward his laptop’s screen in a disgusted now-look-what-you’ve done gesture. I circled around his desk to see images more current than the one offered by the cartographic fossil on the wall.
A dark mess of chocolate pudding plopped in the midst of the whipped topping clouds of a satellite loop. The mass burgeoned over the northwestern U.S., dry pudding mix edges caught and swept east by the prevailing winds.
Anyone with a grandpa who blares Weather Watcher on the TV all day knows weather moves east.
Apparently, crap shot into the air by Yellowstone moves east, too.
I studied the image until I found the familiar outline of Indiana. Almost due east, but far, far away from the pudding. This couldn’t possibly impact home.
“Where ’s your family?” I asked Boone. On the old map he pointed to the southeast corner of a rectangle with an undulating eastern edge and a western corner chewed off by Colorado.
Dr. Potter grunted. “My wife is in friggin’ Rapid City, South Dakota.” He aimed a pen at a spot enjoying sunny skies at the moment yet precariously close to the encroaching volcanic cloud. “She thought it was a good time to take the baby to meet her sister since I’m always so distracted at the beginning of term. I called her the minute I got the first alert from USGS. Barely seven a.m. out there, and I’m telling her to get the hell out, to drive north or south before she turned east, and I’m not sure she believed me. Now the circuits are all busy. No text, no cell, no landline.” He looked at Boone. “Did you call home yet?”
Boone nodded. “I told them what you said. I forgot my brother is on a hiking trip in Alaska. He’s off the grid. It’s just my parents. I mean, they have friends around, but they’re alone.”
“The ash will be there soon, and this isn’t some thunderstorm that’ll blow through in a few hours.” I wasn’t sure if he spoke of South Dakota or Nebraska and, when he thrust his fingers in his hair like he would pull out chunks by the roots, I decided not to ask.
Well, no wonder Boone flipped out this morning. Dr. Potter gave a wicked mind job. The sense of doom made me want to find a bomb shelter, or better, an end-of-days prepper to move in with. Sell my skinny body for a cot in an underground bunker. “Is it still erupting?” I asked.
Dr. Potter zoomed in on the center of the pudding. “The ejecta obscur es the caldera, but I’d say yes.”
I understood the last four words more than the beginning part. “What about the people?” I pointed at the dark circle on the satellite.
He cringed. “Dead or dying. I hope I’m wrong,” he added quickly. “The initial blast, though, would be devastating—look at the rate of expansion in between those first two images—and you can see what that ash cloud is like.”
“Ash?”
“The initial pressure wave may have leveled a hundred miles or so, depending on topography,” he said. “That’s followed by ash, maybe still mixed with gasses, dirt and debris. Not much fun to breathe and falling like snow. It’s probably dark as night and those poor people have no idea what’s going on. If some at the edge saw it coming, they might at least know what direction to try to run. The periphery may now be survivable.” He tugged at his hair again.
I shuddered. My mom had
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