12 It is starting

USGS office

"Mike, I have bad news to tell you." Jeff tilts his head up and looks at Mike with a tired-looking eyes. He looks pitiful with his dark eye bags under the eyes. Jeff then gulped and breathed out loudly. He then walked towards Mike's office table while clenching the large piece of paper tightly on his hand.

Mike looked up to Jeff scrunching his eyes scrutinizing Jeff's action. "What is it?"

"Take a look at this data. The Volcano Hazards team was in chaos after this data came out. They forwarded the data to me early this morning. " Jeff quickly laid the large piece of paper containing the seismological graph data and put down a tablet beside it.

Jeff stopped talking and held his breath in fear while Mike studies the graph from both the paper and tablet. Jeff's fingers started fidgeting looking timid and nervous.

Mike suddenly increases his speed of flipping through the paged data, and he stared at the data on the tablet.

Mike clenched his teeth together and shut his eyes trying hard to control his anger. He studies the data on the graph and try to make a connection with the data that the tablet holds again and again. He pressed his index and thumb together on the bridge of his nose.

"Jeff, please tell me what exactly am I looking at this moment?" Mike was holding the graph paper from the seismogram so tight that he had scrunched them badly. He then throws the paper to Jeff's face and stood up.

"EXPLAIN!" Mike roared. He rarely loses his patience nor was he ever scolded his sub-ordinate as fierce like this moment.

"Urm, it is as what you saw in the data. There are several volcanoes on the Pacific plate suddenly showing activity. " Jeff stopped his explanations and looked up at Mike again.

"We also suddenly lost contact with the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. We have tried to contact the Hawaiian authority, and the news we got is that after they were hit by the Tsunami, two days after that one of their volcanoes erupted." Jeff briefed Mike as fast as he can.

"What? Why is it when it has already happened then only we are informed about it? " Mike's hand was shaking badly as he tried to control his anger.

"The data from the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory that we retrieved from the cloud did not show any abnormality from the past 2 months. Only two weeks ago the seismogram recorded an increase of seismic activity, also.. an increase of temperature along the national park. We are aware of this, but.. the authority decided to ignore the finding and never highlighted the issue to us."

"Mike, we also have other news to report about. The Mauna Loa volcanic eruption may seem like a normal stand-alone occurrence, but the fact is the situation might have a turn towards a greater disaster."

"We predicted that from all the quakes and sliding of plates in the Pacific Plate, the Mauna Loa eruption, as well as the recent quake in Hebgen Lake it might pinpoint the trigger of the San Andreas Fault to have the 'Big one'." Mike paused his speech again and took out another sheet of graph paper and handed it over to Mike.

"Last night, we recorded a huge quake at 5.2 magnitude in California that is near to Anza. The quake was felt throughout Los Angeles and San Diego. After that, there were hundreds of after quakes that range between 2.9 to 4.7 magnitude. The location of these quakes might be a signal that the Big One might happen soon. This location is only miles away from the San Andreas Fault line. If the quakes got bigger, say more than 7 in magnitude, we will not survive the catastrophe. They needed to be informed, they need to prepare for evacuation as soon as possible."

Jeff explained to Mike about his findings with enthusiasm as his hands flying all over the graph data paper.

"From the data you gave me, I can see that the quakes are not big enough to do damages themselves, but they are perhaps an indicator to show us something bigger. The probability of the Big One might happen tomorrow or the day after that is only 5%. While it has another 95% that it might not even be happening in another 100 years. We cannot inform the authority yet with this kind of data. We need more proof, more data... They won't be convinced with this data alone. What we have right now did not have enough damage that causes any concern to them."

Mike soon looked up at Josh, as if mocking him about his findings. He shares the same concern as Jeff about the incoming catastrophe, but as his higher-ups, he needs to tone down Jeff's eagerness as this kind of data alone will not bring any outcome they wanted from the higher authorities.

"What about the Indonesian authority? Have you informed them about the Lake Toba situation?"

Mike tried to smoothly shift the topic about San Andreas Fault. The San Andreas Fault is a hot topic to discuss among the people, and a mere data like this will only be buried down if it were to be reported.

"W-Wha-What...?" Jeff stammers. He could not believe how Mike changes the topic so fast, shifting from the big issues that he painstakingly have uncovered.

"Yes, yes, I have let them known about Lake Toba situation to them.."