The Thirst Quenchers
allpersons coming in and not allow anyone in who's not connected with thedivision." He waved Alec ahead.
Patterson parked his car and walked quickly to Snow Hydrology. Heentered the offices to be struck by a bedlam of sound. Men werescurrying from cubicles, hands loaded with papers. Others were talkingrapidly to distant vidiphone reporters. Alec skirted around one grouphuddled over some topographical maps and headed for his office.
From across the room Plumber spotted him and shouted: "Alec, staffbriefing in the conference auditorium in five minutes."
Alec nodded and went into his office. He gathered a notebook from adesk drawer and then walked around the partition and looked in to seeif Troy had arrived. Braden's coat was hanging from the back of hischair, but he was not in the office. Notebook in hand, Alec headeddown the corridor for the big conference room in the adjacent wing.People from every section in the headquarters were streaming towardsthe same location and the outer doors along the corridor kept swingingopen as latecomers dashed in.
* * * * *
Alec joined the crowd squeezing into the auditorium conference room.Inside, he looked around and spotted Troy against the side wall. Heworked his way to his side.
"Hi" Troy said. "How's Carol and Jimmy?"
"They're O.K.," Alec said. "I told her to fill up everything in thehouse with water and I think she had time to get them filled beforethe water shut down. How bad is it?"
"It's not good," Troy said. "At this point, I don't think anyone knowsjust how bad or how good it really is. Spokima ruptured and isspilling but it doesn't appear to be going out too fast. The worstsituation seems to be in the Columbia Riverbed System. Unofficially,the grapevine has it that Moses Lake and McNary tanks have had it andGod only knows how many aqueducts have been fractured. We're in deeptrouble, buddy."
The babble of voices in the jammed auditorium stilled as the figure ofRegional Director James Harbrace and his staff of sectionalsupervisors came onto the stage.
Harbrace moved quickly to the rostrum microphones.
"I won't waste words or time," he began. "As of ten minutes ago,Regions Five and Six have been on Emergency One Condition. They willremain on Emergency One indefinitely--certainly until we have had achance to assess full damages to the systems and have made whatrepairs we can."
Emergency One conditions put all water control for the entire UnitedStates under the direct supervision of Harbrace and his counterpartdirector in Region Five. It meant all but emergency fire and disastersystems shut off; industrial supplies halted; domestic waters limitedto a pint of water per person per day. Since it was midwinter,agricultural waters were not running in the Northwest. But in RegionFive, already in short supply, only those crops nearing maturity andhaving essential food needs for the populace, would be given minimalsupplies to bring them to harvest. The later-growing crops weredoomed.
"Here's what we know right now," Harbrace turned to an illuminated mapof the region and using a light beam indicator, began pointing to thevarious storage and supply facilities.
"Spokima is leaking at the rate of a quarter million acre feet anhour. We've got sub scanners working the bottom now to survey thecrack. The bottom has gone out of Moses Lake and the whole east end ofMcNary is shot. Hanford has enough water in emergency storage tocontinue reduced power output for about another seventy-two hours."
The point of light moved east towards the Snake, Clearwater andKootenai rivers in Idaho.
"All aqueducts leading into the Columbia system have been closed andwe can give thanks that this has come in winter rather than in thespring runoff. Even so, we're going to have some flooding problems asthe rivers back up.
"We feel that the aqueducts in the Pullman area are probably gonealthough we haven't verified. Our big problem now is to find out whattransfer systems are still functional and start salvaging what we can.
"Secondly, if and when we can make repairs, we've got to get waterback into the critical areas and figure some way of storing andvalving to keep it functional.
"That's the big picture and it's damned black. Public Information istaking care of the video and radio information. We want to avoid panicif we can and to avoid mass exodus into outlying areas that couldn'tpossibly cope with the population demands because of the messed-upsystem. We've got to handle it where we are, keep the people in placeand face it here. And by here I mean not only Spokane but Portland,Seattle and all the rest of the major cities. We live or die on thissituation. Now let's get to work. You'll have detailed instructionsfrom your section leaders in fifteen minutes."
* * * * *
Back at Snow Hydrology, Alec and Troy lighted cigarettes and waitedfor Plumber to show up with their assignments. Of all of the sections,theirs was the one which would have the least immediate action. Thebulk of the emergency was falling on the waterflow and engineeringsections.
"Let's go have a look at the profiles," Troy suggested. "This quakecould have set off quite a few avalanches."
They went into the survey data room where a half dozen technicianswere running bank scans of the gauges throughout the Region. At thedesk on a raised dais in the center of the room, the junior dutyengineer was poring over a fresh set of graphs.
"How's it look, Walt?" Troy asked. The young engineer looked up atthem and smiled. "Hi Troy, Alec. Oh, not too bad from our point ofview." He indicated the graphs on his desk. "We've had some shiftingin loose pack and ice stratas along the Palouse Range, a little in theSheep Mountain Range. But so far, we've been lucky. The worst one isright here, on Lookout Peak. She must have dumped at least a hundredthousand tons down the slope and into the valley and she strippedright down to the rock and took out every gauge on the way. Then itpiled up in the valley and knocked out all but three gauges there. Andthey're reading anywhere from sixty-five to more than one hundred footdepths. We'll lose some of that if it's not lying right forretardation spraying."
The three engineers studied the new profiles as they came in from thetechs. They were huddled over the desk when Plumber entered the roomand joined them at the table.
"What's the word, Jordan?" Alec asked.
"Nothing for us right now," Plumber said. "We're to remain on standbyalert, possible fill-in in other sections for the time being. Thenwe'll have to come up with some new figures as quickly as possible."
He glanced down at the charts and then asked the duty engineer, "Howmany positions knocked out?"
"No reports from sixty-eight gauges on this last scan," Walt reported,"most of them in Idaho. But there may be a few more before noontomorrow. According to my last avalanche report before this thing hit,there should be at least ten more cornices that could have beencracked by this shock but that haven't fallen yet. It's still snowingover most of the Sawtooths but it's due to let up by dawn and awarming trend set in. That ought to trigger the others and when theygo then we'll have just about all the replacement figures we'll get.What's the chance for more quakes?"
Plumber shrugged. "Seismology says we can expect settling tremblorsfor as long as four more weeks and possibly even another sharp jolt. Iwish those guys were a little more scientific in their predictions."
Troy hid a grin. "Want us to get ready to head back to the hills,Boss?"
"No," Plumber said, "you two stay put for the moment. You just gotback and unless I really need you, I want you here for the moment.I'll get a couple of other teams together to take care of thereplacements. For the time being, see what you can come up with insome equations for the Pullman-Moscow potential east of the aqueducts.Break it down, stream by stream for me. I can't tell you which systemsare going to be functioning or how we'll be able to divert if needed,so keep the equations at gate-head pressures and flow."
The two engineers nodded and headed back to their offices. Alecpunched his home number on the vidiphone and Carol's face appeared onthe second ring. "Oh, Alec, I'm so glad you called, honey," she said."I've been worried sick since I heard the broadcast."
"You g
et that job done that I told you to do before I left," Alecasked.
"All filled," Carol replied with a smile. "What do we do now,darling?"
"You and Jimmy just stay put," Alec warned. "You've got a pretty goodsupply of food in the apartment right now. In the morning, go down tothe store in the building and see what you can buy in the way ofstaples and long-storage foods. And get all the juices you can. Don'tworry about the money end of it now. Spend it like it was going out ofstyle."
"That bad, Alec?"
"Nothing that can't be handled," he