He put his arms around his beautiful wife and drew her close. “Cathy, I don’t know what to say. None of us should be alive now. We could be like any one of those poor dead people down there. But we are going to live. I believe that with all my heart. God has allowed us to survive. Somebody is going to come for us, believe me. In a few days either a helicopter will pick us up, or we’ll walk out of here when the water recedes and these quakes stop. We’ll make it. We have to make it. We saw it all.”

The little family sat together in the dirt while the earth continued to shiver and shake beneath them. The air was full of the sounds of explosions and rushing wind and strange noises of every kind. They were dirty, wet, frightened, but still alive.

“Cathy,” Manuel said after a long pause, “what we’ve witnessed tonight is a turning point in human history. It’s a terrible disaster. Look around. You see what I see?” He pointed to the wall of water to the west. “We can’t begin to imagine what is going to happen on the other side of the ocean, over there.

“We don’t know what has happened to the rest of our country. There will be some big changes everywhere. Who will be able to deal with what has happened here? Things will never be the same.”

His shoulders lifted slightly, and a smile crossed his face. “And, you, mi esposa y mis jovenes, will be around to tell the world that God answered our prayers and kept us alive.” His family all watched him. They tried to smile. “Now, let’s get some sleep,” Manuel said. “We’re going to be in a whole new world tomorrow.”

LOOKING AT THE SECRETARY of energy, Al Augustus began, “Madame Secretary, this is a tense moment for everyone, and I have no doubt that pandemonium is breaking loose outside this room at this very hour, but these issues are simply too critical for us to stop at this point. Can we please have the rest of your report? In particular, I’m concerned about something you said earlier. You say you ordered all power plants and utilities shut down on the West Coast. Is that right?”

“Yes, that’s correct,” she said.

“Will you please tell us more about that?”

“We knew that the meteor would be generating heat anywhere from five thousand to twenty thousand degrees Fahrenheit at impact. It appeared that some type of electrical shorting could develop with possible damage to our generating stations in the western states. So, basically, I exercised my emergency authority and ordered all power companies in these states to notify their major customers and then begin shutdown throughout the area, to be completed not later than five P.M., Pacific time.”