Chapter 24

I left the news conference and went to my office followed by my aides. I was disappointed with the news conference, there was so much said and so much unsaid, but only time would correct that.

How many of the one and a half million residents of Hawaii were dead and how many were still going to die was anybody’s guess. I knew we had done a lot in a short time, but there was a lot more that needed to be done.

I started on the pile of notes that was waiting on my desk. Kitty, Connie and Troy were putting them in order for me to look at and making calls. I called Eric back and told him I wanted every cruise ship on the west coast commandeered and sent to Hawaii.

Then I called Secretary of Defense Scott and told him to make it a priority to get supply ships loaded with food and supplies and headed towards Hawaii.

FEMA was still hunting for more cots and supplies across the entire United States. There should have been ten times more tents and cots in warehouses than there was available in the reports. They had surplus money in the last four years budgets; where was it and what was it used for, if not to build up the inventory of emergency supplies? That would be a good question to ask Eric - FEMA was under his agency.

The pile of notes on my desk was growing instead of getting smaller for the two hours that I had already put in on them. Various aides were getting information ready for the next news conference at 1300.

I went over to the house with my mates for lunch. We were scheduled to go to the Cay next week for a vacation that was to last for ten days. The debate was - given the circumstances, should we cancel?

‘‘No,’’ we decided. Short of going to the Hawaiian Islands and shoveling ash, there was nothing I couldn’t do from the Cay that was different from being at Summers Lane or 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. The vacation was on.

This was to be the last vacation before Marcy and Vicky were to deliver the additions to our family in two months. Marcy was having a girl and Vicky a boy, rounding out our children at four boys and two girls. Jeanna was elated that she was going to get a granddaughter to pamper and spoil.

After lunch my staff began putting the 1300 news conference together. All the agencies were to do video reports as before. The only difference was the media personalities. The six media personalities were different because of the lottery selection they liked so well. Troy forced them to choose another group.

At 1300 we did as before - we had everyone on the video monitors for an update. The update was not good news. There had not been any decrease in the eruption - if anything, it had intensified.

Yesterday I had ordered all emergency warehouses be opened and staffed 24/7 in all 48 states. This included all state and federal emergency warehouses. The order also contained instructions to crate up fifty percent of their emergency supplies and ship it to the Naval base at San Diego. From there it would be loaded on supply ships and sent to Hawaii.

The ash plume was over a thousand miles wide and spreading. In places it was sixty thousand feet high and was now being picked up by instruments on the coast of Europe.

Seismic equipment was picking up intensifying earthquakes on Hawaii and Oahu. What had been minor tremors were now registering in the 4s and 5s on the scale - and there were a lot of them. According to the experts, the earthquake activity should have been diminishing instead of increasing.

There was some good news. Some communications had been restored in addition to the Naval Pacific command that we used for the first news conference. Underground communications had been restored to Fort Shafter. Fort Shafter was the 25th Infantry command center.

Army General Mitchell had ordered that the chemical warfare suits be distributed to all soldiers that were in bunkers. They would be breathing air filtered free of contaminants, ash and gases. This would give them some level of protection when they were ordered to rescue civilians.

He also ordered all Army equipment be set up for desert/chemical war operation as soon the ash started falling. That order meant extra filters were installed on the engines and the passenger compartments sealed - recycling the air instead of bringing contaminated air in.

The downfall in all of this was the heavy ash would act like sand blasting on the cooling systems of the equipment. The huge fans sucking in the ash would destroy the soft copper radiators and plastic turbocharger after-coolers in a matter of hours. I knew that unless other precautions were taken that all this equipment would be out of service in just a few days. I called for a meeting with General Ingram - ASAP - he needed to get people involved quickly.