The Yellowstone Conundrum Read Free Page A

after seven here. The Yellowstone caldera is experiencing a significant deviation from the last three weeks. The earthquake swarm which has followed traditional trends in even-number years, has started to approach off-the-record numbers.”
      “English, please,” replied Janice Smithers.
      “Ma’am, I can’t reach my Regional Manager who is on vacation. My next line-of-command is you. Reston needs to be aware that the earthquake centers in Colorado and Utah are reporting extraordinary activity in the Yellowstone caldera area.”
      Janice Smithers sat up in her chair, now aware that a field office was semi-transferring a problem to her; that it could/would be HQ’s responsibility to notify FEMA, the political process (White House) and or National Guard units (Pentagon).
      “Can our people see your systems?” she asked.
      “Most,” replied Nancy, then amended it. “Perhaps, not in real-time. Much of our information is relayed and processed in batch. We see it real-time; and honestly, we’re lucky.  Our network consists of highly-educated, low-paid, virtual volunteers with— unique —equipment,” which was a polite way of describing the Rube Goldberg configuration of various measuring equipment scattered across the globe in support of a ever-diminishing program whose information is demanded only once in a while.
      “What do you recommend?” asked the Deputy Director.
      It was the oh-shit question. Or, the possible transfer-the-blame question. It was the classic case of well, she said to the Congressional committee.
      “Nature is either going to do something or it won’t,” replied Nancy. “Our measurement tools indicate there could be a massive ‘event’ of some kind—an explosion, possibly a series of earthquakes or a venting, centered in the Yellowstone National Park area.”
      “It’s still winter in Wyoming, isn’t it?” asked the Deputy Director.
      “Yes, ma’am, it is.”
      “Who would we evacuate?  Snowboarders?” Janice asked, reasonably.
      “It depends on the size of the event,” Nancy replied.
      “My recommendation is that you contact the Wyoming, Utah and Montana Departments of Emergency Management and tell them of your findings.  The Director is in a meeting with Congressional representatives at the moment, trying to increase funding for our research projects; several of which are in your area. I’ll notify her of your concerns when she gets out of the meeting.”
      “Yes, but—“ the line went dead.
      Colorado had a Office of Emergency Management. Nancy dialed it first; no answer. The Utah office of Emergency Management was located at 1110 State Office Building in Salt Lake City. Nancy dialed the listed phone 801-538-3400.
      “You’ve reached the Utah Department of Pubic Safety, Division of Emergency Management. Our hours of operation are from eight AM to four forty-five PM. Please leave a message at the beep and we will get back to you as soon as we can. ”
      It was 7:15 MST.
      Nancy left a short but urgent message, knowing it wouldn’t be heard until 8:30 or so. She went to their web site, clicked on the organization chart link; up popped a full chart with tiny, tiny text that was difficult to read.  Most importantly, there were no telephone numbers.
      Please visit our web page but we really don’t want to talk to you .
      The All-Hazards Incident Management Team page had MS-Outlook links to e-mail, but no telephone numbers. It also assumed that the person wanting urgent contact had MS-Outlook on their computer and had gone through the steps of setting up an Outlook mail account.
      Who do you call in case of an emergency?   Nancy typed.
      You mean like now? He responded.
      Yes.
      Just a sec.
      Danny went to his own web page and clicked on Regional Information, then on Utah Department of Public Safety.
    NOT FOUND.  The requested URL /homelandsecurity/ was not found on this server
      Rut row , as Astro would say.