2030_ The Real Story of What Happens to America - Albert Brooks [22]
Los Angeles was not prepared for this. No city could be. No freeway was drivable, no buildings were okay, and many came down completely. Ninety-eight percent of the property in Los Angeles County was severely damaged.
The death toll was close to fifty thousand and the number of injured was incalculable. First reports said up to half a million people were seriously hurt. Hospitals could do nothing. They were damaged beyond repair; all they tried to do was keep the patients who were already there alive.
And then, after all was said and done, after all of the damage and death and destruction, there was one looming issue. Where in God’s name would the money come from to fix America’s largest city? For a country so deeply in debt, this seemed like an impossible task.
The nation’s largest insurance company simply declared bankruptcy. It had liability in the great quake of more than a trillion dollars. It couldn’t pay a hundredth of that. That was the problem with earthquake insurance: It was a good bet in a small quake where your house was damaged but the house down the street was fine. Then, after paying a large deductible, you were likely to see some money. When all the houses in the entire city were damaged, that equation didn’t work. State and federal aid would be bare minimum at best. To fix the highways alone would cost fifty times more than it did to build them.
But all that would have to wait. This was a true humanitarian crisis, the worst the United States had ever faced. In images beamed instantly all over the globe, California looked like a third-world country. People were lying in the streets, bodies piled up along the sidewalks; fires raged all over the city, and the possibility of severe outbreaks of disease grew by the hour.
* * *
The earthquake occurred at 6:36 A.M., Pacific Standard Time. At 9:36 A.M., Eastern Standard Time, President Bernstein was in the Oval Office drinking coffee, eating a jelly doughnut, and reading the morning briefings. His chief of staff, John Van Dyke, felt a tingling on his wrist. His communicator was set on “tickle” and he immediately looked at his watch. He gasped. Bernstein stopped reading and looked up. “What’s the problem?”
“A colossal earthquake.”
“Where?”
“Here, sir.”
“Here? I didn’t feel a thing.”
“In Los Angeles. A nine point one.”
“Come on. No. Jesus Christ!”
Bernstein pressed a button and the wall in front of him changed instantly into multiple screens. He could see anything he wanted. Every news outlet, his Joint Chiefs of Staff, NORAD, live cameras placed on top of government buildings in every city in America, images from space—it was his choice. For three minutes he just watched the same images being fed to every other American. Devastation not seen before by a U.S. president.
Bernstein was known for his calm. He didn’t show emotion in public very often and he even tried to keep it from his staff. But he felt he was losing it. He started to sweat and he could feel his heartbeat accelerate. “My God, John. What has happened? Is everyone sure this was an earthquake?”
“What do you mean, Mr. President?”
“Could this have been a nuclear explosion and people assumed it was an earthquake?”
“No, sir. It registered a nine point one on the Richter scale.”
“My God. My God.”
That’s all the president of the United States could muster as he watched one image after another of America’s biggest city in ruins.
* * *
Dr. Sam Mueller’s G10 landed at Reagan International