Chapter 132
5:50 PM CST Day four of 1260 Kansas City, Missouri - Liberty Memorial, Anchor Desk
They had just finished the interviews in Houston and Mississippi and were going to the weather updates in Africa. Then they would report on the status of the hurricanes, and finally, the news commentary. John sat waiting for the go ahead from commercials. As he turned once again to face the camera, he watched the seconds click by, three, two, and one.
“Welcome back to the summary part of the day’s newscast, tonight. We have with us again, Chester Nichols, our meteorologist, with the latest on the rains in Northern Africa and the now two hurricanes in the Atlantic. Chester?”
The satellite pictures of Northern Africa were on the screen as Chester began speaking, “Thanks John, as you can see on the satellite picture here of Northern Africa and parts of the Mideast, the rains are still coming down. Today is the third day and flooding is becoming widespread, especially near the rivers where most of the major cities are located. We show on our graphic, the total rainfall since it started, by using different colors. The darker areas represent heavy amounts of rain and the lighter areas, less. In some places it has exceeded twenty-four inches, most of that in the Sahara Desert. However, it is a steady rainfall of about a quarter inch of rain an hour, over most of the affected areas. That equates to six inches of rain a day. At this rate, in thirty days it would equate to one-hundred inches of rain. This would cause such incredible damage to the areas where it is raining, that we cannot even begin to calculate.”
The graphic changed again, showing the enhanced satellite photo. It covered an area that looked as if it was all the way from the Virgin Islands to Puerto Rico, but still mostly in the Atlantic. Chester stated, “In the Atlantic, Hurricane Alex has now reached category two status and is still on track, as best as we can tell, to the Galveston, Houston area. A new tropical storm, Baxter has reached winds of up to fifty-five miles per hour. Like Alex, it is considered a hurricane. At the moment, Baxter is tracking the exact same path as Alex has been, and is almost right behind it.”
“Chester, how long does it take a hurricane to get to our coast from Africa, on average?”
“That depends. It could track fast or it could track slowly, so anywhere from six to seven days, up to two weeks.”
“Thanks Chester. It looks like, as we were expecting, they are on the same path as Jack said they would be. Moving on, we have one of our correspondents in Cairo, the capital of Egypt, with a live report.” Turning to the monitor John said, “Eric?”
“Yes John, this is Eric Kuhl. As you can see, all around me the rain is still coming down and has not stopped since Tuesday morning. The Nile is spilling over its banks. President Mohamed Basarick declared martial law this afternoon and they have started evacuating as much of the city as they can. If you will remember, we were concerned about the Aswan Dam, but for the moment, it seems to be holding.”
“Any property damage or deaths reported Eric?”
“No John, not at this time; but they usually don’t report things quickly here. It is usually days before we get word.”
“Thanks Eric. Please be safe and we will get back to you soon.”
“Thanks John. This is Eric Kuhl reporting from Cairo, Egypt.”
“We will be back with our final comments after these words,” John said to the camera. He leaned back in his chair and thought to himself, the next three hours will change history forever. He got up to get a drink.