LAUREN MITCHELL AND BOBBY MET SHERIFF LOU Hessel at an all-night convenience store just outside Gilbertsville. The resort town was three miles down the Tennessee River from Kentucky Dam. Just below the dam, the Tennessee was more of a canal than a river. It broadened considerably at Gilbertsville, where it made a long, graceful curve before heading downstream toward its juncture with the Ohio River.
Hessel had known Lauren and her parents for years. In his early fifties, he had thinning black hair, high cheekbones, and gaunt cheeks. He didn’t like wearing a uniform and was dressed in a ski sweater, jeans, and boots. He and Lauren had attended high school together. They’d even dated a few times back then, nothing very serious, an occasional movie in Paducah or a boat trip on Kentucky Lake. Hessel’s wife, Judy, was a good friend of Lauren’s.
The sheriff listened quietly and sipped coffee from his thermos as Lauren described what Atkins and Elizabeth had seen inside the dam and her own close call out on the lake. He’d driven over from Mayfield as soon as she’d called. He’d never seen her like this, almost frantic.
“We’ve got to let people know the dam’s in danger of failing!” Lauren was practically shouting in his face. “They won’t have a chance…”
The sheriff glanced at his watch. It was about 2:15 A.M.
“You two get in the car,” he said. “We’ll start right here in Gilbertsville. Then we’re going to do some hard driving. We’ll head down to Reidland, then cut across the Highway 101 bridge into Paducah. We’ve got some ground to cover. I know every deputy, volunteer fire chief, and ambulance dispatcher in two hundred square miles. They’ll help us get the word out. We gonna raise some hell.”
Bobby got in the back of the patrol car and Lauren had just opened the passenger-side door when she noticed the lights on the parking lot. The poles had started to sway.
“Look at that,” Hessel said.
Then the ground exploded. Knocked off her feet, Lauren fell across the hood of the car. Another violent shake sent her staggering backward. She landed hard on her side.
The sheriff tried to get out to help, but the car was rocking up and down with such force he was pinned to his seat. The plate-glass window of the convenience store shattered. A young woman working there stumbled out the doorway, screaming and holding her hands to her ears, trying to blot out the thunder coming from deep in the earth. The parking lights were swaying so hard the poles snapped off at the base.
“There’s… your… earthquake!” Hessel shouted, holding on to the steering wheel with both hands.
He was trying to sit upright in the bucking car, which started rocking side to side—hard, rapid movements that made him clench his teeth. He looked in the back seat. Bobby’s eyes were wide open as he gripped the front seat and tried to hang on.
The shaking finally quieted. And the noise. Hessel wasn’t sure how long it had lasted, but he felt like he’d taken a physical beating. His left shoulder was going to be black-and-blue from being slammed repeatedly into the car door.
“Listen!” Lauren said, picking herself up off the ground.
The sheriff heard it—a loud, rending crack, followed by a roar that was different from the earthquake.
Hessel realized what he was hearing.
It was rushing water, a flood.
“The dam’s gone,” he said. He started the car’s engine. “Get in, girl! We’re going to make a run through Gilbertsville. Try to give those folks a warning.”
Two miles upstream, the mile-long dam had given way. First the exterior walls had broken and split outward, the water rushing through the cracks, rapidly widening them. The steel flood gates were pushed aside as the water boomed through the jagged breach. The hydrologist on duty in the dam’s powerhouse had sounded a warning siren moments before he fled for his life. The wail of the siren was drowned out by the rushing water.
Gunning his engine, Hessel raced into Gilbertsville. He didn’t know how long it would take the water to reach the resort town, which was spread out on low hills near the western shore of the Tennessee River.
Not long, he figured. Maybe a couple minutes.
The river ran through a narrow, twisting valley until it emptied into the Ohio at Paducah, fifteen miles downstream. The highway was on high ground. The sheriff thought they might make it to Paducah ahead of the flood, but he’d have to drive like hell on a treacherous, two-lane road.
Siren blasting, they tore into Gilbertsville. Lauren operated the portable bullhorn. Hessel headed down a steep road into the heart of town, which had been shaken to pieces.
Lauren tried to keep her nerve up by concentrating on her job. She didn’t want to think about her own home and the boat dock.
“The dam’s out!” she said, her amplified words booming into the darkness. “Everybody get out! There’s a flood!”
The horror of what she was seeing almost choked off her words. Many of the buildings had collapsed. Some still stood with entire walls sheared off. Roofs had caved in. Walls had buckled. The shaking had set off car alarms.
A few people staggered through the wreckage. Thrown from their beds, they looked dazed, in shock.
The sheriff swerved around downed power lines that hissed and threw white sparks, splintered trees, smashed houses. He headed back up the hill that led out of town, racing toward the highway. They’d done all they could.
Lauren looked back up the valley toward the lake. She saw the glint of something silver-white in the darkness. It was massive and moving fast.
“Here it comes!” she said, watching the flood wall roll into view.
The leading edge, a crest thirty feet high, was pushing smashed barges, pleasure boats, and a pile of twisted logs.
“I see it,” the sheriff said, glancing in his rearview mirror.
He realized this was a race they weren’t going to win.