Sam Adams Survives the Big One

Sam Adams Survives the Big One
From a recent nightmare
Word count 775

Sam Adams and his wife, Maria Lee return to Berkeley his hometown after living all over the world. They both wanted to spend time in his hometown as he was getting nostalgic in his late 60s. They had been living in her hometown of Seoul for the last few years after retiring from US government service.
They rent an apartment in downtown Berkeley that catered to empty nester professionals who wanted to return home or wanted to live in the Bay Area in a somewhat affordable place. It was expensive but they felt it was worth the price to be there. The plan was to stay there most of the year but spend some time in Korea where they maintained an apartment that they would run as an AIRBNB while they were gone.
They had signed the lease and moved into a partially furnished apartment waiting for some of their stuff to arrive, but they would have to furnish it with new stuff as well. They had after a month or so finally felt they were settling in.
To celebrate they went for a walk in the Berkeley Hills and went to Inspiration Point in Tilden Park. There were killer views from there. They were there with a few other people and they chatted with them for a bit before hitting the trail but then there was a big commotion.
The big one hit. Later they found it was a category 12 – a new category. And that Lassen Volcano, Mt. St Helena, and Mt Rainer as well as Mt Fuji in Japan and Hallasan in Korea had all blown up as well as other volcanoes all over the world. as well as massive earthquakes and Tsunamis. But the damage was the worst in the Bay Area as the earthquake caused the entire Bay area to become submerged underwater opening up an inland sea covering most of the Central Valley. It all happened within hours as they watched in horror from the top of the hills.
They felt fortunate to not have been home as their house disappeared under the waves as had most of SF, and the Bay area.

It took about a week before rescue crews mostly the US army managed to come and rescue them. Several people were on the trail and they had bounded together, a few people figured out how to hunt and they were able to share food and water and managed to survive.

The massive wildfires spread all over but the Berkeley hills did not burn up too much.
The entire west coast was declared to be uninhabitable and there was a mandatory evacuation and they were rounded up and taken to a refugee camp in Nebraska. Conditions in the camp and the country were grim. Power was out in most of the western states, information was scarce, rumors were floating everywhere.

The camp is soon run by corrupt gangs enforcing “the rules” which are to just shut up, show up for meaningless work assignments, and don’t complain.

Violation of the rules is severe, and the camp management looks the other way = they depended on the gangs to maintain order.

Sam Adams is almost killed for asking when they would be able to get phone calls and internet access so we can check on our properties.

The guards sneered at him saying

“You should be grateful for being alive. And we don’t know when phone and internet service will be available and we don’t care about your property. Just shut up and get back to work.”

Sam persisted
“But we need to get out of here and check on our properties. I am sure everyone else here needs to get out and check on their people as well. What I am asking for is not too much.”
The guards televise the beating telling Sam that they have violated rule number one – don’t complain, rule number two questioning the rules, and rule number three thinking that we are not in a prison camp.

When Sam Adams is brought back his wife tries to comfort her, but the guards make it clear that she would be next if she did or said anything.
The next day they woke him up, examined him, and say he was cleared to go back to work helping construct the camp which was expanding every day with more refugees.

Sam Adams and Maria Lee survived one year in the camps before they were finally released. Their properties on the West Coast were all gone, the insurance companies all refused to pay damages in the quake and volcano zones that covered most of the West Coast.