Chapter 587 - 390: Departure (Part 2)

Chapter 587: Chapter 390: Departure (Part 2)

A staff member sat with his legs crossed, leaning back in his comfortable office chair. Bored out of his mind, he held his phone, lost in the world of Twitter.

His eyes glinted with excitement as his fingers scrolled endlessly across the screen.

He was admiring the glamorous photos posted by fair-skinned, beautiful models.

Every so often, he’d click his tongue and mutter a few words of admiration under his breath.

’Heh, that body, that face... absolutely perfect...’ The staff member was so engrossed that he didn’t notice the change in his surroundings at all.

Suddenly, the shrill alarm from the control console blared, echoing throughout the duty office.

The sound was urgent and piercing, instantly shattering the previously relaxed atmosphere.

The instrument panel, which had been glowing with a soft light, was now bathed in an eerie red glow, looking particularly frightening.

Immediately after, the fax machine to the side began to whir, CLACK-CLACK-CLACKING as it quickly spat out a sheet of paper.

The sudden turn of events made the staff member jolt, and he shot up from his chair as if he’d been electrocuted.

His eyes were wide with terror. His phone clattered to the floor, but he didn’t even spare it a glance.

At this moment, his full attention was captivated by the fax machine. He staggered over and snatched the paper from it.

As his eyes scanned the contents of the paper, his slightly flushed face instantly turned deathly pale, and his lips began to tremble uncontrollably.

BANG!

The door to the duty office was violently thrown open.

The pot-bellied director, Johnson, staggered in. His face was a mask of panic, and beads of sweat rolled down his forehead, dripping onto the floor from his cheeks.

"What’s going on?"

Johnson asked, his voice trembling as he gasped for breath.

His eyes darted nervously around the room, trying to find an answer in his subordinate’s expression.

"Boss, it’s a warning from the weather satellite. There’s... there’s a cold snap moving south." The staff member, Mark, said in a shaky voice. With trembling hands, he held out the paper that had just come from the fax machine as if it were a bomb about to explode.

Johnson snatched the paper and quickly scanned its contents.

His already furrowed brow instantly tightened, and the expression on his face grew even more solemn.

According to the latest detection data from the weather satellite, a polar vortex moving from the Arctic Region had merged mid-journey with a powerful cyclone from northeastern Canada. The interaction between the two had caused it to split into two separate cold snaps.

What was worse, the path of one of the cold snaps had changed bizarrely and was no longer following a conventional route.

Now, its area of effect was like a giant shadow, not only completely blanketing Canada’s entire northwestern region but also showing a high probability of invading the North American Region of the United States.

This meant that an unprecedented extreme weather disaster was barreling toward densely populated areas like a runaway train.

’This... How is this possible!’ Johnson muttered to himself, his voice filled with disbelief.

Inside the duty office, the shrill alarm continued to blare, sounding like a death knell that pounded against their hearts, making them more and more frantic.

Just then, the fax machine once again began to CLACK-CLACK-CLACK, urgently spitting out another sheet of paper.

The sound was jarringly abrupt in the silent duty office.

Burning with anxiety, Director Johnson didn’t even wait for the staff member to move. He lunged forward and tore off the newly printed fax.

His hands trembled slightly as his eyes eagerly scanned the paper, his expression growing ever more grave.

It was an emergency observation report from the Cape Parry Observatory.

The report stated that, according to the observatory’s latest monitoring and precise calculations, the wind chill temperature of the approaching cold snap was expected to drop to a bone-chilling -70°C.

Such an extreme low temperature meant that once the cold snap arrived in full force, everything in its path—be it infrastructure, flora and fauna, or human life—would face an unprecedented and severe challenge.

At the end of the report, the Cape Parry Observatory solemnly requested that the National Weather Service immediately prepare for a full-scale rescue effort, including but not limited to allocating resources, assembling rescue teams, and planning evacuation routes.

It was imperative to minimize the potential losses from the cold snap.

’The wind chill will drop to -70°C??’

Director Johnson’s eyes widened, his face filled with terror, and the fax paper in his hand trembled.

His thoughts were instantly pulled back to the polar vortex event from four years ago.

On January 2, 2014, the prelude to a disaster quietly began.

Over the Arctic Ocean, a cold front silently formed and merged with a northeastern cyclone over North America.

At the same time, abnormal warming in the stratosphere caused the Arctic polar vortex to destabilize and split into multiple parts. The cold air, once confined to the pole, was forced southward like a herd of wild horses breaking free.

The vast, endless snow cover in Canada and Siberia acted like cold energy stations, continuously feeding the southward-bound cold air with extremely low temperatures, making the cold snap fierce and powerful.

That polar vortex was like a cruel nightmare, mercilessly blanketing most of Canada and the United States.

The extent of its impact was staggering.

Its southernmost reach extended all the way to Nashville, Tennessee, in the United States, affecting over 200 million people. The vast region from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Coast, as well as the area stretching south that was home to about 187 million residents of the continental United States, did not escape its grasp.

Multiple cities in the United States set new low-temperature records during this extreme cold.

Major cities like New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago seemed to be entombed in ice and snow. The entire cities were buried under thick layers of snow, with accumulation totals ranking among the highest ever recorded.

According to data from NASA, the polar vortex of 2013-2014 devastated the Five Great Lakes region, with 92.5% of the lakes’ surfaces covered in solid ice.

On March 8, 2014, Lake Michigan was a vision of ice, its surface 93.3% frozen, setting an all-time record for ice coverage on the lake.

The power grid proved to be as fragile as thin ice in the extreme cold.

On January 5, Canada’s Newfoundland Province experienced a severe power outage, plunging 190,000 customers into darkness and cold in an instant.

In the United States, Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana were not spared either, with nearly 24,000 people facing power outages.

The transportation sector was also thrown into chaos. Major US airlines were forced to cancel approximately 20,000 flights as runways were covered in snow, preventing planes from taking off or landing.

A large number of companies and businesses shut down due to the severe weather, and schools were forced to close, leaving children stuck at home.

Consumer activities like shopping and entertainment decreased sharply. Malls, restaurants, and movie theaters were deserted. Many commercial activities were forced to a halt, and the entire social and economic engine seemed to have been put on pause.

Infrastructure suffered widespread damage under the double blow of low temperatures and blizzards, with problems like cracked roads, burst pipes, and toppled communication towers emerging one after another.

The energy supply became extremely strained. Demand for coal, natural gas, and other energy sources surged, but supply could not keep up. Energy prices skyrocketed, making a bad situation even worse for the already suffering public and businesses.

The research firm Planalytics stated after a detailed assessment and analysis that the 2014 North American polar vortex event caused economic losses to the United States amounting to around 10 billion US dollars.

This was not just a huge economic loss but also a severe test for all aspects of society.

And now, facing the possibility of another extreme cold snap...

Director Johnson’s gaze fell on the screen, his eyes fixed on the movement of the polar vortex. As its trajectory became clearer, his pupils slowly dilated, his expression filled with shock and terror.

This was a polar vortex that had formed spontaneously in the Arctic. During its long journey, it had absorbed multiple cyclones along the way, growing stronger and stronger.

According to the initial trajectory calculated by the weather satellite’s simulations, this polar vortex should have grazed the edge of North America, passing from northern Alaska into the Chukchi Sea, and finally reaching the Siberia region of Russia.

Such a path would still have some impact, but at least it wouldn’t have dealt a fatal blow to the US mainland.

Now, they were in big trouble.

...