The following is an excerpt from our April issue:

By Jonathan Lindberg

This account is to be taken as pure hypothesis and is by no means intended as absolute fact. The truth is, no one can accurately describe what effect a massive earthquake might have on Memphis. This is simply a possibility. A special thanks to Gary Patterson at the University of Memphis Earthquake Research Center, along with the University of Memphis Engineering Department, as well as the Shelby County Public Works office who realizes we are presently ill-prepared for an earthquake. They are finally taking an aggressive approach to solving this massive oversight.

It took forty-seven seconds for the Pyramid to collapse. That was exactly how long the Memphis Earthquake lasted. Forty-seven seconds and it was done. The Pyramid actually withstood the tremors. It wobbled back and forth. Pipes busted, paneling fell, but the building stood. It was liquefaction that got the Pyramid. Thirty-one seconds into the Memphis Earthquake and the ground suddenly turned to quicksand. The Pyramid slumped to one side. The west half of the building became disjointed and began to pull away. Then the east half collapsed in on itself.

Robert Dawson, 43, watched the whole thing happen. Robert worked for the City of Memphis in the Parks Department. He was preparing flower beds along the Main Street Trolley line near the Cook Convention Center when the big-one hit that Tuesday. He had dug his shovel into the ground when the tremors began. For one brief second Robert thought he had triggered something himself. Then he was thrown to the ground as a chorus of bricks on the sides of buildings began falling and crashing to the ground.

It was the sound from the Pyramid that caused Robert to turn around on his back. He turned just in time to see the far side of the building disconnect and the east side sink into the ground. Behind him, a five-story building on Second Street, unreinforced masonry, fell apart and collapsed into rubble. Several buildings of similar design along Second and Third Streets crumbled and fell. Some were office buildings and apartments which were occupied. It was as if the structures had been built from Lincoln Logs and been tipped upside down.

Forty-seven seconds is a long time. That was the only conscious thought Robert could think laying on his back. The tremors and the explosions came one-right-after-another and seemed as if they would last forever. Down along the Main Street Trolley Line, Robert watched as two men came running out of an office building. One man was screaming above the noise into his cell phone. On the sidewalk, the Man-with-the-Phone paused to look back the building he had left. Suddenly, a chunk of the outside brick wall, the size of a small car came, loose and fell crashing down. The Man-with-the-Phone lifted his forearm but the bricks knocked him back and buried him completely. The other man who had been running turned around to rescue his friend but the bricks were packed tight and high. He turned and ran from the building.

That was the only person Robert watched die that day. After that, the tremors stopped, as if someone had turned off a switch. Everything along Main Street and Front Street fell suddenly quiet. Eerily silent. Downtown Memphis looked like it had been picked up, shaken, and left for dead. There were no moving cars. No pedestrians to be seen. Just the sound of running water, broken pipes spilling out over the Trolley Line running through Main Street.

Robert tried calling his family in South Memphis, his wife and kids, but his phone had no signal. He started to run down the street.

* * *

Carson Ortiz, 47, had practiced law in Midtown Memphis for nearly twenty years. He started his practice in a cramped, bland office in the New Century Building on Poplar. Within five years, Carson took on a partner as well as an eighty-hour work week. This allowed him to purchase an old house on Madison Avenue to use for his practice. The top floor was rented to a design company.

When the Memphis Earthquake hit that Tuesday morning, Carson was conducting a telephone conference call with clients in Johnson City, Tennessee. There was rumbling beneath his feet as the hardwood floors began to shift and crack along the wall. Carson heard his administrative assistant scream from the foyer and then suddenly the phone line went dead. There was a large oak table which Carson used for business. Without thought, Carson dove under the table just as the ceiling to his office came crashing down.

The tremors continued for another twenty-eight seconds, then stopped. Carson laid with his face pressed to the floor, his hands holding the back of his head. Debris shifted all around. A large beam fell across the large oak table. Then everything went quiet.

Carson tried calling his wife Suzanne at his house in Collierville, but the phone lines were flooded. There was ample space under the table and daylight seeping through. A large beam had fallen beside the table providing a crawl space toward the light. Carson followed the sunlight and almost immediately found himself out from under the debris standing in the back parking lot. The entire East wall to the house had broken apart and fallen to the ground. Unreinforced masonry. The house was now half-standing.

In the open space, Carson tried calling again. This time the cell read, signal busy. He hurried around to the front of the house and began calling out for his administrative assistant. At the end of the next block, a low-rent apartment complex laid in ruins. A large woman with three kids was pulling at cinder blocks and yelling names into the debris.

It took him five minutes, but Carson finally stumbled on the foot of his assistant sticking out from under the rubble. His stomach tightened into knots. He thought of his wife and kids and knew he needed to get home.

His SUV had survived. A large spruce tree had fallen just a few feet behind. Carson slowly reversed his vehicle over the trunk and headed toward Union.

Union Avenue was a glass jar broken against a wall. Cars and trucks with cracked windshields yelled at each other from inches away. No one was moving in the traffic. Light poles and rabid wires lay strewn across the street, congesting the way. Idlewild Presbyterian remained unscathed. Clergy and parishioners were setting up tables on the steps to the church, offering pedestrians cold water and sanctuary. Scores had abandoned their cars downtown. They were walking up Union hoping to get somewhere faster.

“Ain’t no use waitin’,” one man yelled at Carson, who was trying to inch his way onto the street. “That overpass at Parkway, it collapsed. Ain’t nobody gettin’ through.”

Police officers were arriving at the Schnucks parking lot across the street. They came in armored vehicles over sidewalks and lawns. They were carrying guns. Two men had run out of Schnucks with arms full of food. The officers stopped the men and made them empty their arms. After that, the crowd of people walking up from downtown passed by with unusual calm, most without saying a word. They were just happy to be alive.

Carson flipped through radio stations hoping for some information. All he could get was static. He tried his cell phone but the signal was still busy. People hurried past his vehicle and watched him yell into the receiver. He had waited fifteen minutes and had only moved five inches.

Carson put his SUV in reverse and headed back toward Madison. There had to be some sort of artery out East, however, Madison was in absolute shambles. Buildings had collapsed onto the street, nothing more than a pile of old bricks. Cars and pedestrians were fighting over inches, still no one was moving. Carson looked right, then left. The only open passageway was the Trolley Line leading downtown. He dialed his cell one more time. A small path opened on Madison. Carson punched the gas, hitting the back bumper of the car to his right. The car honked its horn but Carson kept pushing till he found the metal rails. His was the only car headed downtown. He had no idea how he was ever going to get out to Collierville, but at least for now, he was moving.

* * *

Reverend Dwayne Energy, 61, had spent his entire life, minus four years military, on the streets of South Memphis. He had attended South Side High School for one year but had dropped out. For the past thirty-years, Reverend Energy served as pastor at a small C.O.G.I.C. church off Florida Avenue, in a part of Memphis known as the ghetto.

Reverend Energy actually slept through the first part of the great Memphis Earthquake, awakened only by the sound of the stain glass image of Christ in Gethsemane shattering on the sanctuary floor. The Reverend spent the next thirty minutes scouring the church, looking for signs of devastation. None could be found. He gradually dismissed the Memphis Earthquake as minor, until he stepped out the front doors of the church.

Across the street, three small one-bedroom houses were on fire. The first two houses belonged to long-time parishioners, each living on less than $500 a month. The third house belonged to a former deacon who was wheelchair bound and no longer attended church. Reverend Energy looked around. The streets were full of people digging through rubble and milling around. Most looked lost. Some were carrying their belongings in their arms, looking for somewhere to lay down their stuff. No one seemed to notice the houses or the fire.

Reverend Energy rushed into the first house and found the former deacon lying on the floor. He lifted him over his shoulder and carried him out to Florida Avenue. In the second house, the elderly couple lay motionless on the living room floor. They had suffocated to death from the fumes of smoke. In the third house, a retired school teacher who collected offering on Sunday mornings lay on the floor in vomit. Reverend Energy picked up the man and carried him out to the street. Then he went for help.

At a small bodega on South Parkway, Reverend Energy found one of his Sunday bus drivers carrying two boxes full of candy bars out the front door.

“What’s going on?”

“Everything’s a mess Reverend. Half the houses are collapsed. I know a couple people that already died. The electricity is out so can’t nobody make no phone calls. We can’t go nowhere. We’re stuck. The overpasses are gone. I-55 is backed up to Riverport Road.”

“What about the fires?”

“Reverend, the fire station is gone. Unreinforced masonry. Fell on itself within five seconds and took out both trucks. There ain’t nobody around to put out the fires.”

Three kids came rushing out of the bodega. Two were carrying two cases of beer. Reverend Energy recognized one of the kids from Sunday School. He grabbed the kid by the collar.

“What are you boys doing?”

“Nothing, man. Just getting drinks.”

He shook off Reverend Energy and hurried after the others, into another collapsing store.

Reverend Energy started back toward his church. Along South Parkway, another pastor had opened the doors to his church and placed a sign that read Shelter Here above the doors. There was already a line forming out the door as the pastor waved the people in.

Red Cross had designated some churches as temporary shelters in case of disaster emergencies. There were thirty such churches in Memphis – thirty churches for one million people. Reverend Energy knew the pastor to this church and knew the church had been provided first aid materials by Red Cross. He would bring his parishioners here.

On his way back, a middle-aged woman with two kids stopped Reverend Energy. She had soot in her hair and her children were wiping away tears.

“Reverend, please help us. My house is gone and my husband is downtown. I need to find him! Please, I don’t know what else to do.”

Reverend Energy said he would help, but first he had to get his parishioners medical care. The four of them hurried down Florida Avenue. When he got to his van, he remembered his keys were still in his office. He told the woman to stay where she was and he would be back in a moment.

His church was filled with people who had propped open the doors and were using the sanctuary as their own makeshift shelter. Reverend Energy hurried to his back office when he noticed two men prying at the door to the church safe.

“What are you two doing back here?” he demanded.

The two men suddenly picked up the safe and came fast at Reverend Energy knocking him off his feet with the front of the safe. Then they were gone.

There was no time to chase them. He was too old for that. Besides, for the past five years, the Reverend had only been able to store communion wafers in the safe. The church would survive without them.

Reverend Energy found his keys and hurried back to his van. The back of his head was bleeding from his fall and his chest hurt. The streets were full of wandering people. Many looked lost and scared. Reverend Energy drove slowly, at one point driving over part of a fire hydrant and a telephone pole. When he arrived at the church on South Parkway, the doors had been shut and the bolt locked in place. Reverend Energy pounded on the door but the noise inside was overwhelming. He hurried around the back door but that was locked too. He looked though a window and the building was full. A young man was having his head wrapped in bandages. The need was greater than the church could hold.

Back in the van, Reverend Energy explained the situation. The young girl in her mother’s arms began to cry. A young man hurried by with a television set in his arms. He stepped into a deep crack in the asphalt road and fell face first, busting the television into a thousand pieces. He got up and scurried away.

“We are heading downtown. We will try to find medical care along they way. You look after them for now,” Reverend Energy explained to the woman.

Down the road a police car appeared. It flashed its lights and sounded its siren. The crowd dispersed and the car continued down the street. It stopped at a pile of cinder blocks blocking the middle of the road. The cinder blocks had once been a two-story apartment building, just one hour ago.