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