THE STORY BEHIND THE HURRICANE THAT ENDED THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT

Hurricane Damien. A fictitious hurricane from the book "Violent Night." The "mother of all hurricanes." How does it happen? Global warming?

Nope. In recent years, late-season major hurricanes have become common: Mitch, October 1998, and Wilma, October, 2005, for example. But Hurricane Damien didn't form out in the Atlantic, where the media would have a two-week fetch to obsess over. He began as an upper-level low-pressure system, not asscociated with any weather front and non-tropical. Upper-level lows sometimes stall in the Houston area, causing torrential rains and flooding. But when this low drifted out over the warm gulf, he was thirsty for warm water. Earth is in a warm cycle at this time, so Damien drank of the 91-degree salt water. The added energy transformed him into Tropical Storm Damien overnight.

Not so long ago, 1.2 million Houstonians found themselves stranded on the highways trying to run away from Rita. Desperate, they were forced to urinate and defecate along the roadsides and carry gasoline in cupped hands. Rita decided to make a mockery of Houston by bypassing the city to ravage the Piney Woods instead.

Therefore it was no surprise when the public ignored Damien (who had to play second-fiddle to the World Series), and it was further understandable that emergency management didn't react to Damien. Besides, having formed in the Gulf like he did, there wasn't time to evacuate anyway. The lessons of Hurricane Alicia were forgotton. 1983 was a long time ago.

Then an angel of the Apocalypse appeared and poured forth the bowl of wrath fortold in the book of Revelation. There were earthquakes in various places. A small fissure opened in the Gulf, and beneath the waves, molten rock began to heat the water in a area that Damien passed over. The energy allowed him to grow from an infant pissant depression to a monster Cat 5 hurricane in just 24 hours.

In the dark night of October 24, Damien began his trek toward the Texas coast...