They’d thought that violence would protect them during the brief period before other people obligingly died off, like some disaster novel; then they’d inherit the earth. Allison knew better, had known it since Bert had shot the driver of the Trans Am: the violence would never stop. See the two sides of humanity that arise when disaster occurs: humanitarian and power-grabber. Solar flares have been erupting with unusual violence and frequency on the surface of the sun. With the ozone reduced by at least fifty per cent, ultraviolet radiation was penetrating the atmosphere. It burned into the cells of plants and animals; crops were withering, and livestock was going blind. Humans could scarcely venture outside in daylight without eye protection, and light-skinned people needed sunblock cream on exposed skin, or they would start to burn in less than a minute. Existing in this new world are Don Kennard, his wife Kirstie, and Robert Anthony Allison, a big time movie director. Don is in a research submersible when a tsunami passes over him toward the west coast of the US, targeted directly at San Francisco's bay area, where Kirstie is working. Patchy communication on shortwave radios gives San Francisco some time to get residents to higher ground. Power, which was already rationed, and water along with other necessities previously provided by the city are badly damaged and the people are just trying to survive. Follow the Kennards and Allison as they try to figure out how to survive in the broken infrastructure of the disaster zone that has become the world