ARkStorm by Bobby Akart

Akart's standalone novel, ARkStorm, is based on actual events. In 1861, a 43-day series of atmospheric rivers, huge flows of moisture carried from the tropics to the West Coast, turned large swaths of California into an inland sea. The intense rainstorms pounded the state unabated with little respite. Rivers became raging torrents that swept away entire communities, killing thousands. The State’s Central Valley turned into a massive body of water 300 miles long and 20 miles wide.

It's happened before. It’s happening again.

Atmospheric currents pluck out a long tendril of water vapor and funnel it toward the West Coast. The plume of water vapor is immense, more than 1,200 miles long, and seething with ferocious, hurricane-strength winds. When it is converted to liquid, the flow of an atmospheric river is 26 times the volume of the Mississippi River.

As this torpedo of moisture reaches the coast, it crashes into the mountains and is thrust upward. It kicks off torrents of rain and blizzards.

Levees and dams are breached.

Mudslides and avalanches are triggered.

Many thousands die.

Sammy Hendrick and her husband Tyler are relative newcomers to the state. While Ty is immersed in preparations for the upcoming Rose Bowl, newly-minted attorney Sammy is taking care of her brother-in-law’s young daughters whose parents are on vacation.

New reports of the heavy rainfall are largely shrugged off as media hype to drive ratings. Climatologists begin to use terms like thousand-year floods as their climate change models are realized. An important few, see the ARkStorm coming.

Los Angeles County Deputy Fire Chief, Finn O’Brien, has seen the beautiful landscape of the mountains devastated by wildfire. He fought the Station Fire in 2009 and found himself battling a similarly devastating fire that Fall. When the rains begin, he voices his concerns to his neighbors who, following the media’s lead, disregard the threats.

Then, the deluge of rainfall begins. And, it seemed it would never end.

Will Sammy and Ty be reunited? Can a neighborhood come together to survive? Their lives are about to change forever.

This modern-day, fact-based novel will have you whispering just one more chapter until the end.