Geologist Janet McCoy, in New York City for a meeting with

NASA o~cials, was strolling in Central Park when she wandered

near the blast site for a new subway spur. There she found a small

piece of "Genesis rock"-a sure sign of impending volcanic activity.

That s when she began to get scared

Hank Lawson, inspector for the Consolidated Edison power

company, had gone out to the subway excavation to investigate

reports of steam lines broken by the recent blasting. According,io~

his information there were no steam lines anywhere nearlt~e site

Tom Chastain, photographer for the Daily News, was~ec0rding

Lawson s visit when the "steam lines" erupted again-inca violent

explosion that killed Lawson instantly and made Chastain s story

front-page news

Ben Keller, demolitions chief at the site, thought he knew what

was causing the steam-small pockets of water in the rock that had

been heated by a previous blast. He decided he could cool them

down with a few fire hoses directed into the fissure

Janet McCoy, and the team of scientists she had gathered, could

have told Keller that he was about to make the worst mistake of

his life. For if the fissure really were volcanic, then new pressure

from above would very likely cause the fault to expand

The thousands of people who died in the next few minutes never

knew what hit them. Now the city waited for a second, even more

terrifying eruption-for the waves of glowing red lava that would

signal the beginning of the end