March 11 wasn't a typical Tuesday for most people living on the eastern coasts of the United States. Millions had been left homeless from the southern tip of Florida to the northeastern corner of Georgia. Thousands had still not recovered from the January bombings that claimed their family members and property, devastating their lives. Now they had to deal with the effects of one of Mother Nature's most violent temper tantrums.
By mid-morning Tuesday, the hurricane had slammed into the Chesapeake Bay area of southern Virginia. Virginia Beach, Newport News, Hampton, and Portsmouth had all suffered incaluable damage. Death tolls were being estimated in the low thousands, even though most citizens had had plenty of time to evacuate. Without warning, the hurricane picked up speed and was thrashing its way toward the nation's already-despoiled capital.
Explosions that had rocked Washington, DC on the dy of President Bush's State of the Union address had left grotesque scars inside the beltway. The White House, the Capitol Building, most of K Street, hundreds of federal government offices, and lavish suburban-Virginia homes of powerful politicians and wealthy elitists still stood in ruins. The local government and the federal government didn't quite know who had jurisdiction over what; many bureaucrats agreed with the O.U.T.R.A.G.E. position: leave the rubble "as is" to serve as a constant reminder of the apocalypse and as a memorial to all those who died.
By nightfall, the full force of the hurricane was battering what remained of norhern Virginia and Washington. The hurricane had imploded on itself, bringing with it a wide path of destruction. Buildings that had been saved by O.U.T.R.A.G.E. now became victims of the storm. Washington's fashionable Georgetown area, where many politicians' homes had been bombed, still remained fairly intact. Now the Riggs Bank building - one of the few large bank headquarters that had not been annihilated - fell victim to the havoc unleased by this dramatic storm. Its gold leaf decoration atop the building suddenly tarnished as high winds seemed to paint over the gilt. How such a massive stone structure could be decimated in just a few short moments was incomprehensible. Hurricane experts were now judging this storm to be a "Category 7" - something that had never been witnessed in the United States, and rarely had been experienced anywhere in the world.
"It was as if God's wrath had finally played out," said one TV news commentator who had braved the storm as he tried to show viewers the activity going on inside the beltway. "Perhaps O.U.T.R.A.G.E. was right: God had finally had enough. He was sick and tired of America's greed, gluttony, sloth and selfishness."
The storm raged on all night. The O.U.T.R.A.G.E. teleconferences aired all night long. Viewers watched all night long. At one point, a remote-controlled TV camera somehow managed to record the tile roof being blown off the U.S. Bureau of Printing & Engraving, one of the few government buildings that O.U.T.R.A.G.E. had saved from the bombings.
Up until now, the Bureau had continued to print and distribute new currency, as it did on a daily basis. The only difference was the inventories of cash were now being shipped to small regional and state banks; most of the giant banking institutions were pretty much out of business, even though many of their branch offices around the country were operating without any interference or authority from national corporate headquarters. Now, considering all the water damage, the Bureau might be forced to suspend operations, at least for the immediate future. How would that affect an already-disrupted flow of banking activity in this country? Money was running in short supply. Many companies were paying employees in cash, but cash was soon to become an even more rare commodity. The economy was in the toilet as it was; now things might get notably worse.