Category 7 » (Reprint)

Bill Evans is the five-time Emmy Award-winning, nationally-renowned senior meteorologist for WABC, Channel 7 in New York City.  He can be heard on a regular basis on Radio Disney and ESPN Radio and has appeared on Good Morning, America and Live with Regis and Kelly.  Evans has received the Outstanding Meteorologist Award from the National Weather Service and has hosted the National Hurricane Conference.  Category 7 is his first novel.  Bill Evans and his family live in Connecticut.

A Category 4 hurricane, with winds of up to 155 miles per hour, tears roofs off buildings, smashes windows and doors, and can send floodwaters up to the second floor. Evacuation is suggested for up to six miles inland.

Hurricane Katrina was a Category 4 when she made landfall.

Hurricane Simone is a Category 7--the biggest, strongest storm in recorded history. When she hits New York City, skyscrapers will fall. Subways and tunnels will flood. Lower Manhattan and much of Queens and Brooklyn will disappear under more than thirty feet of water.

All along the Eastern Seaboard, towns and cities are being evacuated as wind-driven rain lashes the coast and storm surges crash through seawalls. Roads are packed with fleeing motorists whose cars are jammed with every personal possession that can be crammed in, plus family members, friends, and beloved pets. A huge natural disaster is brewing in the Atlantic.

Except that Simone isn't natural. She's the product of rogue weather science being wielded by billionaire Carter Thompson as part of a personal vendetta against US President Winslow Benson. Once Carter wanted to bring rain to the desert and feed the starving peoples of the planet. Now he wants to show Benson--and the rest of the world--just how powerful wind and water can be.

If technology created Simone, perhaps technology can stop her. It's up to Kate Sherman, once a member of Carter's weather team; and Jake Baxter, a weatherman for the CIA, to try, using a secret US Navy weapon. The catch? It has to be deployed inside the hurricane.

Publishers Weekly

Evans, a meteorologist for New York's WABC-TV, and novelist Jameson (Big Trouble) pit a posse of diverse weatherfolk against Simone, a storm of unheard-of magnitude that's headed straight for Manhattan in this slow-building thriller. As it turns out, Simone isn't a natural phenomenon but the product of semimad scientist Carter Thompson, who's learned over the years to create hurricanes and move them in whatever direction he chooses. There are so many characters that it's hard to keep track of their diverse agendas, and there's a frustrating wait as the authors meticulously lay their fictional and scientific groundwork. Meteorologist Kate Sherman and CIA weatherman Jake Baxter have a secret, navy-built device to battle Simone-but it must be deployed from inside the storm. Some readers may feel Simone doesn't live up to her billing, but weather nerds should have a good time from beginning to end. (July)