The captains of two boats on the Mississippi River try to bring their ships and passengers to safety after experiencing the worst earthquake to strike the central United States in nearly two hundred years. Their experiences tell of what we can expect along our great waterways when a giant earthquake once again wracks our land. In Book 1, titled Memphis 7.9, you read of the destruction throughout the eastern United States, and especially in the city of Memphis, when a giant earthquake strikes on the New Madrid Fault.