Did the world end today?

Chapter 408 No one died of thirst

Jinling.

Three days after the Hoover Dam collapsed, a special report appeared on Lin Xu's desk.

The bold, blacked-out title on the report's cover was rather jarring.

[On-site observation report of the Hoover Dam collapse in Las Vegas]

Lin Xu opened the report, and line after line of text gradually appeared before his eyes.

Speaker: Elena Morning (Former Water Authority Engineer)
Time: 3 days after the dam collapse

I am Elena Morning, and I take full responsibility for all the statements below.

I can guarantee that the following content contains no fictional or exaggerated elements.

I swear by God and by my life.

2026 6 Month 15 Day.

The water level of Lake Mead dropped faster than anyone expected.

As a former water authority engineer, I witnessed firsthand the moment when the third water intake pipe was completely exposed to the midnight air at 4:17 a.m.

The concrete pipes, installed seventy years ago, cracked under the scorching sun, making a crisp sound like bones breaking.

The water source had completely dried up. When I turned on the tap, instead of clear water, dry air flowed out from the broken pipes.

My neighbor hasn't realized how serious the situation is.

Her biggest concern was that the rose garden she had carefully tended for twenty years was withering away at a visible rate.

In just one morning, the roses withered and fell, just like the city itself.

At first, we had no idea what was happening.

But chaos ensued almost immediately after the power outage.

We all thought the end of the world had really come.

The city has sufficient reserves, but for individuals, we are severely lacking in daily necessities.

Whether it's water or food.

I joined the others in looting the supermarket here.

I saw someone get into a fight with another man over half a case of bottled water, and they even pulled out guns and started shooting at each other.

They were both mistaken for rioters and were shot dead by police.

One of the men's wives was kneeling on the ground, holding their three-year-old daughter. The blurry light from the car headlights made it impossible for me to see their expressions.

Many people flocked to hotels with emergency power, but the hotels' emergency power also went out at dawn.

Everyone was frantically fleeing the city. I groped my way through the once-luxurious casino in the dark, my feet treading on abandoned chips.

A dealer in a wrinkled suit sat alone at the empty blackjack table, mechanically shuffling cards: "They all say it'll be back soon, but we all know it's impossible."

"But so what? We can't leave anyway."

He's telling the truth; not everyone can leave this city.

Public transportation has been completely paralyzed, and at least 60% of the city's total population has been forced to remain here.

We were left behind—and when everyone realized it, order began to crumble.

I went to the basement of Caesars Palace, where I found a group of people trying to survive on the hotel's wine reserves.

Ashley Chen, a college student from San Francisco, told me that his mother ran out of her high blood pressure medication yesterday, and now he can only wipe her forehead with gauze soaked in red wine.

In fact, there are medicines available outside.

Hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies.
There must be the medicine he needs there, but he dares not take the risk.

Because outside, there were gunshots everywhere.

I'm not worried about the gunfire—I was used to it when I was in Chicago.

After leaving Caesars Palace, I arrived at Fremont Street.

The place was in complete chaos, with black smoke and flames everywhere.

Those once dazzling electronic canopies now resemble giant shrouds hanging in the city's sky.

It wasn't until noon that sunlight could filter through the gaps in the sky and cast dappled shadows on the garbage-strewn streets.

Indeed, in just one night and one morning, the city was almost completely filled with garbage and debris.

We used to say that cities have the ability to clean themselves, but now it seems that this is a complete joke.
-
However, from another perspective, the city is indeed trying to save itself.

In the east end of Fremont Street, someone started a new business.

One of my colleagues used spray paint to mark prices on water trucks.

"Shower: $50 per minute" and "Drinking water: $100 per liter".

Of course he had no water—the pipes had burst, and he couldn't find any.

The water in the water truck mostly comes from landscaping in the city or from hotel swimming pools.

I witnessed him shoot and kill the owner of a private swimming pool that was still half full, all in an attempt to take it over.

Floating in the pond were fallen leaves and a blood-soaked corpse.

But who cares? He told those who desperately needed water that the dark red color was rust from the water trucks.

At 6 p.m. on the 15th, the first batch of government aid finally arrived.

But rather than a rescue operation, it was more accurate to say that they were simply trying to stabilize the situation and prevent a larger-scale riot.

We still don't have enough supplies, and the panic hasn't been completely contained.

It's strange—actually, I've always felt that we don't need to panic so much, because even with limited supplies, we can at least last three or four days.

Unfortunately, the city's communication system was also completely paralyzed.

We were trapped in the desert, with no idea what was outside.

Most people believe this is a global disaster, and even when I try to explain to them that it's just a chain reaction caused by the dam's collapse, they simply won't listen.

People hysterically destroyed the old order, as if they were having a pre-apocalyptic carnival.

Highway 15 has become a giant open-air graveyard.

My friend, teacher David Cole, was found dead inside his Chevrolet, having bled to death.

A photo of his grandson was still hanging on the steering wheel, and five suitcases filled with clothes were neatly arranged on the back seat.

Clearly, he once believed the crisis would end soon, and like me, he knew perfectly well that it was just a “minor matter.”

But he died.

Perhaps in this kind of collective madness, reason becomes the original sin.

I still don't know where his other family members are, and I pray for them.

The healthcare system also collapsed.

On the afternoon of the 16th, at Sunrise Hospital, I personally witnessed one body after another being carried out.
-
By this time, order had been restored and violent crimes had been contained, but hospitals had become the most concentrated sites of deaths.

The nurses there told me they were out of saline solution.

This should have been the most scarce resource, but Las Vegas did not receive its first real supply until the morning of the 17th.

Moreover, these supplies came from China.

As far as I know, they reacted on the first day of the dam collapse, but the transport convoy was blocked by the state government until the federal government intervened and was able to proceed.

Their arrival instantly turned the tide, and the "special security team" completed the cleanup of the city with unprecedented efficiency.

No, I'm not referring to violent suppression, of course.

They rescued the wounded, distributed supplies, maintained order, and even used unmanned equipment to clean the streets and repair water pipes. I never knew that repairing large water pipelines could be so quick and so simple.

Water supply was restored in the city at 2 p.m. on the 17th.

At 4 p.m., a small fusion generator was deployed, power was restored to the city, and communications were subsequently restored.

The city is brightly lit again, and even the casinos have reopened.

Those thugs who had plundered wealth through ruthless means during this disaster went to the gambling tables and squandered their blood-stained banknotes.

It was as if we had a brief nightmare, and after we woke up, everything went back to normal.

But some people actually died in this nightmare.
Final note:
The disaster resulted in at least 600 deaths throughout Las Vegas, with approximately 200 of them dying from the collapse of the healthcare system caused by power and water outages.

Everyone else died in the violent clashes that occurred within the city.

No one died of thirst due to lack of water, and no one starved to death.

And this is the most profound lesson we have learned from this disaster.

We should remember this day.

"We should definitely remember this day."

Lin Xu put down the report and let out a heavy sigh.

"To be honest, I never imagined that Americans had become this bad."

"I originally thought that even if they couldn't restore water and electricity immediately, they should at least be able to come up with an emergency plan to maintain basic order."

"It's actually not that difficult, right?"

"Las Vegas was not directly impacted by the floods, and the city's infrastructure and supplies are fully adequate."

"What if we just issued a curfew, cleared the streets, and forced people to stay indoors?"

"As long as we can avoid large-scale chaos, the city's basic supplies should be restored in just a few hours after the army is deployed, right?"

As he finished speaking, Qin Feng, sitting opposite him, slowly shook his head.

"That's the theory."

"However, their military nature does not support them in carrying out such a large-scale disaster relief operation."

"In fact, they completely misjudged the situation—they thought that they could maintain order by using the local coercive forces in Las Vegas."

"By the time they realize something is wrong, it's already too late."

"The military was absent from the beginning; according to the post-mortem analysis report, they never received any clear instructions."

"They don't know whether they should be providing disaster relief or replacing the police to maintain order."

"So the end result was that they treated this mission as a domestic counterinsurgency operation."

"Can you imagine? They even used tanks to bomb a hotel building in order to take out a gang's stronghold in the city."

"If we had that time, the caramelized sugar for the braised pork would have been prepared already."

"absurd."

It is indeed absurd.

Lin Xu subconsciously scratched his hair.

Even now, he still can't understand how all of this happened.

Is it due to mass fear? Is it due to misinformation? Is it due to the collapse of official mobilization capabilities?
Or is this a collective release of potential "doomsday pressure"?

if it is like this.
Will other regions and cities face the same problem?
Lin Xu tapped the table silently for a long time before continuing to speak:
"In any case, this incident is the first large-scale disaster caused by the influence of higher dimensions."

"Although the final result was not satisfactory, we did learn a lot from it."

“This is not entirely the same as the purely natural disasters we have dealt with before.”

"It is clear that public fear was the biggest driving force in this incident."

"In the subsequent response, we must consider how to restrain and control the fermentation of fear."

"This is a huge topic—perhaps the countercurrent should invest more resources in this area."

"That's all I have to say."

Lin Xu paused for a moment, then looked at Qin Feng and asked:

"This incident is just the beginning; we may encounter more and more severe higher-dimensional disasters in the future."

"Its influence will continue to expand."

"If, I mean if, such a disaster were to occur in one of our country's major cities."

"Do you think you are confident that you can completely suppress this panic?"

"of course."

Qin Feng answered without hesitation:

"I don't even need to talk to you about the gap between our disaster preparedness plans and those of the Americans, nor do I need to talk about the gap in mobilization capabilities."

"Just a little bit is enough to change the outcome of a disaster."

"That is"

“Our people know that someone will save them.”

Lin Xu's heart suddenly skipped a beat.

That's right.

He finally realized what had caused the massive chaos in Las Vegas.

The communication blackout turned the entire city into an island, and after the military moved in, the local people did not believe that the military was their savior. Instead, the military's radical actions exacerbated the conflict.

This led to the situation there eventually spiraling out of control.

In China
Even before the era of higher dimensions, and even if those former public intellectuals vehemently criticized it, they all knew that the people's army existed only for the people.

There is no hostility or antagonism between the people and the military; this is a very firm and deeply ingrained belief among them.
Even if they are to die, their soldiers will die before them.

And this alone is enough to give them the most steadfast and unwavering hope in the midst of darkness.

Thinking of this, Lin Xu's tense emotions suddenly relaxed.

A smile appeared on his face.

"That way, I can rest assured."

"However, we still have to abandon our illusions and prepare for battle."

"The disasters brought about by the overflow of higher dimensions will become more and more widespread, and we must be fully prepared to deal with them."

"At the same time, I also need to do something."

Lin Xu stood up and continued:

“Analyzing defects and boundaries is a long-term task.”

"but now"

"I need to figure out what kind of disasters we might encounter next."

As he spoke, he walked toward the lounge at the back of the office.

"give me some more time."

I have to do it.

"A more detailed analysis!"

(End of this chapter)