A deep rumble in the earth...a screeching noise...and the world begins to shake, throwing people off their feet and hurling buildings to the ground. The New Madrid Fault has ruptured again, wreaking havoc over seven states.

Gale, city planner for a small Missouri river town must take charge when the city manager and mayor are both crushed. He struggles to help the townsfolk in the face of broken water mains, clogged rivers, and impassable roads, with little help from a FEMA overwhelmed by the vast destruction in metropolitan areas.

Tempers fray as food and drinking water run low and the nights grow colder. Cut off from supplies, frightened, hungry, the people of the town become more and more dangerous. Gale and his husband must somehow hold together a crumbling community and protect its citizens from their own worst instincts.

And there is much more shaking yet to come.