Madam Secretary

Teal-79, flight.

Request position.

Teal-79 in block executing alpha pattern.

Heading 236.

Operational.

ETA to eyewall 30 seconds.

Roger, Teal-79.

ATC clears Teal-79 operational.

Squawk 20000.

Relax.

This ain't our first cat five.

Yeah, but they don't make them like they used to.

We have good transmit.

Report status.

Tropopause wind speed 210. LCLs scraping bottom.

Air pressure...

That can't be right.

Holy crap.

Major, flash traffic to NOAA.

They are not gonna like this.

J'accuse.

Good morning.

Basement nachos. Stairwell crackers. Den cookies.

I deny all.

Ooh, is that a wet/dry vac?

Latest model.

For the record, the nachos were me.Oh.

Still, you better be apartment hunting, Cookie Monster.

Hunting, yes. Finding, no.

Oh, wait, here's something.

"Coliving creative eco-space

with adult playroom."

Translation?

- He's too old to live there. - Ouch, but true.

Hey. Where's the coffee?

Whoops. Good morning,

- sunshine. Come on. - Sorry, government business.

Oh, God, work is a mess today.

- What's up? - Super Typhoon Blessing has

record low pressure, uh, at sea level

and is now the most powerful storm in recorded history.

We're just gonna whistle past the irony of the name, huh?

The cone of expectancy

puts it on course for U.S. territory

in the Marshall Islands.

I have to prep meetings for NOAA, FEMA, DoD...

It's the same story at State. I've got OFDA

and USAID in overdrive.

Whoa, acronym fight. Come on, babe, we got to go.

Yeah. Ooh, can I get a ride?

No, uh, we have a meeting this morning.

Not at the White House? Ooh.

- The plot thickens. - No, it's a campaign meeting

with Mike B.Ooh.

Cone of silence. Bye.

Goodbye.

The merry McCords.

- All hail. - Hey, Mike.

Gordon.

Ooh! Look at that sporty coat.

It's a tactical anxiety vest.

He hasn't been the same since a calico moved in next door.

Button-nosed little monster.

He's probably out murdering birds as we speak.

Calicos are actually female. Whatever. The point is,

cats are the worst, and no one should have them.

Now, to brass tacks.

I set up an appointment for you at the White House

- with Pastor Eli Bragg. - Eli Bragg.

Of the Christian Redeemers Network? Mm-hmm.

It's an advocacy group for conservative evangelicals.

Yeah, I'm aware.

Pretty extreme.

Let's call them "traditional."

And Pastor Bragg is a big player in national politics.

His voters vote, and his donors donate,

which is more than I can say for your kombacha-sipping fanboy.

It's kombucha.

- "Kambucha." - What... so, where do I come in?

CRN is having their annual conference tomorrow,

and if you impress the good pastor...

there may be a speaking slot

for America's favorite religious scholar.

I'll hold for applause.

Has Russell signed off on this?

- Please, what's not to love? - Let's start

with 90% of their political positions.

Health care, climate change,

those detentions at the border.

I'm sorry, what's your... what's your brand again?

"Hey, it's the nice lady with the glasses."

Diplomacy. Willingness to find common ground.

Sure, Pastor Bragg will probably never

support you, but if Henry

can cozy up and show him you're not the enemy,

maybe we can keep him from publicly opposing you.

Well, I'm feeling inspired.

This is exactly the kind of outreach we need

from Henry during the campaign.

I don't know about the campaign,

but I'll sit down with him.

I believe in the power of scripture to unite people.

Most wars notwithstanding.

- I knew you were gonna say that. - Hallelujah.

- He's so easy. - Why do I even...

I mean, have you seen these FEMA numbers?

250-mile-an-hour winds

are gonna destroy 95% of single-family dwellings

with the force of 20,000 Hiroshimas.

Not to mention the storm surge, which is over 40 feet.

The highest point on the Marshalls is 30 feet.

And there's more than 50,000 people.

Hey, you can pack it up. Meeting's off.

Latest tracking from NOAA has Blessing making a hard swerve

away from the Marshalls, so Uncle Sam will get a soaking

but nothing worse. So no landfall?

Looks like it's headed for the Republic of Nauru.

It's your mother's problem now.

Nauru's taking

a direct hit. Communication with the government is still down.

Who's our point of contact?

Best we got is a guy named David Akua.

Part-time consular official at the U.N. in New York.

He's on his way down now.

All right, well...

get with OFDA and pivot aid to Nauru.

And you got to open a channel with DoD.

We're gonna need Pacific Command

to coordinate an airlift from Guam.

Daisy, Matt,

I need a statement ASAP.

Uh...

- support and sympathy? - As opposed to fire and brimstone?

Yeah, and also, let's do

a donations hotline. Get it up within the hour.

- Yes, ma'am. - What else you got?

Working lunch with PolMil.

And did you hear the news about Ashley Whittaker?

- What? Oh, my God, no. I love her. - No.

She's dating Bryce Manley.

- Is this really State business? - What?

Wait a minute. I'm sorry, I thought she was with Zac Efron.

As if he could compete with the star

- of the Swashbucklersfranchise. - She's a former

- goodwill ambassador, so... - Uh, also,

she helped us out of a big jam in Kazakhstan.

That doesn't give gossip a free pass. I object.

- Overruled. - Gossip? It's-it's like the...

Right! My bad.

Administrator.

- Oh, no, Glenn. Please call me Glenn. - Oh, Glenn.

Yes. I-I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting you.

Right. The NASA administrator is here.

He says it's urgent.

Uh, are your people on Nauru okay?

Well, the astronomers are fine,

but the Gimbal-Solander telescope's a total loss.

Ah. Well, I'm sorry to hear that.

Yeah, so am I.

But that's not why I'm here.

Typhoon Blessing is a freak.

It's the most powerful ever,

two months before the official start of typhoon season.

Set off alarm bells within the scientific community,

so we went looking.

This was taken above the monsoon trough

by our new GOES-18 satellite.

Maps are like rashes.

If it's big, if it's red, it's probably bad.

Yeah, I'm getting hives just looking at it.

Here's a patch of superheated ocean.

Rising temperatures are outpacing

even our worst-case models, so tropical cyclogenesis

is gonna get more frequent, more destructive.

So Blessing isn't a freak. It's the new normal.

Well, there was a time

when we couldn't link specific storms to climate change,

but that time has passed.

Which brings us to Nauru.

The survivors need to leave now.

- You mean until they rebuild? - No, no.

I mean permanently.

All right, hang on, hang on.

Y-You want an entire people to just pack up and leave?

Walls, dykes, levees.

We have ways of fighting rising sea levels.

Well, with bedrock, maybe.

But... this island's built on soft coral.

Another high-frequency wave event could be...

Devastating.

Yeah.

It's like a tsunami hitting a sandcastle.

And given the data,

the odds of that happening in the near future

are too high for comfort.

Well...

thanks for the pep talk.

It's about to get peppier.

Our Research and Analysis Unit ran some simulations.

Today it's Nauru.