Tim Hamner gets to a party thrown by the Sutters and announces that a comet he discovered has been authenticated and named the Hamner-Brown. The "Brown" is a young amateur astronomer who reported his own sighting around the same time as Hamner. Tim explains that he found the comet first but waited to make sure that it really was an undiscovered comet before reporting it.

The next few months, people started to worry that the comet would hit the Earth and some people prepared for an end-of-the-world scenario. Tim soon met Harvey Randall, a documentary film maker who covers the scientific about the Hamner-Brown. Harvey claims to believe the experts who say the chances of a comet strike are almost nonexistent but makes some preparations anyway. When the comet does hit, thieves loot the Randall house, killing Harvey's wife, Loretta, and taking all the supplies Harvey had. Harvey's son, Andy, is in the mountains on a hiking trip with the Randall's neighbor, Gordie Vance. As Harvey is leaving the city with one of his colleagues, Mark Czescu and his girlfriend, Joanne, they run into Gordie's wife and take her with them. …show more content…
Nearby, Arthur Jellison had gathered some supplies for an end of the world fortress. However, Jellison doesn’t have enough that people would have noticed that he's expecting the comet to hit the Earth. While he does turns away many of the people looking for refuge, the group inside bands together. In the Jellison ranch, Jellison’s word is law. It gets to the point where he holds the power to order executions for those group members who hoard supplies rather than sharing them with the entire