Winter Kill - War With China Has Already Begun

by Gene Skellig

  The mechanical room would eventually house a small hidden room which would be incorporated in the vertical spine of the staircase. Similar sized rooms on each floor served as panic rooms, while the vertical integration of these rooms allowed for inhabitants to fight off a home invasion. At this stage, however, these passages did not exist; the extra square footage was still open to the mechanical space surrounding the small elevator adjacent to the staircase. The enclosures would be completed after the subcontractors were gone. This series of chambers and passages would themselves have hidden walls and other tricks so that if one were discovered it would seem like a panic room, not part of an interior defensive network.

  One unusual feature which Casey had specified in design of the custom windows for the HOTH was a 15 centimeter tall panel blanking out the top portion of the windows, and the sturdy mounts projecting on both sides of these panels. Asked about this on nearly a daily basis, Casey’s explanation was that the mounts were for interior woodwork and small exterior awnings that would be added as decorative features. The mounts were actually designed to accept an off-the-shelf design of steel roll-up shutters for the inside, and adjustable awnings for the exterior. These shutters would roll up into boxes fixed to the panel mounts at the top of the windows and could be drawn down to secure the window opening against all manner of external dangers be it bullets, hail, fire, cold, excess ultra-violet light, heat or intruders.

  Coming in at just under three million dollars so far, the HOTH was way over budget. In terms of gold, however, the project was actually under budget. With gold having gone from $3,000 when he bough the property in April to $3,500 by the time construction was in full tilt in July, and now at $4,150, the gold cost of the project was under 1000 ounces.

  Casey’s gold investment had also shot up, and was now at $18.00 per share. So Casey’s sale of another 100,000 shares brought in $1,260,000 after commission and capital gains taxes. After paying labor, materials and subcontractors, Casey headed to Winnipeg debt free with the HOTH nearly complete and $240,000 in the bank. His remaining shares in TFG were worth an astounding $7,560,000. However, a loaf of bread now cost $20.

  11

  4-H CLUB

  30 July: 22 Months Before NEW

  The children are going to love this! Casey thought to himself as he climbed back into his rusty old Suburban. He had just finished meeting with Klara Rekert, the local coordinator for the 4-H Farm & Home Safety Committee. Casey had registered his children in the 4-H club for the family’s summer visit.

  He was excited to discover that there were a half-dozen different programs and a very active pool of leaders in the Oceanside region. Casey’s 4 year old son, Donnovan, would start off with the first unit of the “Cloverbud” program and learn about honeybees, horticulture, and sheep. The girls,14 year old Tara and 15 year old Hope, would be in the “Senior Members Program” for 13 to 19 year olds. They would start with the Oddstock Club and learn about beef, poultry and swine. 12 year old Liam and 11 year old Justin would be in the “Junior Members” program, working with horses and sheep.

  Casey was sure that his kids would fit in well. After all, his children were very confident individuals and had strong interpersonal skills. What they lacked was any experience with animals. He wanted to give them as many activities as he could, and the 4-H club was consistent with his philosophy of community engagement with the side benefit of acquiring practical skills. The family would need these skills in the years ahead.

  The 4-H club, comprised of “Head, Heart, Hands & Health”, was well suited for the Callaghan family. It would keep the children active while learning about animals, farming, small machines, and personal development. Casey had almost no animal or farmyard skills himself. He had never hunted and did not like to fish. So Casey saw the family involvement in the 4-H program as an opportunity to learn along with the children. It would help the family adjust to the rural lifestyle, and to have some fun in the process.

  He also wanted to capture as much intelligence as he could about the people involved in the area’s many small farms and agricultural enterprises. When Casey began to type up his notes from his discussion with Klara, he made a clear distinction between which notes were for the family activity planner and which were for the tactical database. The entries included a few pictures of the facility or property, relevant infrastructure or equipment present, the site’s coordinates on the map, and a summary of the personalities involved. He captured names, phone numbers, vehicle types, license plates, farm equipment and other details. His observations were always in relation to what a particular personality or facility could offer in a crisis, and the role they played in the community at large.

  The intelligence collection had started back when he chose the Parksville-Qualicum area, but the lion’s share of the work was done during the construction phase. In support of this, and to allow him to maintain a few layers of secrecy for a variety of projects, Casey leased a commercial building in Qualicum Beach soon after buying the acreage out on John Wainscott Crescent.

  The building was a two-level structure which had two small apartments on the second level; a one bedroom to the front and a two bedroom to the rear. The building was at the end of a cul-de-sac just behind the Qualicum Beach Civic Center and the Ravensong Pool. It backed on to undeveloped forest land on the west side of town. The ground level was a small brick and glass storefront unit, typical of small town strip malls. It had reception and office space to the front, a few offices and a bathroom in the middle, and a small shipping-receiving area to the rear. A staircase on one side provided access to the apartments on the second floor.

  Casey outfitted the office with a phone line and some basic office equipment. Later, these facilities would prove extremely useful, but at present they were simply used as a base of operations and a place to receive shipments and mail.

  Casey furnished one of the apartments with basic furniture, to stay in while building the HOTH. He kept most of his tools in the Suburban, which he parked inside the loading bay at night. He set up the second bedroom as his research office.

  He also outfitted the lower, office level. On a wall in this main floor office, Casey pinned various pages of blue-prints, materials lists, and project management charts he was using for the construction of the HOTH. For his Project Management Planner, he customized a four-by-eight whiteboard with glue-on stripes to separate rows and columns into: Tasks, Deliverables, Personnel Involved, Deadlines, Costs and Current Status. Using a variety of colors, the entire project was displayed and updated in the blocky printing style Casey had learned in his Damage Control Centre training in the Air Force. It helped Casey manage the many dimensions of his project without becoming lost in the details. All of his secret information and sensitive materials were developed in the second floor office, for compartmentalization.

  In the second floor office, Casey set up large maps and charts. On the largest wall there was a floor-to ceiling map of the Pacific Northwest. On the adjacent wall was the Parksville-Qualicum Regional District Property Boundary Chart. This was where Casey marked zone boundaries, highlighted infrastructure details such as water and power facilities, wrote comments directly on the chart and affixed innumerable yellow stickies with additional information on specific sites of interest. Some of the stickies had question marks to highlight the need for pictures or other information.

  The Regional District chart served as the master reference which helped Casey to build up his Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield. This preparation included recording as much detail as he could collect, inputting the data into computerized files keyed to the grid system and cross-referenced by searchable key words. Gradually, by color-coding and shading various areas on the chart, and by placing pins and notes to identify or amplify key locations, Casey gained a comprehensive understanding of the entire region.

  His day-time activities focused on the building of the HOTH, rising early so that he could review the plan for the day and be on-site before the fi
rst workers arrived. Once things were moving along he would take a late morning nap in the camper he had Danny living in for security at the site. This made up for the lost sleep caused by his evening research.

  At times, when he took a break from the nightly computer work, he would head out for a long walk. Sometimes he would walk for an hour or two in a particular direction and take in the sights and sounds of the community. This allowed him to listen, to smell and to feel the area. Then he would return to the Qualicum office and update his Regional District chart and make database entries on what he had collected.

  The population base of the Oceanside region of Parksville and Qualicum Beach was about 50,000 people. The task of organizing the mountain of data was made simple by classifying the varied areas into four groups.

  The first group in his classification system was “Two-Person Retirement Homes”. The TPRH grouping included very comfortable retirement homes and multiple dwelling units that were tailored to financially secure retired people. Casey had poured over the Census data and confirmed his suspicion that the proportion of retired empty-nesters in this region was very high. With the mildest climate in Canada, Oceanside had grown at a hectic 6% rate over the last ten years. The Census tallied more than 14,000 persons over 65 years of age. To Casey, this meant that 25% of the local population would have great difficulty caring for themselves, would suffer greatly, and be among the first casualties in any long-term disaster.

  However, a few of these retirees had considerable skills to offer, and Casey made notes about some of them. Many had retired with the intention of not working again, only to be forced back into the workforce due to having lost much of their retirement savings in the unending financial crisis.

  Casey gathered information on retired dentists, doctors, biologists, academics, engineers, mechanics, electricians, chemists, lab technicians, farmers, veterinarians, and skilled tradesmen who seemed to have considerable life experience and accomplishments which could be helpful as an untapped resource.

  One old fellow that came to Casey’s attention had once been a technician at the Atomic Energy Council of Canada’s Whiteshell laboratories. The AECL was once the largest nuclear research facility in Western Canada, but was closed down in 1990. When old Mr. Skinner was given his retirement payout he moved away from the frigid Manitoba winters for the much milder weather in Parksville. His pension was insufficient for his retirement, so at the age of 72 years with a PhD in Atomic Physics, he had replied to one of Casey’s surreptitious employment ads for a Laboratory Technician. Casey had already interviewed five candidates for a short term project he had in mind, but hired old Mr. Skinner in spite of his advanced age and obvious difficulties with arthritis, rather than the younger applicants.

  This was not charity; Mr. Skinner more clearly fit the bill. Lloyd Skinner had no attachments and no obligations. He could be added to Casey’s pool of contacts without greatly expanding the support demands that would surely come with those relationships. Mr. Skinner would also not require as many calories as the younger people. His list of accomplishments revealed an interesting history, such as 15 years as a cell-phone tower technical/installer back in the early 1980’s, and his current membership in the Radio Amateurs of Canada – RAC.

  With his amateur radio call-sign: VA7TLB, Lloyd continued to be active as Vice President for the Parksville-Qualicum Amateur Radio Club. He was also the technical advisor for the Official Bulletin Services and the Amateur Radio Emergency Services Program of the Pacific Region of RAC. This was largely a communications exercise, with a monthly roll-call of ARES and OBS certified RAC members confirming connectivity to the grid, practicing activation and reporting procedures. Should an emergency occur, the participants in these emergency networks might constitute the only functioning communications grid.

  Casey wanted to develop a relationship with someone in the RAC network, both to assist in preserving a communications link for the community and to have a window to the world should things go badly. Mr. Skinner could provide that link and not require all that much in return. His technical expertise from the AEC laboratory certainly qualified Lloyd Skinner for the special research project. The project itself was to equip the HOTH with the antennas and radio systems used by ARES and the OBS, and to train and certify Casey under RAC. Once Casey signed Old Mr. Skinner on, he also gave him a research project aimed at outfitting the HOTH with radiological sensors and the procedures necessary to track and interpret the data.

  The second group after the TPRH was the Commercial & Public Sector, CPS. While it didn’t account for much of the population base, the CPS was well defined. Casey assigned codes for the few warehouses, grocery stores, drug stores, hardware stores, lumber yards and other sites of interest. These he marked with pins on the maps and stickies detailing the more significant factors. With most of the food distribution coming out of Nanaimo, the relatively larger city of 80,000 people just 37 kilometers from Parksville, there was very little in terms of warehousing of food in the Oceanside area. That was a major cause of concern for Casey. It meant that when the trucks stopped coming, food would run out very quickly.

  Civic buildings, ranging from the Town Hall, recreation facilities, police, fire and ambulance stations, as well as the medical clinics in both towns had been evaluated as well. There was no hospital in the region; this was yet another concern for Casey. While the Nanaimo Regional General Hospital was a very capable facility, its downtown location was a liability as it would probably be unavailable to Oceanside residents in any major disaster scenario.

  Partly due to the lack of hospitals in the Oceanside areas, Casey spent extra time in plotting the location and details of the extended-care facilities, medical & dental clinics, and pharmacies. He also gathered photographs of the buildings and a summary of the key personnel associated with each.

  He had gleaned much of this information from the internet, but Casey followed up by making personal visits to each site. He wanted to ensure that he had a solid grasp of the lay of the land and the smallest of details at each location. As Casey had seen in the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, and in the Hurricane Katrina disaster of 2005, medical facilities and infrastructure of all kinds are quickly in danger of looting and other problems when society breaks down in a crisis.

  In that regard, Casey developed a considerable file on the Oceanside Community Police organization. This included the two branch offices of the RCMP’s Oceanside detachment and the District 69 “Citizens on Patrol” volunteer group. Gathering data on the “D69COPS” had been a lot of fun. Casey, being a newly retired military officer, had been welcomed into their ranks as they always needed more volunteers with actual law enforcement or military experience. He already knew many of them from the Gun Club, and fit right in.

  The D69COPS was a non-profit volunteer organization that provided the RCMP with extra eyes and ears to help keep the community safe. Many of the members were retired police officers and others who wanted to keep their retirement haven safe, quiet and calm. In joining the D69COPS, Casey made new friends and got to know some wonderful people. Casey shared their values, so his participation in their efforts was sincere as much as it was purposeful.

  The third group, after TPRH and CPS, was the “Agriculture and Light Industry”, ALI, category. Casey had remembered many of these businesses from past trips over the years. Be it the log-home builders in Lantzville, the cedar products yard just off Hwy 19 in Parksville, the concrete mixing plants out on Fardowne Road, or the quarry out near Spider Lake, Casey already had a sense of the capabilities in the region. After he completed a methodical survey, he was even more impressed with the range and depth of local enterprises.

  Certainly much of this early research was done in conjunction with the construction of the HOTH; however the work was far from complete. There were innumerable “FOQ” stickies, detailing Follow-On-Questions Casey wanted answered.

  Other than supporting the HOTH construction project, the larger objective of the ALI survey was to hav
e a solid grasp of food storage, local food production, livestock, butchering and feedstock inputs to the ALI sector. These supplies would be cut off in a disaster and local food production would fall off precipitously. In his assessment of Moonstruck Dairy Farm, for example, he concluded that the dairy herd would have to be cut from eighty cows to about twenty at the outset of a crisis and down to ten or so within a few years due to lack of feed.

  During their summer visit, Casey took the family along with him to Moonstruck Farm. His plan was to learn more about the daily routines at the dairy farm and observe the Palaty family that ran the farm and co-located Cheese Works. Much to the delight of the Callaghan family, the farm and Cheese Factory complex was an agro-tourism operation that gave them a fabulous day of activities while satisfying Casey’s thirst for data. The children participated in cheese-wedge go-cart races, swam in the swimming hole, and milked a dairy cow. Little Donnovan even got to chase some chicks.

  The Callaghans found out that there was a “Buy a Cow” program, where for $2,500 they could buy a dairy cow which would remain with the Moonstruck herd. The owners were then entitled to $300 in cheese and dairy products from the Cheese Works each month. The investors could sell the cow back to the farm at any time, and their cow would be replaced by another cow should it die. It was a secure way to become farmers without the big commitment. Casey immediately signed on to the program and asked about the feed requirements and other details. This information was then fed into the computer and even featured into the design of the barn and green-house that Casey was incorporating into the HOTH project, along with the planned stockpiling of long-term feed supplies that would be needed.