by Mic Roland
“I know,” said Martin. “She might have come too, if she didn’t have her commitments.” To himself he muttered, “She always keeps her commitments.”
As they approached the electrical substation, there were coming up behind a bucket truck parked on the left side of the road and in front of the fence. Martin looked for workers inside the fence, but saw none. As they came alongside of the truck, Martin could see through the passenger window that there was no one sitting in the cab. The driver’s door appeared to still be open.
“I wonder if this is abandoned.” He was not sure why he whispered, but it seemed appropriate. He walked cautiously around the rear of the truck towards the open driver’s door. The chain link gate was still wide open. That was very unusual. Inside the fence, he could see charred paint on two of the big transformers. The air still held the stink of burned rubber and the tart smell ozone. Whatever took down the grid, clearly included the little substation on Martin’s road.
Susan gasped. Martin spun around. His eyes followed her stare. Two booted legs rested on the ground: heels dug into the dirt. The driver sat on the truck’s running board, leaning back against the door jamb. His arms hung limp at his sides, head back, mouth open wide. A scorched gray laptop and clipboard lay in his lap.
“Is he…?” Susan’s whisper was barely audible.
Martin shrugged. Had the man been electrocuted? Martin stepped a few inches further from the truck, in case it was still “hot.” He scanned overhead for signs of dangling wires. There were none. He bent down to look under the truck. No wires there either. The power had been out for days, so there should not be any power in a downed line, but better safe than sorry.
He wondered when the man had been electrocuted. The blackened transformers and scorched laptop testified to great power at some point. Perhaps the man died days before. If he had, then why was he not dead on the ground inside the fence? Perhaps the man got a mortal jolt inside the fence and staggered to die at his truck.
Martin slowly circled closer to get a better look. The man’s clothes weren’t burned, nor were there any marks on his gloved hands. The laptop had smokey scorch marks around the ports on the side. Did the scorched laptop mean he died Monday when the power went out? The man did not look like he had been dead for days, although Martin realized he did not know what that would look like. Perhaps the cool weather and cold nights had preserved the body.
Martin leaned slowly closer, to see if there were burn marks on the man’s face when the big man suddenly snorted and sat up. Martin let out a yelp and jumped back, only to whack his shoulder on the open truck door.
“Wha…What are you doin’?” the man asked, as he blinked and looked around.
“Nothing. Nothing. I was just checking on you. I thought you were…dead, or something,” Martin said.
The man looked around, then slumped against the door jamb again. “Oh man, I’m still in Cheshire? No, I ain’t dead. Feel halfway there, though.” The big man pulled off his gloves, pushed off his hardhat and let out a long yawn. “What is today? Don’t tell me it’s Saturday.”
“It’s Friday,” said Martin. “Friday morning. How long have you been here?”
The big man let out another long shuddering yawn. “I got here last night. Been all over the state. Was in Milford yesterday. I’ve been up since Wednesday. Musta fallen asleep.”
“I’ve got some coffee in my thermos,” said Martin. “You want a cup?”
“Oh man, I’d give my first born for a cup of coffee about now.”
Martin poured half a cup into the thermos top and handed it to the lineman.
“Jeez, thanks!” The lineman took a long, loud sip. “Ahhhh…”
Martin pointed to the scorched equipment inside the chain link fence. “So, is the damage pretty bad?”
The man looked at the substation for a moment, then resumed slurping. “Yeah. It’s bad. An overload took out your transformer here, and some relays, but that’s almost nothin’ compared to what else I’ve seen. I’ve been all over: Milton, Concord, Exeter. They sent us out right away Monday morning, to check out what might have been damaged, but it’s been the darnedest thing.”
“Lots of these substations got overloaded?” Martin asked.
“Oh yeah that, but weird stuff too,” said the lineman. He handed the empty cup back to Martin. “Thanks. Newington Station in Portsmouth had its burners crap out. Schiller lost a boiler due to overpressure. Valve issue. AES blew out a boiler too when both burners wouldn’t shut off. My buddy Jasper was up in Colebrook. Said their little hydro station didn’t blow up, but most of its links and transformers did. Bow Station is usually offline — just there for peak loads — so it wasn’t running when all this happened. But, when they tried to fire it up, one of their burners went crazy, so they shut it all down.”
“Things are going crazy? What about Seabrook?” Martin asked. He realized that he had never thought of a Plan B for if they were forced to evacuate because of reactor trouble at Seabrook. They could quickly pack a couple suitcases, gather some food and water, add their camping gear to the emergency bags in his truck in fifteen minutes and evacuate. The problem was, he had no pre-arranged place to travel to. They did not have enough gas to get to any relatives several states away.
“Nah. Seabrook’s fine. Since that Fukushima thing put a scare into them, they’ve added backup systems for backup systems to keep the core cool and shut her down proper. By noon Monday, they went into shut-down mode. Good thing they had their own generators for the pumps.”
Martin was relieved, but his lack of an evacuation plan nagged at him. He was ashamed to realize that it was rather late for trying to develop one. With the grid down and just about everything becoming scarce, they were committed to hunkering down at home.
“How long do you think it will take to get things fixed?” Martin asked. He tried to sound optimistic. “A couple months? Maybe three?”
The lineman shook his head gravely. “No way. Too much stuff fried. Nobody’s got that many spares. People could maybe cobble together some of the unbroken parts to get a small section back online. That’s what I’ve been doing for the past two days: not repairing anything, just assessing what we have left that’s workable — which ain’t much.”
As the lineman stood up, his clipboard and laptop clattered to the ground. Martin stooped over to pick up the laptop for him, but the man raised his hand. “Never mind. That thing’s toast. It was my old one anyway. I tried a diagnostic hookup to the panel in there last night, but thought there might be something hinky with the board. So I used my old one instead of my new one. Something was hinky, alright. The overages probably melted a cross to the batteries, I guess. Blew it out.” He kicked the scorched laptop, which skittered across the gravel parking lot and into the tall grass. “Got no time to haul dead junk around anymore.”
“We’re on our way to a meeting up at town hall,” Martin said. “This all sounds like something people should know. Think you could come by and tell them about the extent of the damage? ”
“No can do. Only official spokesmen make public statements. So, all that stuff I told you, didn’t come from me. Understand? At my age, I can’t afford to get fired for making public statements.” He climbed into his truck and turned on his radio. “Unit 34 to base. Unit 34 checking in.” The radio crackled some gibberish. “Roger base. Done at Cheshire-2507. I’m on my way now.” He started up his truck. “I’ve gotta go. Supposed to have been in Exeter by an hour ago. Thanks for the coffee, though. Take it easy.”
They waved and watched him drive slowly up the dirt road and out of sight.
At the century-old town hall, Martin and Susan fell in line with the column of people who shuffled up the wide wooden stairs to the second floor auditorium. The landing before the double doors was congested with chatting twosomes and threesomes. Some conversations were in hushed worried tones, some slightly angrier, judging from the staccato gesturing.
“Hmm. Not as cold in here as I expected
,” said Martin. A pair of kerosene heaters sat in the front corners of the room. They took some of the chill off, but everyone still wore their coats and hats.
“It feels good just to be out of the wind,” said Susan.
Several rows of wooden folding chairs were lined up on the hardwood floor. Half were filled with the less chatty residents who sat quietly with arms folded or hands in pockets. Many people were still standing and conversing around the periphery of the room. Most of the faces were new to Martin, except for a few he had gotten to know recently. Holly Baldwin and her husband sat in front. Jen, the owner of Jasmine, was seated beside them. Walter and Sally sat in the second row. The middle and back rows were filled with younger couples in down jackets and colorful ski-wear.
Martin spotted some open seats on the left side. He pointed them out to Susan.
Susan hesitated. “I told her I would sit in the back. What if she asks me where I sat?”
Martin smiled sympathetically. Life in a mine field. He could easily imagine Margaret quizzing him, too. He realized it was best for keeping the fragile peace that they did not sit together. “Yeah, probably best. I’m going over on the left side there, by the windows.”
In front of the old auditorium stage, stood two long folding tables, behind which sat two of Cheshire’s three Selectmen: Mike Wilder and Drew Haddock. Police Chief Burgh and Fire Chief Anton sat at opposite ends. The town clerk sat next to the Fire Chief, her yellow pad ready to take notes.
Jeff Landers, chairman of the board, made his way through the crowd. He looked like Santa in summer vacation mode: less round and white beard trimmed shorter. Landers took his seat in the middle of the table and rapped his gavel on the plastic table to call the meeting to order. The dull plastic thuds had none of the commanding dignity of loud whacks on a hardwood desk. It took several rappings to quiet down the myriad conversations.
“Everyone. Please. We’d like to get started,” began Landers. The buzz of conversations faded away. “ Thanks for coming, everyone. As some of you know, we postponed our regular weekly selectmen meeting due to the outage. There won’t be any meetings of the planning board, or conservation commission, zoning board or any other committees until further notice. In fact, most of town business is on hold for the time being. So, if you had a hearing or review before any of the boards, all business is currently tabled. Come see me later.”
“What are you going to do about all this, Jeff?” asked a woman seated in the front row. She was tall and slender, with long gray hair.
“We’ll get to that, Candice. Before we get started, I’d like to make a few ground rules understood, since I see quite a few new faces in the audience today. There’s no PA system, so anyone who wishes to speak, please address the chair. When recognized, stand, state your name and street, so everyone knows who you are, then make your statement. Speak loudly, so everyone can hear you. Now, you first, sir.” Landers pointed his gavel at a young bearded man in a middle row.
“Um. Justin Filson, Willow Lane? Can you tell us what’s going on? Why the power is out? There’s no real news on the radio. How long will this last? Our house is getting really cold.”
“Thank you Mr. Filson. We have not heard anything from the utilities, or from Concord, for that matter, so we don’t know anything for sure. We do know that power is out all across the New England and many other states, so it’s not just us. Other towns all seem to be in the same boat we are. Chief?” Landers gestured to the police chief.
“Thanks Jeff. Yes, we are in radio contact with neighboring departments. They are all pretty busy implementing emergency procedures and dealing with all the traffic and accidents and such. The significant development I’d like to make you all aware of, is that area 911 service, which was operating until yesterday. It is now offline.” This news caused a ripple of murmurs in the back rows.
A young man in a blue down jacket raised his hand. Landers nodded to him. “Adam Dunan, Peachtree Circle. If we can’t call 911, what do we do if something goes wrong?” His tone had an accusing edge to it. His wife nodded in support.
“I plan to have at least one man patrolling in a cruiser as long as our fuel holds out. We can cover every street and road in town at least twice a day. If you have a problem, you can flag him down when he comes by.”
“That’s it?” complained Dunan. “If my wife gets sick, or an intruder breaks into our home, we’re just supposed to stand out by the road and wait for a policeman?”
“Or come up to the police station. We will have someone in the office 24/7.”
“What?” Dunan was dumbfounded. His momentary silence was an opening for others.
“You might just have to take care of things for yourself,” said a middle-aged man in a plaid canvas coat. He sat a couple rows ahead of Dunan.
Landers rapped his gavel. “Pete, you just heard me repeat the rules.”
Pete stood. “Oh all right. Peter Conners, Harris Lake Road. Mr. Chairman, I would suggest that all residents be prepared to take care of themselves instead of waiting for someone else to come help them.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” complained Dunan. A few other young residents around him made supporting murmurs.
“Medical kit for injuries and buckshot for intruders,” said Pete. “That’s what I mean.” The rest of crowd burst into murmuring. Martin could see that some were shocked at the suggestion of do-it-yourself measures. Others nodded in agreement.
Landers rapped his gavel a few times. Candice stood to be recognized and interrupt the budding argument. Landers looked relieved and nodded to her.
“Mr. Chairman, what I think this young man was asking is: what will the town be doing to take care of its unfortunate citizens, who, through no fault of their own, find themselves in very difficult circumstances?” As she turned to speak to the audience, Martin got a better look at her. She was thin, her skin was deeply creased with many smile-lines from too many years in the sun. Her long gray hair was pulled back in flower-child style. Her broad smile straddled the line between compassion and condescension. She was playing to the crowd.
“Thank you Candice,” said Landers flatly. “There’s not much we can do about restoring power, or heating anyone’s home. We will, after this meeting, be opening up the school gym as a shelter. We have some cots and blankets, but realistically, the gym will only handle about thirty families. The school’s generator will supply power for the furnace, pump and water heater. Hopefully, we have enough propane to carry us through until things are fixed.”
Martin cringed. They were still thinking of the outage as just another temporary storm problem to be waited out. His latent Boy Scout wanted to voice his convictions that they all faced a long-term problem. The curmudgeon part of him wanted to keep quiet and avoid getting entangled with any new vipers. He intended to listen to his curmudgeon side until he glanced at Susan. She motioned with her eyes, as if to say, ‘Aren’t you going to say something?’
Tough Meeting
Martin was certain he would regret it, but he raised his hand. As much as he loathed petty local politics, he did not want to disappoint Susan. He was not sure why. Landers pointed to him.
“Ahem. Martin Simmons, Old Stockman Road. I don’t think things will be getting fixed anytime soon. This outage could last months, or more.” This sent the crowd to buzzing.
“Are you with the utility company, Mr. Simmons?” Landers asked.
“No, but on my way here today, I met a utility worker at the substation on Old Stockman.” Martin relayed what the lineman told him with the upshot being that power would not be coming back for months. When he sat down, some people glared angrily at him. Messengers of bad news take the heat.
“So that’s just your opinion,” spouted Dunan. Others agreed angrily. Martin could feel a blush of embarrassment growing. Vipers. He was certain he should have listened to his inner curmudgeon. Those eyes of hers keep getting me in trouble, he thought.
“No. Not just his opinion,” said Walter as he st
ood. “Walter Novell, Haverhill Road. I’ve been monitoring ham radio since the lights went out and lots of other folks been saying the same thing he just did.” Walter reported about the nationwide outage.
Selectman Mike Wilder had been tapping on a little calculator and scribbling on a note pad while Walter spoke. “We don’t have months of fuel for the school generator,” he said. “Eastern Propane was scheduled to fill the tank next week, so it’s pretty low. If we run it two hours on, three hours off, we’ve got enough fuel for about a week. Maybe ten days.”
“That’s it? A week?” Dunan and others were upset. He had become the de facto spokesman for a group of youngish couples who sat in the middle rows. “And what happens after a week? You just let us freeze?”
“That’s up to you,” snorted Pete.
Candice interrupted. “Jeff, this town must do something to provide for it’s residents. What about old and the sick? What about the little children?” She held her arms outstretched as if to welcome the poor, the huddled masses.