While a generator isn’t a very efficient source of energy if it is forced to operate continuously, the architect designed it around a large battery bank and inverter similar to the solar panel electrical systems. To help prevent the generator from running during the weekdays or sometimes weeks between visits, solar panels were attached to the south facing roof, allowing them to keep the battery bank topped off. The electrical systems in the house were split into separate panels, both protected by HD2 EMP-proof surge protectors. The smaller panel could be shut off, completely removing most of the larger energy usage in the house—things like the conventional furnace, AC unit, refrigerator outlet, etc. Once the grid came down, most of the light bulbs in the house were removed and only a single energy efficient LED bulb was left to light each room. Outside of emergencies, that was the only electric that was permitted during the day. This allowed the generator to only have to run for a few hours per day in the evening to recharge the battery bank. During that time, the retreat members took their showers, did laundry, recharged batteries, and performed any other tasks that would consume electricity, including operating the whole house AC unit on especially hot days.
Sean, with the architect’s help, systematically removed anything in a typical house that consumed large amounts of energy throughout the day. There was no water heater; they elected to go instead with instant inline propane water heaters at each outlet. They used very little electricity and mainly for firing up. The only real problem they had a hard time getting around was the water pump for the well. Building on top of a hill prevented them from using a gravity-fed system from one of the many streams on the property. To get around the pump kicking on every time you turned on a water faucet, they had a two hundred gallon water tank built inconspicuously into the roof of the tower thirty-five feet in the air. This allowed the water pump to only kick on during the three-hour period each evening to fill the holding tanks which provided gravity pressure during the day. For redundancy they added a roof run-off system which drained into an underground cistern. A hand pump in the basement allowed access to the cistern without going outside.
Sean had really brainstormed in the area of security. Prior to the EMP, the property was protected by a very sophisticated video surveillance system that could be viewed and operated directly from Damian’s iPhone or iPad. For security after the apocalypse, some people Sean had read about went all out in this area, building ridiculous fortresses, which he couldn’t understand. Every structure has its weaknesses and if a large enough and determined enough force came to take what you have, they will figure out a way in—whether by fire, explosives, or trickery. Even the great, seemingly insurmountable walls around the city of Tyre had been breached by a determined Alexander the Great during his campaign against the Persians.
Sean preferred a more subtle approach. A lot of books from numerous “experts” he had read offered terrible advice on how to protect your home and defend it like a fortress. Why? At the end of the day it’s only stuff. Why would you die or watch a family member die to protect stuff? Sean’s plan was to defend the retreat as long as possible from the bulletproof tower. If a superior raiding force attacked the property, they would unlock the front doors and disappear through a hidden tunnel system.
To prevent the conquering band of looters from stealing all their supplies, Sean designed a large concealed underground storage facility that was accessed through a smaller hidden room. The smaller hidden room was located through the back of a wardrobe in the basement where they kept a small percentage of their valuable supplies to make the looters feel they had found the group’s cache. In fact, there was actually a second very well hidden entrance from the smaller room into the larger underground facility where they kept the bulk of their supplies. Even if the second hidden door was stumbled upon, there was a Liberty Safe vault door behind it that would have to be breached. Sean still figured that misdirection was the key. Who would look for a hidden door in a secret room with supplies and food already in it? From inside the large storage room four feet underground, they could either elect to stay hidden for an extended period of time or exit through a tunnel system leading out the back side of the hill through another vault door.
A third, smaller cache of weapons, food, and clothing was buried on the opposite end of the three hundred acre property in a hidden location. Instead of dying trying to defend stuff, Sean thought it wiser to let them have the house and come back at night with suppression and night vision and slowly take the occupiers out one by one. They had built sniper holes in numerous places surrounding the retreat that they could fire from while staying concealed. They also had the ability to sneak back into the basement through the tunnel system in the early hours and potentially kill dozens of the looters in their sleep with suppressed weapons. The guards on watch upstairs would have quite a surprise when coming downstairs for their replacements. There were numerous possibilities to gain their retreat back. Guerilla tactics was not cheating, it was winning! Sean felt that too many of the “survivalist” authors pushed a whole “Gung Ho, win the fire fight” attitude which would only get you or a loved one killed sooner or later, no matter how high speed you were.
To assist the video security system before the collapse, Sean had done a bunch of research on different window materials which most considered to be a weak link. Most prepping guides recommended steel roll-down shutters or thick acrylic storm windows. But Sean had problems with both ideas. The roll down shutter screamed “retreat bunker” and was very bulky and expensive while not providing ballistic protection anyways. Acrylic Storm windows were also very heavy and only provided small caliber protection while at the same time making it impractical to open windows for fresh air. Acrylic also had a tendency to acquire surface scratches making them look hazy after time. Sean never understood some preppers’ infatuation with extensive window protection when a simple chainsaw could cut a hole straight through the side of most houses in less than a minute. It was also infeasible to make a house completely bulletproof unless building the entire structure with concrete walls. So why bulletproof your windows? In Sean’s mind, if you had a large enough force attack the retreat and allow a group of people to reach your exterior walls with a chainsaw while you have ten guys shooting at them from a bulletproof watchtower, you’ve got bigger problems and you need to abandon ship.
Sean convinced Damian to go with Anderson’s hurricane windows on the first floor. They had a sheet of polymer glued between two glass panes which made it very difficult to get through even with a hammer. Pre-collapse it would at least slow a burglar down long enough to hopefully allow the police to arrive or frustrate them into leaving.
The retreat members had spent the last few years storing up a very large food supply that consisted mostly of Wise and Efoodsdirect dehydrated meals. Damian had helped purchase enough freeze-dried food for every member to last two years as well as extra for bartering or charity. There was also a large supply of #10 cans of various dehydrated fruits and vegetables. They had over four hundred pounds of salt, beans and rice and two hundred pounds of sugar. There was also a large supply of staples like spices, honey, baking powder, yeast, and flour. Every item was packaged for long-term storage in the underground storage facility, which also acted like a cold cellar.
Over the past year, members of their group had done multiple “recon” trips around the neighboring roads, making an inventory of which farmers kept pigs, horses, chickens, cows and other livestock that they didn’t have the resources to maintain on a permanent basis. They were also looking for any old-fashioned farm machinery they may need. Before Sean and Maria had reached the retreat, Randy, Brody and Caleb had already gone to a couple of the farms they had previously scoped out to see about bartering for some farm animals. Unfortunately, most of the neighboring farmers had turned them away at the door. That had been over a week ago, and the group decided that tomorrow they would try again. Hopefully, some of them could be persuaded that they would need immediate freeze dried food,
guns and ammo, and seed to make it through the coming months and not wipe out their only source of food. They would need to keep their animals for breeding and producing future food.
The next door farmer, Peter, who kept about a dozen cattle, had been approached over a year before the grid came down. Sean, Randy, and Caleb had bought the elderly Peter and his wife lunch at one of the nicer restaurants in town to introduce themselves. Peter was “felt out” over the course of the lunch to see how he felt about the country’s direction. Peter, like a lot of other Americans, was worried about the fiscal policy of the previous two administrations as well as the decay of the country’s overall culture, and he worried about hard times ahead. Although they didn’t go into details with Peter about the group’s preparations, they let him know they were concerned as well.
As with most small farmers, Peter loved his farm and was more than happy to discuss a lot of the details about it. The three of them were careful not to get too specific or come across as prying. Peter just happened to have an old 1960’s International tractor that he used around the farm for smaller projects, but he assured them that it would do most jobs if called upon. The big plus was that it ran on gasoline, which would come in handy with their 500- gallon tank they had buried on the retreat. Peter and his wife were just good friendly country people and Sean really liked them a lot. During one of their trips the past fall, they had noticed Peter bailing some hay with a couple hired high school boys from down the road.
Sean, Brody, Randy, Caleb and Damian had skipped the shooting drills they had planned and spent the afternoon tossing bails into the wagon and then stacking them in the barn. It had taken Sean back to his teenage years on his grandfather’s farm—the smell of the hay, the sweat, the scratchy feeling under your collar and the exhaustion after a hard day’s work. Peter had tried to pay them, but they graciously refused. Sean had used the opportunity to ask for some canned pork for their bonfire later and Peter was more than happy to spare some. In truth, Sean had always wanted to see the food storage Peter and his wife had talked about during their lunch the year before. Sean was very impressed with the quantity they had canned as Peter heaped praise on his blushing wife. They had turned an old tornado shelter from the Cold War into an insulated cold cellar. It held hundreds, if not a thousand, of cans of various meats, fruits and vegetables. Peter also pushed a jar of pig’s feet onto him which he said was his personal specialty. Sean was pretty hesitant to try it but didn’t want to offend. It turned out to be pretty tasty.
Damian informed Sean and Maria that Peter had already been contacted and told to evacuate to the retreat if any looters tried to take the farm. He was also given an FN FNS 9mm handgun with a holster and ammunition, just in case. Sean told them how they had used a car battery and horn as an alarm on the farm, and Caleb was given the task of scavenging the items the following day and setting it up for Peter to alarm the group if trouble came by. Although you couldn’t see Peter’s farmhouse through the trees, it was close enough that whoever was on watch would definitely hear the alarm.
Caleb came up with a good idea to also reinforce Peter’s basement door and have them lock themselves in the basement and secure the door after setting off the alarm. It wouldn’t help to have Peter or his wife running around the farm in the dark if they were mounting a rescue operation. It would keep them out of the picture and allow the retreat members time to organize a plan of attack instead of rushing in to the rescue disorganized. They took the opportunity of having everyone together to formulate a plan of attack on Peter’s farm. They made note of two potential sniping locations as well as an assault approach from the far end of the farm, where a tree line separated two fields and ran all the way to their barn.
It was also discussed and voted upon that Darren and Kathy would stay at Peter’s farm due to space limitations at the retreat. Of course, Peter had yet to be informed of the matter, but he was a logical man and there was no way that just the two of them could keep a twenty-four hour watch over their farm. The doctor and his wife had no experience with firearms and it would be best if the two of them were also out of harm’s way when the fighting started. They agreed to take some basic instruction on one of the break-open shotguns to defend the basement if the need were to arise. Kathy was pretty vocal that she wasn’t interested in learning to shoot but was persuaded that in the new world, if you couldn’t shoot, you were a liability.
There were dozens of other topics discussed and voted on by the time the sun descended behind the treetops. Each member of the group had also been assigned a book and a skill to study from the retreat’s extensive library. Sean had picked a book called Meat Smoking and Smokehouse Design by Stanley Marianski, as he had taken on the responsibility of building the smokehouse in the coming days. Maria had chosen a book called How to Raise Chickens: Everything You Need to Know by Christine Heinrichs. She wasn’t exactly “excited” to be learning about chickens but figured it was better than a lot of the gardening books as she had no interest in that subject. Most of the things she had tried to grow over the years hadn’t fared so well. The group had spent the entire day in the living room, but Sean felt it was extremely productive. For the first time since the power had gone out, Sean went to sleep that night without tossing and turning as his mind worried about some unresolved task or another. Everything seemed to be handled, or at least a plan was in place....
MR. ANDREWS SAT IN the passenger seat of the early 70s model F100 as it zoomed down Highway 62. It wasn’t much more than a two lane road winding its way along the banks of the river towards Tionesta. As they entered the city limits, a roadblock had been constructed using two cars pushed bumper to bumper. Mr. Andrews could just make out what looked like a policeman hunkered down behind one of the cars.
“What would you like me to do?” Travis asked as he slowed the truck’s momentum.
“Just come to a slow stop about thirty yards away and I’ll go and see what’s going on. If that is one of the sheriff’s deputies, I don’t want him seeing you off the bat. We might give them the wrong impression,” Mr. Andrews said with a smile, referring to Travis’s multiple run-ins with the local law. “Stay in the truck and keep the engine running. If I run into problems, ram that roadblock with the pushbar and I’ll jump in so we can get the hell outta here.”
“You got it, boss.” The truck came to a stop and Mr. Andrews hopped out, leaving his Bushmaster in the cab.
“Let me see your hands!” the man yelled from behind the cars.
“Relax boys, but stay alert,” Mr. Andrews said quietly to Mike and Charlie who were squatting down in the bed. He raised his hands in the air as instructed and slowly walked forward. The man was wearing the local police uniform and had the old-style brimmed hat on his head. Mr. Andrews mind raced as he tried to remember the man’s name. He smiled as he approached. “Hello, Deputy!” he said in a loud yet boisterous tone.
“Mr. Andrews, uh, hello.... I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again,” the man said sarcastically.
Mr. Andrews lowered his hands as he reached the hood of the nearest car and leaned over to shake the deputy’s hand when, in fact, he was trying to get the name off the deputy’s nameplate. Deputy Branson shook his hand back briskly. “Good to see the law still in effect, Deputy Branson,” he said in his most flattering tone.
Deputy Branson sniffed at that. “I guess.... We are doing the best we can with what we have. The jailhouse filled up over a week ago. We’ve been letting criminals go as we bring the new ones in, depending on the severity of their crimes. It’s pretty nuts in town. Multiple murders, looting, burglaries—we can’t even come close to stopping anything. We basically respond after the fact when someone walks down to the office and lets us know what happened. Usually we show up to find corpses. Dead bodies by the dozens have been buried in a mass grave over on the golf course. The ninth hole has turned into a real sand trap,” Branson said with a wry smile.
“You don’t say,” Mr. Andrews said back. He immediately liked th
e young deputy. Anyone who could see the atrocities this young man had seen over the last weeks and still crack jokes about it was someone that could be useful.
Deputy Branson continued, “It’s getting worse each day, too. People are really starting to starve now. To be honest with you, I’m not real sure how much longer before we lose complete control of the town.”
“I’m sure you’ll do what needs done,” Mr. Andrews said with a searching glance.
“Yeah, it’s going to get ugly soon. It reminds me of Somalia when I was part of that debacle. The difference is that at least the refugee camps got regular shipments of food...when the warlords didn’t steal them.”
“So, you were in Somalia, huh?” Mr. Andrews asked the deputy who nodded his head in response. “So who’s in charge down there?” Mr. Andrews asked in a tone like the other person was to blame for the chaos.
“Well, the mayor was in charge, but his fat ass is out of insulin now so he hasn’t been doing much.”
“Not a big fan of his?” Mr. Andrews inquired.
“No, not really. He’s a nice enough old man in peaceful times, but he doesn’t have the stomach for what needs to be done.”
“And what is that?” Mr. Andrews tried to see where Branson’s logic took him, but he didn’t get a response. Deputy Branson just shrugged his shoulders and looked off into the woods. “So who’s next in line?”
EMP Page 26