by Ron Foster
Hogan, you want uncooked Cab fishes to take home? Free, they be no good to eat tomorrow with no refrigeration.” Mrs. Wong said.
“Sure, thank you!” Hogan exclaimed with a big grin.
“What’s a “Cabs Fishes?" Annie asked which made Mr. Wong laugh uproariously until he managed to explain.
“She no can say soft-shell Crabs which Hogan always orders fried in tempura when he comes in. She calls crabs cabs. Take a bunch of them if you want, you got friends? I got some fish and other things that will be no good soon without ice.” Mr. Wong offered.
“I uh, umm, No I don’t think so, wouldn’t know what to do with more than we could eat tonight. Annie?” Hogan said looking inquiringly at his friend.
“Wow, got me on that one, I barely know my neighbors. If they are just going to leave it here I suppose we could try to give some away back at the complex.” Annie said questionably.
“Any other time I wouldn’t hesitate and would welcome the chance to help someone out but I don’t want to start getting all friendly to strangers that hardly speak to me.” Hogan said trying to get out of taking anything extra with them.
“My neighbors are nice; Hogan is it ok if I move in with you? You are closer to the river side and I think it’s safer if we stay together and watch each other’s backs.” Annie asked knowing the answer would be yes.
“No problem, I was going to suggest that anyway. Give your neighbors some fish and shrimp if you want and tell them you’re leaving if you want but not where you got the food from. Mr. Wong, you wouldn’t consider selling some whiskey for a silver dollar would you or maybe let me buy some nice rice?” Hogan asked hoping he wasn’t pushing the envelope too far with all the hospitality shown already.
“Two silver dollars?” Mrs. Wong asked smiling and extending her hand.
“Two it is then, this one I will keep for luck.” Hogan said reaching in his pocket and pulling out three coins.
“Good deal, Hogan!” Mr. Wong said shaking his hand and the cook moved a 50 lb. sack of rice to the pile Hogan and Annie were accumulating while Mr. Wong retrieved for him a full half gallon of whiskey and a bonus of part of an open jug and set it down in front of Hogan.
“Good Deal, Mr. Wong. I am sure going to miss this place a lot. Especially the prices!” Hogan said offering to do cheers with his glass to Mr. and Mrs. Wong again.
“Let’s start helping them load up, I saw a couple people looking in the window again a few minutes ago.” Annie said bringing everyone back to the ground and attending to the problems at hand.
Annie and Hogan got her car loaded first, grabbed a box of soy sauce packets and some hot mustard and pretty much had the other vehicles loaded up by the time all the Wongs’ and cousins and uncles showed up in three cars to convoy out of the area. They all said their farewells and set out for their destinations dodging a few crazy drivers but it wasn’t too bad yet getting around on the back streets.
Hogan and Annie had put their leftover little boxes of Chinese dinners and the soft-shell crabs in a plastic sack with a few scoops of the meager ice that remained in the establishment and were grinning like Cheshire cats that they had found this bounty today. Not only did they get today’s meal but also had gotten leftover Chinese takeout for tomorrow’s gourmet dinner in one big lucky fell swoop.
“What’s next on the agenda?” Annie asked feeling pretty good for the moment but still worried to death about what was predicted to be starting up in full force about 9 o’clock tonight. The dang phone lines were jammed which added to her stress but she knew her family at home were all pulling together to survive this catastrophe and they all knew she would be doing the same as best she could.
“I knew that question was coming and I have been thinking on it, you go lose the extra fish and such before the ice melts and I will start picking up any firewood I can find laying around here. In a day or so we won’t be even able to find so much as a twig around here, I bet. Most likely we will be ending up busting up furniture to feed my little rocket stove. Oh yea, if you really like doing favors for those neighbors of yours tell them as soon as the water cuts off to stuff their toilets with rags or something if they can’t find the outside access pipe to their building to clog up. When the sewage plant shuts down everything is going to start backing up and run them out of their apartments if they don’t.” Hogan said warning her of the unexpected mess everyone would have to face soon eventually depending on location and number of people pouring river water down their commode tanks trying to flush.
“Damn, I hadn’t thought of that.” Annie said looking like she was going to tear up as things just kept getting worse around here with no end in sight.
“This crap is for real isn’t it, Hogan?” Annie said.
“Too real, far too damn real and it is just getting started, darlin.” Hogan said giving her an impromptu hug and releasing her quickly before he became emotional also.
Folks were living on borrowed time in the hospitals, the nursing homes and many other places and would likely not make it another day past tonight if they were dependant on electricity, he thought with a shudder. It was just too hard and depressing to think about the upcoming misery in its hugeness and he just hoped these people had someone caring enough to be there for them in their last moments. Now on to the living and making sure he and Annie suffered as little as possible in their own circumstances.
“I will be back soon.” Annie said and touched him on the shoulder to reassure that troubled look he wore before she walked off carrying her boxes full of perishable food treasures for the neighbors.
Hogan looked up at his apartment’s balcony and cringed at the thought of having to cook dinner every day on it. Where else could he cook? On the range or in the kitchen sink with his rocket stove he guessed might work if the windows were open. But it was still going to be a chore trying to keep it somewhat secret as well as safe with all the food smells. No worries tonight or for at least a week anyway, people would be cooking what they had in their cupboards and freezers for awhile, but what then would it be like when everyone ran out of food?
Travel timing remained an important issue, when should they attempt getting out of here and where should they try to go to? He and Annie needed to focus and talk some more on the evolving situation and examine a lot of different options. The first thing they needed to discuss being the threat of a possible mega fire tonight engulfing the surrounding neighborhoods.
Now based on what he knew so far and what he had learned half listening to the radio on their trip to the shopping center was that he knew the power companies were turning the voltage off and that should mean hopefully the fire threat got greatly reduced. However, he didn’t know just exactly how that would help, but he was grateful for it. The nuances of electrical power lines acting like antennas even without power flowing through them still concerned him though. This was pretty confusing to consider. Hell for that matter other than saying disconnect all small electronics and chargers and such the emergency broadcast system hadn’t said diddly about if the solar storm generated EMP or geomagnetic pulses would be strong enough to affect car computer electronics or any other kind of circuitry.
Hogan decided he better take the contacts off the batteries of his and Annie’s vehicles to help mitigate some damage hopefully. That chore might give him and her a bit of an edge maybe by keeping their transportation partly protected until the storm passed. He also needed to go wrap up his AM-FM radios in foil and better yet stick them in the microwave to shield them like a Faraday cage.
Hum, what else? Hogan pondered as he set about removing his battery cables and thinking about siphoning off some of his gasoline to store away from the vehicle but he didn’t have a container. He had just filled his gas outboards tank as well as a 5 liter container yesterday for the fishing trip today that never happened so he forgot about that idea for now.
He just concerned himself with the present for now and aimlessly wandered around thinking while picking up twigs and stick
s and such until Annie returned and told him mission accomplished and that everyone was happy with the unexpected bounty.
She also had a bit of advice she suggested they might try from one of her neighbor’s who said they were cooking everything in their freezer regardless if the oven was switching on and off with the power surges and outright shutdowns. As the power companies shuttled their lines around getting ready for the big complete turn off at the electrical plants, people tried to save what little they could awaiting the inevitable freezer meltdowns as the grid went dark.
“That neighbor’s idea makes sense as long you watch closely what’s going on with the temperature I guess. Ovens will hold heat for awhile after they go off so it might be just a matter of guesstimating and trying not to open the oven door much, I figure. Let’s go get ours started and try to make some jerky out of that beef we got.” Hogan said getting ready to go back to his apartment.
“How long are we going to be staying here in the apartment complex? You give it much more thought? The reason I am asking is that I got some more clothes back at my apartment I might need to bring over here.” Annie asked.
“Hell, I don’t know; I was going to talk to you some more on that. I am still worried about fires starting up and having to flee here. Let’s go back to the apartment and discuss it in more detail. The first thing we need to talk about and decide on is the boats.” Hogan said.
“What about them? Oh, you maybe mean going ahead and inflating them next time the power comes back on?” Annie asked.
“No, I don’t really need to do that but it is something to consider. I don’t need an 110v electrical outlet because my electrical air pump is battery operated. Remind me to be sure to shield that pump in some way or at least disconnect that big battery. It might be cool to go ahead and air up the boats and recharge the inflator if the electricity stays on long enough maybe. Tell you what no need to consider that this minute we still also have our manual air pumps as back up. We take us a prepping break and talk over lunch and as I am cooking them delicious crabs up.” Hogan said helping Annie get her suitcase and a few other things out of her car and then carrying the stuff up the stairs.
“Do you really think everything is going to burn like you warned Mr. Wong it might back at the restaurant? “ Annie asked after they got everything lugged up to the apartment.
“To tell you the truth I just don’t know darling. I am kind of short on technical understanding and there are many variables. Will there be a bunch of fires? Yes I think there will be, will they drive us out of here and force us to flee by river? I don’t know. Look here, Annie, at this bit of research I was doing for a paper on the 1859 Carrington event based on eyewitness accounts. You see nothing is cut and dry with these solar disturbances and geography as well as a few mysterious electrical things I don’t know about come into play.” Hogan said getting his laptop out and showing her a section of a university insight paper he had written relating to technology back in the day.
“When American Telegraph Company employees arrived at their Boston office at 8 a.m., they discovered it was impossible to transmit or receive dispatches. The atmosphere was so charged, however, that operators made an incredible discovery: They could unplug their batteries and still transmit messages to Portland, Maine, at 30- to 90-second intervals using only the auroral current. Messages still couldn’t be sent as seamlessly as under normal conditions, but it was a useful workaround. By 10 a.m. the magnetic disturbance abated enough that stations reconnected their batteries, but transmissions were still affected for the rest of the morning.”
“See these particular telegraph operators experienced mostly plasma phenomena while other operators in the US and around the World experienced various types of fires and equipment failure like this section speaks of.” Hogan said tracing his finger down the page to point out some different data.
“On the night of August 28 as the first of two successive solar storms struck, E.W. Culgan, a telegraph manager in Pittsburgh, reported that the resulting currents flowing through the wires were so powerful that platinum contacts were in danger of melting and “streams of fire” were pouring forth from the circuits. In Washington, D.C., telegraph operator Frederick W. Royce was severely shocked as his forehead grazed a ground wire. According to a witness, an arc of fire jumped from Royce’s head to the telegraphic equipment. Some telegraph stations that used chemicals to mark sheets reported that powerful surges caused telegraph paper to combust.”
“Now I can show you other sections in this document that had some of the telegraph offices themselves catch on fire as well as adjoining buildings from the poles the telegraph wires were strung from but you get my drift about how unpredictable the effects of a Coronal Mass Ejection can be. Uncontrolled fires are my major concern tonight and how they might end up threatening us.” Hogan said as he and Annie set about bugging into the apartment for the time being and getting the small wood fire started in the rocket stove to cook dinner.
“I wish you had a solar oven.” Annie said as she watched Hogan getting things ready.
“I do! Well I take that back, I have got the makings of one to create a do it yourself one, anyway. We will work on that simple project maybe tomorrow; meantime let’s get back to how I think things might play out for us in the coming days. You want me to tell you the best case or worst case scenario first?” Hogan said mixing up some prepackaged tempura batter he had in the house to dip the soft-shell crabs in.
“I guess give me worst case scenario first. Damn! Cooking oil! I forgot all about needing more cooking oil! That stuff will be like liquid gold now. Shoot, I could have traded those fish and shrimp and squids and such for some more cooking oil and maybe some canned goods! Oh well, no sense regretting a good deed having been done but it would have been easy at that time to borrow some oil in exchange for a fish to cook ours with.” Annie fumed thinking she just missed the best barter situation she might have ever had.
“Dang, I didn’t think of doing that either! My horse trading old soul must be snoozing! We sure missed ourselves a great opportunity to acquire some cooking oil, I suppose. But hey, no worries, we passed on the gift in the spirit it was given to us so what the hell? Maybe we will get some brownie points or good karma out of doing that.” Hogan said wondering if that favor might come back to haunt them later.
“I can always go talk to them about trading for some oil in the future.” Annie began before Hogan nixed the idea.
“No forget that. I don’t want to be asking or having to bargain over anything with anybody in the future and I hope they don’t ask me for anything of mine.” Hogan said turning sour all of the sudden.
“Now ain’t you being the turd in the punchbowl.” Annie said rebuking his comment.
“Sorry Annie!” Hogan said not being able to not chuckle at the insult she had thrown in his direction.
“I just meant that I have a lot of reservations about how we are going to have to deal with the number of people that are living right next-door to us who will be asking me if I have got anything to eat soon. I don’t think I can handle that very well. I think I have got too big of a heart to just say no for one thing and for another I know only of a few stages of mean to get them to leave us alone. When they start begging for food a situation can escalate quickly and violently if we chose the wrong action or reaction. I don’t like anticipating seeing myself in a position where I can’t share and have to run off someone begging, let alone the thought I might have to consider having a gun battle over a can of sardines as the insanity sets in.” Hogan said a bit more openly than he wanted to be. He looked embarrassed that he would rather just wander around looking mean or hard in public and staying aloof rather than have others approach him in this chaos looking for some kind of help from him.
Hogan kind of figured it was safer for everyone that way. Otherwise, how did you know what stranger was a likeminded survivor or had criminal intents on his supplies? Hogan had some odd mental defensive systems that were directly at
tached to his trigger finger. Being a former military man, some would say he had no problem pulling a trigger on a situation or taking a life, but Hogan knew it was that constant judgment call to not pull it that made the soldier and everyone handled this kind of stress differently. He preferred avoidance and how best to avoid a situation like the one he was in now than to remove himself from the situation as much as he could?
“If the fires don’t start threatening us around here later tonight and the smog from the burning city and chemical laden smoke doesn’t get too bad over the coming days, I say we sit tight and leave from here in two or three weeks. We are going to drive out of here if we hear on the radio the roads are passable or could be the National Guard mobilizes and the Army clears the highways for truck traffic and we can get out that way. In the worst case scenario, I imagine that we are going to have to bug out and hide in the woods off the river somewhere and maybe run from brush and city fires the best we can. That’s my plans in a nut shell.” Hogan said trying to put a flexible timeline on their actions.
“Well, Hogan, you certainly didn’t mince your words. I also see those as our only viable options unless a miracle happens and it looks like I can someway drive all the way home. I don’t have the gas to even approach that so I will likely just follow you. Like you said, this crap is pretty unpredictable.” Annie said making Hogan flinch at the thought of her attempting to be driving all that distance alone and also that he would lose his new friend and be left alone to face the terrors of this new world that would be unfolding all around them soon.
“I really hope you can get home to your family.” Hogan said trying to act cheery for her but not really meaning it selfishly.
“Oh you’re just being nice, I know it’s a bit of a farfetched wish but I do have hope. Anything is possible as you said and maybe the states next to us won’t be as hard hit. Hey maybe I will get to see that prepper shack of yours that you have been telling me all about and show me how you garden?” Annie said trying not to get in the dumps about a situation that probably couldn’t be changed.