by Ron Foster
“Oh I can tell you some idiocy abounds stories regarding government actions in disasters. An extreme example of testosterone fired idiocy is that cop that shot that retarded man 5 times in the back sniping from a bridge during Hurricane Katrina. You could say the media spin on making some of the most corrupt cops anywhere heroes in the headlines imagining that they were being shot at by lawless gangs (none of it happened, blatant lies just like the superdome horror stories, didn’t happen, media spin) encouraged him to do what he did at his trial but I say not really. He had a bad moral character to begin with and a want to do it first. Also, he was known as an abusive cop they allowed to stay on the force. Those types of people don’t last long though but they last long enough to cause a lot of damage, same as with a rogue soldier who is trigger happy shooting civilians in a war zone but that’s quite a different story. Right now, I am thinking that we kind of play peon and say yes sir for awhile, if you know what I mean. Just like the village farmers do when the Federales and banditos visit and threaten the village in an old western movie. Or a better example is when Mr. Wong said he was fleeing to the mountains like they did in his home country when the communists took over. They go away for awhile, things calm down, and then they come back and start life again with less than they had before. That has been the role of countless poor refugees for centuries.” Hogan said.
“But we are not refugees, we have prepared, we are PREPPERS! Hogan, you know as well as I do the whole reason behind the prepper movement is not to end up as a destitute refugee needing a spot and a cot in a FEMA camp. I can sort of see your point about letting people calm down some before us making a move but I thought the idea was to get out as quick as we can. People are already leaving the city in droves and we know the real lawlessness and chaos will soon come on its own around here.” Annie objected and looked at him angrily that he seemed so indecisive when they should get out on the road.
“You haven’t let me finish yet what I was trying to explain to you. It’s the old theory of you go looking for trouble you will find trouble. Those poor peons and refugees I was talking about had no training in weapons or politics but they were good survivors, they can grow their own food, help their neighbors and get along, etc. They are always capable of moving on and starting someway again and plan for that. They prep for disasters also having experienced many in their lives already. They save food in good seasons to live easier after bad harvests, to flee from wars, to survive during long term sickness, etc. and they get by somehow. When a truly horrific country wide mass die off from starvation and war occurs like you see in old photos of Asia, humanity makes a move, the populace migrates. People begin to move as one big rolling mass and to save a sovereign country some food is provided by its overseers so that they and their base of power can exist. Call any of these refugee camps or FEMA camps that will spring up the analogy of that kind of governmental continuity if you want. When the US firebombed Tokyo during World War II or when we did the same to Dresden Germany and many other places, you had millions of displaced peoples on the move. Huge die offs occur on the road getting to a destination but many survive to carry on and teach another generation. The idea for an individual or a family is to not stick out like a nail that needs to be hammered during these times.” Hogan said before Annie went back to her still wanting to get out before the upcoming waves of people that would be traveling hit the roads.
“We will get out of here, we could probably get out of the city right now I imagine if we managed to skirt around the outside of this city but what about the next one we come to? The roads of every major city and town will be a mess now. Who is to say it might not be worse in Columbus, Auburn or Montgomery? I have been stuck on roads evacuating from the Gulf Coast during a hurricane evacuation many times and they take a long time to clear out even a hundred miles inland. That is mostly going in one direction mind you away from a storm. Everyone everywhere wants to come and go to somewhere now in all directions. We don’t know where it’s passable on the road and where it isn’t to get to anywhere yet. I thought you liked my going on vacation idea? See, depending on what it is we are going to be doing that time out or trip could wear many labels. We are going to be evacuating the city but not necessarily bugging out, if we leave our homes seeking refuge we are going to be called refugees and so on.” Hogan said before jingling his keys at Annie that meant for her to ‘come on lets go’ in my van for a look see up the road.
“What is it that you envision we are going to be doing on this so called vacation of yours?” Annie asked as she looked out the vans window watching the very light traffic moving cautiously on the roads.
“Like I said, you can call it a survival retreat or hunting and fishing expedition or whatever else floats your boat. Mostly, we are just going to be out in nature and away from crowds and hungry people in general. The first thing I am going to teach you to do is how to snare a deer.” Hogan said turning on the main road and then off again quickly pointing at what was possibly a wreck up ahead that would have stopped their forward progress.
“Well at least I see there are still some cops on duty. So you mentioned that deer snare thing before, do you have some pre-made modern animal snares for us to use or are you talking about teaching me to use some bush craft skills?” Annie said directing his attention towards a burned out building that was hard to tell if it was new or old damage.
“Annie, I am so glad this city didn’t do a reenactment of the Atlanta burning thing from Sherman’s March to the sea during the Civil War. There is plenty of smoke on the wind so we aren’t out of the danger zone yet but I think mostly we have dodged the bullet for now. As for the deer snares, I will teach you both methods but I have a dozen hog size modern aircraft cable snares in my bug out gear. I have some of that 1500 pound test braided cargo cord also that is sort of like Paracord but is flat and soft to use for that purpose also. That stuff is made to support Army cargo parachutes; it won’t break or twist up like a cable snare and is reusable. Now Annie I just had a great idea come to me from all that pressuring you been doing to get me to leave early. Calm yourself down now , I am just kidding with you, I have been ready to go myself ever since that emergency broadcast went off but I knew better than to try it.” Hogan said grinning and hushing Annie to listen to his new idea.
“If we go on vacation, very early vacation that is, we will have the best success in our hunting and fishing efforts. You want to maybe start our vacation early like tomorrow maybe?” Hogan said thinking the wild game in the area wouldn’t be under any pressure yet.
“Fantastic! Sure we can go, that’s a good point about there not being a lot of hunters prowling in the woods yet. So is it that you are wanting to hunt and fish in order to save the canned goods or are we going to use them to supplement us if don’t have any luck while we are gone?” Annie asked.
“Well we will be doing a bit of both I am thinking. If I can get a deer or two then we will be all set and I can cure some of the meat for food to take with us on our real bug out later.” Hogan began.
“How are you going to cure it? You mean turn it into jerky? We already have been through that wasteful fiasco.” Annie objected remembering the faulty stove drying out experiment.
“Hey that was a good idea if the power had stayed on long enough to get it all done. Anyway, I told you that we aren’t done yet with that particular project. That meat will still keep with all that salt I poured over it and you had a bunch of it leftover to use for catfish bait like you wanted. If I had me a way to build me a smoker I could of maybe salvaged some of it that way, too. Or we could of solar oven’ed it and built one of those out of materials I have on hand. I forgot to tell you that I have five pounds of what I call ‘pink magic’ in that big plastic utility box in the van by the way.” Hogan said running down his list of talents and ideas regarding the meaty mess they had both created that he didn’t really care much about anymore. He still had his eye on eating up what frozen seafood they had left and unstable badly cooked meat
that was probably just going to get thrown out and used for fish bait anyway, wasn’t a concern.
“Is that pink stuff some kind of sugar ham cure?” Annie asked.
“No, but if I ever get the chance I might try that, probably make venison taste a lot better I am thinking. No Annie, what I have in that box is much simpler and cheaper than that sugar ham cure I am thinking you are referring to. You see before we had refrigeration available, curing was just about the only way to save up meat in warm weather months. Without salt, bacteria would grow in and on the meat and quickly cause it to go bad. The basic role of salt in curing is to dehydrate the meat just enough so that bacteria cannot thrive.” Hogan said.
“So what kind of pink salt are you talking about? Is it like that pink Himalayan salt crystal lamp I have?” Annie asked thinking he was referring to a basket of food grade crystals on her dresser that gave off a nice warm glow when lit and were beneficial for indoor air quality due to releasing negative ions.
“No, that’s not what I was talking about but thanks for reminding me that you have one of those, we have uses for that lamp later on seasoning or preserving food that we haven’t considered. Hey Annie I have one those kinds of lamps back home in Alabama. The one I have though looks like a whole rock sphere carved out of one crystal. I got it for a gift from my lady one Xmas. They do make a difference in freshening up the air in a house.” Hogan said remembering the planter shape holder of the warm reddish globe he had stared at many times before turning it off to go to sleep because it was deceptively bright in a darkened room.
“Well, that’s about the only thing I can think of that resembled what I thought you were talking about.” Annie said waiting for him to explain further.
“The one thing I think we should consider as the most important ingredient in my opinion to include when preserving meats by curing is sodium nitrate. Sodium nitrate by the way can be found in all kinds of leafy green vegetables and can be added to your salt mixture in the form of celery juice, ground spinach or pink salt. What I mean by that, is a kind of pink curing salt labeled #1, which contains a 7 percent sodium nitrate. Sodium nitrate is useful for warding off the development of one of the worst kinds of bacteria found in food — botulism. Sodium nitrate will also make your cured meats turn a nice shade of bright reddish-pink. That is more appetizing to the eye which means a better taste to the tongue and looks fresher if you know what I mean. One thing to be mindful of, however, is that high levels of nitrates (like most anything) are toxic and you need to be careful about the amount that you are adding to your curing mixture. That special curing salt I have is a commercial preparation and has the directions and proper measurements on the label, so no worries. The stuff is reasonable and all the salt companies like Morton’s etc. produce it.” Hogan explained.
“Well that certainly sounds like we will get some good results by using it; I wish I had thought to have prepped some. So Hogan, are you pretty much proposing that we campout and practice our skills until it’s time to leave from here and go to your house then?” Annie asked wondering what it was they were going to be doing while mankind was supposedly going to be going through some of its craziest times ahead.
“Yea, that’s the general idea; we just hang loose and lay low. If we get ourselves located downriver and setup camp and start hunting early, we will have a chance to build up our supplies and avoid the BS around the apartment complex. Real soon I think things will start to unravel around here and if we ain’t here we don’t have to get involved in none of it. I ain’t in the mood to watch the neighbors getting into squabbles or keeping an eye on my stuff every minute to keep it from getting stolen. If we just drop everything and go on vacation now we won’t be committed entirely to any one particular course of action about bugging out and we will try to use the time to build up our reserves. If we can do all that while avoiding people and possible trouble in general by being somewhere else, let’s go ahead and get on our way.” Hogan said trying to get a glimpse of the river from a different perspective between two brick buildings as they passed.
“This is so weird for us to be able to see all these houses and cars and such sitting idle and think no more electricity and no more gas for either, ever again. I know that is probably a true statement but that fact just doesn’t register in my mind yet. People still have gas in their cars, some houses have generators, most everybody has a flashlight and maybe some fresh batteries, but how long does all that last? I mean everyone is surely not just sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting to run out of food and fuel permanently! They have to be working on something to help them survive! What are they doing? How are they trying to prepare? Mostly what I am thinking most about right now is where are all the people that normally live around here, at? I haven’t seen hardly anyone.” Annie said trying to make sense out of it all and wondering why the neighborhoods looked kind of deserted of anyone being outside digging a garden or doing whatever.
“I don’t know what they might be doing but I know what we are going to be doing. Let’s me and you leave for vacation as soon as the fridge gets empty back at the apartment maybe. Just go ahead and get us and the boats out on the river after we use up the food or do we take it with us. What do you say?” Hogan asked.
“I am all for taking some with us but let’s see what we have left perishable wise when we get back!” Annie said excitedly thinking it sounded like a wonderful idea.
“Ok, so that’s what we will do then. Just disappear ourselves for awhile and wait. We can use the time to plan the rest of our trip or talk about what we will do if we have to stay for some reason out on the river longer than expected.” Hogan said relieved the tedium of watching the disaster unfold from the apartment was going to get some relief soon.
“So does that mean we will be taking anymore vacations later on?” Annie said quite happy that they were going to make a move soon.
“Could be, no telling what kind of road side attractions we might find.” Hogan said kidding with her.
“Seriously though, Hogan, what’s the long term plan? We haven’t talked about what we are going to do if we have any problems down at your place in Alabama. We don’t know conditions down that way. Also that would be getting pretty close to the end of the road for us gas wise since we don’t know for sure where to get anymore at.” Annie asked.
“I have been half considering that, it is pretty hard for me to speculate on even getting home let alone be thinking of having to do a secondary bug out. Hopefully most of the stuff that I got stored down there is going to be unmolested by the neighbors, but I wouldn’t count on that being so for very long. That fact is quite worrisome to me but it can’t be helped if I can’t get out of here and reclaim my house in a timely fashion. We also don’t know what road conditions are like down that way. I have already pretty much decided the best way to go back maybe is a little round about but we will parallel water most of the way following the Georgia-Alabama border on highway 27 south. If we get in trouble and the roads are not clear we can get always get back out on the water somewhere or find us an alternate route by car. Depending on road conditions I think we can swing off that highway for the Florida coast or head on towards my house. It only takes us a little out of the way to do either final destination.” Hogan said dreading the indecision but thinking he had about as solid of a plan as he could make right now.
Northwest Florida and Apalachicola Bay was the only “Bug Out” locations he could come up with other than bugging in at his home at the moment. If they could get to the town of Chattahoochee, Florida, they could continue the trip by water or by highway.
In the meantime, he and Annie discussed that the National Park Service currently maintains 12 boat ramps along the water trail they could use for their vacation. Six more are maintained by the cities of Duluth, Roswell, and Sandy Springs; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; and Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
They were discussing which of these boat ramps they wanted to visit when they spotted f
lames off the road to their left. Apparently, an electrical substation was flaming out and the fire department was watching it but just letting it burn.
“Annie, you might want to tell those former neighbors of yours to please consider going inside and closing all windows and doors if the sky gets any blacker. That smoke is not safe to breathe! They might want to consider covering any cracks around doors and windows with tape or damp towels, if it gets real bad." Hogan said.
“I don’t know what that is burning up ahead but I suggest you get turned around and head us back, Hogan.” Annie said seeing traffic starting to slow.
“I agree, I will turn in that parking lot ahead and head back to the apartment.” Hogan said turning on his blinker.
.
5
Smoke On The Horizon
Hogan and Annie spent the next few days eating up most of what they had left in the fridge and freezer and getting ready to go on vacation. They had been observing the comings and goings at their launch point the last few days debating on what the best time of day would be to put in their boats. There were very few fishermen surprisingly in this river side apartment complex. Well at least ones that had their rods and reels at home with them anyway and made the effort to go down to the little beach. Hogan had talked to an old man and his wife who were out there fishing early yesterday morning and asked about their luck catching anything, amongst other things. They said they had some small success fishing for catfish with canned corn and that using flour dough bait worked on perch and bluegills and worked pretty well in the early morning hours.
Hogan suggested that they consider to try soaking some of that corn in garlic powder as a possible fish attractant and he and the old man chatted as Annie talked to his wife. They were retirees and had moved here to be closer to their grandkids but their son had moved to another state up north for a job and they just sort of stayed here not wanting anything to do with snow at their age. The old man said he had given some hooks and line to one or two people who had asked him to sell them some, but he was kind of miffed they hadn’t seen them since. The hulkster boys lived across the street from their building, the old man said and Nimrod (That was the biggest ones’ name that Hogan found amusing for some reason) had offered to buy any excess fish they might catch from them.