by Ron Foster
“We need to go back to my house right this instant, Betsy! We need to try another radio and see if it works. I am afraid I think I know something about how serious whatever happened to the power is and it’s bad, real bad... There is a thing called a solar storm or Carrington event that might have just occurred and it can totally take the entire electrical grid out.” Janice said suddenly standing up and feeling rather panicky.
“You mean something the Sun did? I saw an article online that mentioned we were having a solar flare or storm or something like that, but I thought those things just temporarily messed up GPS systems and some radio communications.” Betsy said, following Janice back to her house worriedly.
“No, it can be much worse than that believe me and I think what has happened is something called a CME or Coronal Mass Ejection. See let me explain. For reasons that are not yet completely understood by scientists (although the currently held theory points to the cause as interaction between magnetic fields), the Sun will often launch bursts of energy out into space via solar flares, which send billions upon billions of charged atoms out into space. Flares originate from sunspots and are rated in power by letter-based classes, with the X-class being the most powerful. This stream of energy continually launched by the Sun into space is known as the solar wind. If there is a particularly strong flare that releases a lot of energy, the burst is then known as a coronal mass ejection (CME). If it was a CME, it will be many years before we get power back. That means the end of the world as we know it is here.” Janice said.
“Really? That bad? What’s this radio we’re looking for going to tell us? Janice, you’re starting to scare me.” Betsy said, all a twitter and edgy.
“I am not meaning to try to scare you, just inform you and I sure hope I am wrong about the cause of this. But that is what happened today I am pretty sure. I think I am right, after all, it has happened before, back in 1800’s all the telegraph lines went down. Ok, here goes nothing.” Janice said and hit the ON switch to the old battery powered transistor radio sitting next to the computer.
They heard NOTHING, not even a little static crackle to indicate the set had some power from the batteries.
“The shit has officially hit the fan, I can say now. We are screwed, Betsy.” Janice told her pointedly. “What do you mean screwed? Let me try that radio. You mean this radio by not working proves your theory a solar storm destroyed most electronics?” Betsy said nervously, turning the dials over and over like something magic would happen.
“Geomagnetic storms can take out anything dependant on circuitry or electronics. This was a strong storm it seems but not all that strong really because it seems to have had little effect on vehicles engine computers. Well, at least the ones I have seen so far. If it had been just a little bigger solar storm your car wouldn’t have even started at all. ZAP! That would be it. But even if a car runs you won’t be able to get any gas for it. The pumps are all shut down. You had better sit down with me for a while and let’s have a long talk about all the implications of this thing and what we can do about it.” Janice replied, heading for a seat.
“Ok,” squeaked Betsy and she settled into a chair listening as Janice gives her a crash course in prepperdom living and solar storm disaster survival explanations.
13
Speculations
“You didn’t ever finish explaining what you thought might happen to society after 4 weeks?” Cat said looking forward out the windshield of the motor home and helping Bubba navigate through the dangerous intersections.
“Well, obviously, we don’t know exactly what will occur as it will be different for everyone depending on their own personal circumstances. This was one big, nasty surprise that will only keep producing more trials and troubles, though. I am thinking that most people by the fourth week of the power being out will already have had to depend on the kindness of strangers and the competence of government officials the first few weeks so most likely in the fourth week none of that will be happening much anymore.
Most people will be in desperate straits just to find their next meal. A full collapse of the financial and political system has basically just already occurred also to complicate matters more so. Socio-political and economic instability trigger psychological instability or uncertainty, and all this, I believe, will contribute a great deal to rising brutal crime and some full scale looting.
The “every man for himself” syndrome will take over as humanity suffers unless you have access to a close community. I guess this would be the beginning of a “without rule of law” or WROL situation in the country and an attempted Law Enforcement harder crackdown of martial law in the cities. Law enforcement and the National Guard are going to be eating regular and requisitioning food warehouses so there is some rule of law going on but who is to say what form it will take as people grow more desperate and resources get overwhelmed.
The cities will be emptying of those people with a rural place to go to or relatives to stay with and the housing projects will probably go up in flames with turf wars amongst the gangs as arguments heat up over food instead of drugs. Oh, drugs will be a big thing still to now, going to be lots of crazy junkies looking for their fix and not caring how they get it or who they got to go through. Unfortunately, we already know that daily stresses and events of the world today can set off psychological instability, so, certainly, can a mass disaster like this that causes our social networking and power structure to collapse. One thing that causes this is the sense of chaos, resulting in the person’s pervasive sense that “nothing works any more.” So they have lost everything and they mentally lose it.
Regular city people will start leaving for the country in search of food and water because they have an unrealistic view of farms. Lots of bad decisions will be made and people’s misinterpretation of actions or intentions as threats is going to get lots of folks killed as well. Most people won’t have hardly any choices at all but to migrate like locusts to the countryside and find what they can, where they can.
Luckily, we have got enough preps to give us time to carefully assess the situation and choose our best options. I think we are going to stay with Donald at least 8 weeks, maybe through the whole summer even if it makes sense and he don’t mind having us that long. This first winter is going to be the big grim reaper on anyone who survives the coming summer months so bugging back then when less folks are around, might be the answer. We are just going to have to play it by ear for now and stay at Donald’s little safe haven as society unravels.” Bubba said, glad he was finally on the main highway and headed out of the city limits and towards his friend.
“I will feel better when we finally get safely there. Wow! Did you notice the number of trucks and cars stuck on that bypass we just went by?” Cat said, looking at Bubba in disbelief they could be so backed up
“Yea! I couldn’t tell what caused that bad snarl up or if those vehicles were even operating. There are some trucks pulled over up ahead, I bet the solar storm played havoc with all the electronics them things carry.” Bubba said, pointing at three big rigs pulled over on both sides of the road and their befuddled drivers looking at the engines with the hoods raised.
Donald has always said that after the
disappearance of money, law, and government, it’s pretty much apocalypse now and all bets are off. In more other, more practical terms, we can say that the second big die out phase will begin when money is no longer accepted as a means of exchange. We are facing a global famine the like that’s never been seen on this earth. People will be forced to fend for themselves and their families, by any means necessary. Basically, national anarchy and a regression of civilization will be occurring at an astounding rate. Society has broken down irreparably for now and will retrogress into a new Dark Age.
14
Reflections
Donald tried his best to imagine and anticipate what was inexorably going to happen next as the solar storm ran its’ course and dismantled technology as well as civilization a
s we know it. In the immediate aftermath of a disastrous breakdown of the social order, if you are in an urban area, there will likely be many, many people looking for the same basic things you are when stuff gets scarce. Looting will be rampant and widespread. What Donald like to call the three” C’s” -crime, cults, and craziness would become the order of the day. The world would see an increase in superstition, ignorance, cruelty, and intolerance as people just lost it. The events occurring now are exactly like cascading dominoes; all parts of the collapse have more to do with causality than with chronology, although there is no great distinction to be made between the two in reality.
“ Society will become far more primitive than the one to which we have been accustomed. In the meantime, you need a strategy to get you and your family back to your bug out location and in a timely fashion.” Donald considered as his most pressing issue to wrestle with.
No man is an island he had often lectured; it is crucial to remain connected to a community if one is to survive a breakdown of government. And that’s where the family stronghold comes into play. His place wasn’t that defendable on its own but he could improve on that situation. He had a good supply of prepper resources and a little land to fall back on and that was what was most important.
The greatest “resource” of all to possess, though, will be the knowledge inside one's own head versus having a fortress. People with the information and skills required for supplying themselves and their community with food and shelter, however, can certainly be called the survivalists now, even if a better label like Prepper is used.
It is well-documented fact that Donald studied often in college, that natural and man-made disasters are followed by increases in altruistic behavior and social solidarity so he didn’t see things spinning out of control for some time. A lot of people also had gardens this time of the year and would be spared a lot of hardship because of them.
Those who expected to get by with just their so called “victory type gardens” are unaware, however, of the arithmetic involved to do so. Perhaps some of the misunderstanding is due to the misconception that humans live on “vegetables” in the narrow sense of the word (e.g., in the sense of “green vegetables”). In reality, it is not “vegetables” but grains that are the foundation of human diet. Thousands of years ago, our ancestors took various species of grass and converted them into the plants on which human life now depends. Wheat, rice, corn, barley, rye, oats, sorghum, millet — these are the grasses people eat everyday.
It is these members of the grass family that are used in raising the pigs and cows that are killed as other foods to sustain the body. A diet of strictly green vegetables would be slow starvation; it is grains that supply the thousands of kilocalories that keep us alive from day to day.
By knowing and relating to this basic information to his current situation, he thought it was now very crucial to sacrifice the two bags of feed wheat he had recently bought as soon as possible to the community and try to get his neighbors to help him till and plant Bobby’s land with this life sustaining crop or he couldn’t see very many making it. Bobby had the only good size piece of open land close by and owned a fishpond to boot that he was willing to share if he got something in return for depleting his fish stock.
Donald had already mentioned the possibility of Donald planting wheat as a basic necessity crop after a disaster to him one time when they got on the subject of prepping when Donald had first moved here. Donald had already described various “what if situations” so he felt good about his success in implementing his plans and Bobby’s cooperation. Bread is the staff of life as they say and he was going to insure this community had plenty of it in some form or fashion.
Infrastructure and social order are interdependent to a large extent. The more fully infrastructure is woven into social life, the more difficult it is for human beings to anticipate and prepare for the day when it may come crashing down. Donald’s household would have some basic amenities that many lacked because of his extensive planning to be as self-reliant as he could.
Even though he felt like it darn near sent him over the edge doing all this mental and physical work alone or with very little help, he now felt somehow refreshed and back in control of his destiny again as the time for prepping was over now and the day to day survival game was starting up. He would have lots of time now to work on his various prepper projects, hell, eventually all they would have is time on their hands to devote to trying to improve their positions and try to insure their survival success.
He was glad he had also had the aforethought to stock some decks of playing cards and board games to pass time away in a more leisurely fashion when things settled down a bit. Around the farmstead these simple games would give his family and friends some much needed recreation time as well as help bond them together better and help get their minds off the aftermath of this life changing event and move on to simpler pleasures.
He wished that he could hang around and grill and smoke some of that stuff he had in the freezer with the rest of his neighbors but he had to keep moving when he hit town. He could give some of the meat from his freezer to Michael and ask him and Amy to please clean out his refrigerator as well while he was gone, though. Whew, he could only imagine how the air would smell a week from now in the cities. The stench would be building up as trash wasn’t picked up and the sewer systems backed up. Ok, he would talk to Michael and Amy and remind him LowBuck might be traveling by driving a motor home.
“ What’s up with that big old prepper, anyway? I wonder if he’s still coming my way? Probably not. I suspect he would want to haul ass back to his bug-in location but maybe not. My place is about a thousand miles closer for him to get to and he may just decide to ride the storm out my way if he realizes gas is going to be a big issue as well as some major arteries on highways will be shutdown or impassable. I hope he comes though; I could damn sure use him around my place. It’s not often you could find as good a man and woman as that personally and the prepper knowledge they had between them would fill many books.
Let me consider my course here for a minute, I am 3-4 hours out from my house if I don’t have any traffic problems. Donald mentally added another hour or so travel time to his Mom’s house and mentally dreaded playing hell driving in the traffic entering into that city to get to her.
If that Mr. Lowbuck and crew is on the road and coming in and he left right when the shit hit the fan, that puts him in maybe the same time as me or an hour earlier than me if he doesn’t have any traffic issues or major detours to get around.
“ I best buy us all some beer or something with my little bit of remaining money and plan for some post apocalyptic shindig in a few weeks while I got a chance to maybe find a store open.” Donald thought as he began to look for any kind of store to buy the last batch of alcohol he and LowBuck might see for a while. That might be a good thing for himself, though alcohol sometimes tended to attract odd and strange troubles to him like a magnet sometimes and he knew he had plenty of troubles already to deal with without attracting any more new extra glitches for a while. Poor Lowbuck is going to be lost between two shores if he does visit though; it’s a long way home for him.
15
Doggy Delights
“We are about an hour out from Donald’s house, if I am guessing correctly from this map.” Cat said looking up from her navigating duties now that the GPS was dead.
“I hope it stays this smooth driving, I wasn’t realizing how close he was to Jacks’ or how good the condition of this highway may have been when I said I hoped to get there before dark. If you see any kind of a store at all that looks open lets stop and spend what green cash we have on whatever we can get before its fiat value is considered worthless for buying stuff.” Bubba said, slowing down a little and searching the landscape for a place.
“ Buy a lot of dog chow if you can, weaning this beast of ours off of a bowl full whenever he wants it is going to be tough.” she said, half grinning as she rubbed Harley’s
head but worried his diet would soon change as drastically theirs and would often have to be hungry.
“I got about 125 lbs. of food on the trailer for him but you’re right, he has got to start on lighter rations quick enough. Well, you his mamma, make him some of them dog cookies out of our wheat stores you make sometimes and supplement what food we have for him with what we got on hand otherwise.” Bubba said smiling, he would eat them things to himself if he had to, they were sort of like hard tack he guessed and was willing to give it a try.
Whole Wheat Dog Biscuits
• Prep: 15 min. Bake: 20 min.
• Yield: 30 Servings
Ingredients
2-1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup toasted wheat germ
1 garlic clove, crushed
4 tablespoons butter, cubed
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon molasses
Water
Directions Combine flour, wheat germ and garlic in a large bowl. Cut in butter. Stir in egg, milk and molasses. Add enough water so mixture can be shaped into a ball. Roll dough onto a floured surface to a thickness of 1/2 inch. Cut into desired shapes and place on a greased baking Cut into desired shapes and place on a greased baking 1/2 dozen.
Nutritional Facts 1 serving (1 each) equals 56 calories, 2 g fat (trace saturated fat), 7 mg cholesterol, 22 mg sodium, 8 g carbohydrate, 1 g fiber, 2 g protein.
Birthday Bones
Ingredients • 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 cup unsalted natural peanut butter
• 1 cup skim milk
Original Recipe Yield18 treats
Directions 1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets. Stir together the flour and baking powder; set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, mix together the peanut butter and milk. Stir in the flour mixture until well blended. Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Roll out to 1/4 inch thickness and cut into shapes using cookie cutters. Place 2 inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheets.