Calamity in America

by Pete Thorsen

  Most large cities are built next to water. A river or a lake or maybe the ocean. A river or lake can be a source of clean drinking water but only if you have the means to purify that water. Our lakes, rivers, and creeks are all contaminated with many things. A person can boil the water found in these surface water sources and that will kill any living organisms in that water that would otherwise make you very sick if you drank it.

  Boiling all your water would require that you have a constant fuel source to produce the necessary heat to boil that water. Also you would have to live very close to that supply of surface water. Water is very heavy and carrying water very far would get old very fast.

  Unfortunately much of our surface water is also contaminated with man-made pollutants that boiling the water only makes worse by making it more concentrated. These pollutants will not usually cause instant health problems but instead only do so through a cumulative effect from ingestion over a certain period of time.

  Ocean water can only be made potable through more complicated methods that most people just are not set up to do. Distillation of this sea water works but requires quite an apparatus though it can be done very low-tech. Or if you happen to have an ocean going vessel you might have a desalinator that you can use to make the sea water potable. Not something you could likely build yourself though.

  And that is just drinking water think of everything else you need to survive. Most people never give a thought to how convenient it is to walk into the nice clean bathroom, use it, flush, and then use the readily available soap and water to wash up. And take a shower or a bath whenever they desire. Without electric power that convenience would be gone for almost all people.

  So if the bathroom no longer works, uh, where do you go? In the country you could just go behind a nearby bush, dig a hole, do your business, and then shovel the removed dirt back over it. Or build and use an outhouse.

  But what about in the cities? No easy way to take care of that personal business in a city that has no electric power to run all the water and sewage pumps. And all the toilets would soon be overflowing. This would cause not only quite a stinking and gross mess but would be very unhealthy also. And if it rained and that stinking mess was to get washed into the surface water source that people were using for washing and drinking water it would cause even more problems.

  There is no easy answer to this problem in a city or anywhere where there are a large number of people living in close proximity. Sickness, disease, and deaths would be the result of this sewage issue. Of course deaths would cause other health issues if the bodies were not handled properly. Here on the farm I carry in water from the windmill and we still use the toilets and we do have the old outhouse for a back up even though I doubt we will ever use it.

  Its winter now so how would you keep warm without electricity? Even in many of the more southern states it gets cold enough during the winter months that heat is an important issue that must be addressed. Houses across the nation commonly have electric heat, gas heat (boiler or forced air), fuel oil heat, a heat pump, or some form of wood/coal heat. Almost all of these forms of heat still require electric to operate.

  Commonly now even those using wood heat have an outdoor wood boiler with an electric pump to force the hot water through the lines to radiators inside the house. These are sold with the stated benefit of having all the mess from burning wood being kept outside but are worthless without electricity.

  Natural gas appliances of any kind require electric pumps to move that natural gas through the pipelines to your house. No electricity results in no natural gas. Rural homes often have propane heat supplied by a tank on your property. Some propane gas space heaters and kitchen stove tops do not require any electricity usually to operate. These can still be used to heat your home but only until your propane tank runs empty. Propane furnaces and boilers need electricity to function and are worthless when the electric grid is down. Also most people using propane require several tank refills every year.

  The loss of electric power results in the inability to pump gasoline and diesel fuel from underground fuel storage tanks into your vehicle at a gas station. So any travel is problematic at best. This would bring shipping to a halt. Which means no goods arriving to your local stores. Especially troubling would be the loss of food being shipped around the country and all the spoilage loss of refrigerated and frozen foods.

  Also fresh foods that do not require refrigeration would still need to be used up fairly quickly so they would not spoil. Obviously we all depend on food from the local grocery stores for our survival. No food being delivered to these grocery stores would soon result in people starving.

  So the electric grid going down would result in people dying from thirst, dying from starvation, freezing to death, dying from diseases caused by poor hygiene, and other causes like lack of vital medicines being delivered. If this electric power grid loss was widespread countless American citizens would surely die. And happening during the winter months would only make the situation much worse.

  Chapter 15

  The big ice storm that took out the electric power was winter’s last note worthy storm. The weather gradually eased from that point on. We had a few very cold days and a few days of light snow but certainly nothing out of the ordinary and overall it was maybe a milder winter than normal. March came and brought with it the beginnings of the spring rains. The weather was still quite cool but there was no more snow and the rains seemed to clean the air and the land of winter’s hold.

  April meant even more rain and of course warmer temps. In April I tilled the garden again and we readied it for planting. With the tilling I enlarged the garden a little bigger yet again. We had purposely left un-eaten some potatoes in the root cellar to use as seed potatoes for this year. We had plenty of regular garden seeds with some packaged ones and many I had saved from our plants last year (and years past also).

  By this time we had we had also cleaned up most all the debris and damage caused by the big ice storm. Many of the trees around the place had some broken limbs. The larger limbs we cut up and stacked for firewood and the small stuff we threw into a pile that I burned later just to get rid of it. Just about every tree suffered at least some damage. Two trees had broken off and in each case the whole tree had to be cut up for firewood and the brushy parts burned.

  At the very end of April we planted some of the cold tolerant plants and later when we deemed it warm enough we planted the rest of the garden. The warm weather and plentiful rain had everything in the surrounding area green. With all the new growing plants we eagerly harvested some of the wild greens on our foraging walks.

  Fresh greens are always a treat after a long winter. And the new young growth wild greens were as good as it gets. The wild plants were always first to appear and be available to be harvested. It wasn’t long and our planted lettuce was up and soon we could start gradually harvesting that also.

  When we had the garden ship shape and spring chores caught up we decided to take the bikes and ride at least to the edge of the big city. We were incredibly thirsty for news of any kind. We were both armed as we always were with our handguns and I fastened leather scabbards to each bike so we each had access to a rifle also.

  We took water and lunches with us and left on a nice sunny morning. It had been a long time since we had seen anyone who was not a regular neighbor of ours and we hoped to at least find others to talk to.

  The dirt road was starting to grow over already with plenty of weeds and grass thanks to no vehicle traffic to keep it in check. By the end of summer this dirt road would look way different I was sure.

  When we got to the first asphalt road things looked normal and we rode a little bit faster. When we got to the edge of the city we still had not seen anyone during the trip so far. We did ride past two houses that had burned down over the winter months. When we entered the city we saw a few more houses that had burned down. Farther on we found most of an entire block of houses all burned down. And we still
had found not a single person to talk to yet.

  Every business we had passed had been broken into and when we got into the regular business district it was the same. Every single business looked like it had been broken into. We counted six businesses that had burned down. It was very eerie riding through town and there was no noise and no people. It was kinda freaking us out and we turned around and looped back toward home again taking different streets this time. Taking different streets on the return trip allowed us to not only see more different areas but also prevented anyone from setting up an ambush for us.

  There were obviously still people around but we did not see anyone. And we did not hear anything. We could have shouted but neither of us did that. It just didn’t seem right to make any noise and break the eerie silence. Even when we talked it was in very low tones. So we just rode on back toward home not having gone near as far as we had planned to go. It was just too spooky or maybe just sad was a better term.

  Near the edge of town we stopped at a park and ate our lunches. We had traveled past the big mass of train tracks on our side of the city and it was strange to not see a single thing moving there. Normally there is always a train going this way or that way but nothing today. It was peaceful at the small park and the lack of any noise other than the birds seemed much more normal here than in the city. Many of the trees in the park showed signs of the ice damage with broken limbs on the ground or broken branches still hanging in the trees. By the end of summer this park would just look like a wild area without any maintenance to keep it looking ‘park-like’.

  The creek that ran through part of the city that we had crossed over had plenty of water in it. So anyone still living near it would be able get plenty of water. There were actually a fair amount of surface water sources in and near the city. The water would have to be boiled of course before you drank it but there was plenty available at least for those who wanted it.

  Lunch done we started again for home. We did not talk much and both of us looked closely at all the houses we passed in the hope of seeing someone we could stop and talk to. By the time we got back home we were both disappointed in our trip and rather depressed at what we had seen. When we got off the bikes at home Beth came over to get a hug and we held each other for several minutes. We were both quite sure the city was not totally deserted but there were obviously way fewer people living there now. We could both understand their reluctance in meeting new people.

  Over the next couple weeks we kept pretty busy. We got our chickens from the neighbor and put in the rest of the garden. Plus there were plenty of wild greens growing now to add to our diets. I had old chicken waterers and feeders stored along with plenty of chicken wire (most of it used). We kept the chickens in the coop for a couple days then we just let them free range to find their own food. We did put them back in the coop every night to keep them safe from all the critters that would like to eat them. In just a short time the chickens became used to the routine the same as we did.

  I had assumed that we would likely have to butcher all our chickens before next winter because we had no feed for them but the neighbor said he might have a plan for that if one of us had a truck that still ran in the fall.

  We fenced off the garden to keep the chickens out at least until everything was big enough so they wouldn’t bother it. The fence would also keep some of the wild critters out of the garden also.

  I did find enough pipe and stuff I needed to run a water line from the windmill to the house. The water would gravity feed to the house but just barely and we had basically no pressure. But we were not complaining. We had water in the house and did not have to carry it. Showers were out of the question but we could take a bath without all the work of carrying the water. Next winter I would have to disconnect the pipe so it would not freeze and we would again have to carry water.

  Both Beth and I were plenty busy enough to not worry about the world at large at least for now. We had no beggars or visitors come out from the city though once in awhile a neighbor would stop by. Sometimes to ask for help or to trade or mostly just to visit. We did the same and would usually ride our bikes to go visiting.

  I did start my truck at least once each month and let it run for awhile. We did the same with Beth’s car. So far both vehicles would still start and run fine on the old gas they had in them. I was curious to see just how long they would continue to run on that old gas. My guess was that the gas did not deteriorate much over the cold months of winter but would over the warm summer months. I couldn’t do much about it no matter what.

  Over the winter months we had both done a lot of reading in that pile of books. After the electric power went out I think we both realized that we were really on our own and we read and read to learn as much as could.

  I had grown up doing just about everything we had to do now but that did not mean I still didn’t have more to learn. We were both quite concerned about the future. Beth brought up one thing.

  “How are we going to can anything if we run out of new canning lids?”

  “We have quite a few and maybe if we are very careful when we open the jars we could maybe re-use the old lids. In the past the lids were just one of the things that we had to buy in town. The lids were always pretty cheap so we always kept plenty on hand.”

  “I think we have to plan on not getting any more lids. Here in this book it says how to dry many things besides just fruit so you do not have to can or freeze them. It even shows how to make a dryer.”

  I looked over the diagrams for the home made food dryer and read some of what was in the book. The dryer was similar to the one we had here already but we had never used it for vegetables and only had ever used it for fruits or to dry herbs and such.

  “Do you have what we need around here to make one or two more of the dryers?”

  “Yes I’m sure I could make at least two of them. I could likely make several but two more should be plenty.”

  “We should still save all the used lids and we could put the dried food in jars and use the old lids to keep bugs and stuff out of the dried stuff. The used lids would not have to make a totally tight seal.”

  “That’s a good idea. And we would have the used lids if we ever did need to try and re-use them for canning.”

  So that was how I ended up making one more of the food dryers. They did not use any electricity; you just had to set them in the sun to work. It took longer to make one now without being able to use any power tools but at least I had all the old hand tools that I needed. When I was done I thought it turned out pretty good.

  We tried it out right away by drying some of the wild herbs we gathered. They dried a lot faster in the dryer than they did when we would just hang them. By the time the garden had grown enough so we had things to pick I had another dryer made that incorporated a few improvements over the first one to better serve our needs.

  Chapter 16

  Beth and I were working in the garden when little seven or eight year old Justin came riding his bike up to our place. He was totally out of breath from going as fast as could.

  “Need …..help……….House…on…fire.”

  I looked at Beth and she just said, “Go. We will follow when Justin catches his breath.”

  I dropped me hoe and ran to my bike. On the way I grabbed a plastic five gallon pail which I hooked over the handle bars as I was already pedaling as fast as I could in the direction of Justin’s house. After going about a half mile or so I could see smoke in the distance and I tried hard to increase my speed.

  When I got there I jumped off the bike and with pail in hand I ran to the line of men, women, and children that were carrying pails of water from the pond up toward the house.

  The house was on fire but it must have started on the outside the house. The back of the structure was burning but it looked like we just might be able to save at least most of the house.

  The next couple hours or so were a blur of dipping the pail full of water from the pond and then going as fast
as was reasonable up to the house and throwing the water on the fire. A man was up on the roof with a bucket on a rope that he would lower it down to be filled by one of the water carriers so he could then dump it on the fire from above.

  At some point Beth was there and handing out bottles of clean water from our place for everyone to drink. Beth had used our big wood hauling cart loaded down with clean drinking water to supply those fighting the fire. She knew that the hard work in the heat would require everyone to drink plenty of water. And we needed clean water so no one would get sick and there was just no time to boil enough.

  Beth had filled two five gallon blue water carriers, all the water bottles we had saved and washed out, mixed other clean containers that would hold water, and even a large stock pot with a tethered enameled dipper so anyone could quickly dip the dipper full and get a drink before going back to work again.

  Other women did have a fire going and were boiling water for when Beth’s water ran out. More and more people were showing up to help. Some brought food and were cooking some up to feed the others when the fire was either put out or we all gave up on the house.

  Then it was over. The fire was out. Many just collapsed where ever they were standing. The house was mostly saved but no way would it be fit to live in ever again. Gradually we all gathered together. Justin’s parents were thanking everyone that had come to help. Justin’s mom was crying but still was thanking everyone.