Shaky Business

by Foster, Ron

  Well to be exact, they were only maps of a sort: David had a bunch of leftover see the beach tourist brochures and one of the vacation magazines that come out every year showing the various attractions and for two jugs of whiskey he had sat down and put “X” marks the spot of every waterhole he could remember from his visits.

  Now with David, you never knew what he was referring to as waterhole, because he basically he used his bar maps to tell you where to go to next as landmarks. He began at the far west end of the beach, right before you got to the naval station, and commenced to tell them while pointing at the map and drinking part of one of his jugs that he got in trade for his crude navigation skills that for instance in back of his favorite beach bar was a coastal dune small lake for example.

  He told them that that particular pond he was mentioning had fish in it as well as alleged alligators and that there were a number of resident local houses surrounding it. The only touristy rental properties in that area were on the beach proper and consisted of condos and hotels. He went further to explain that as soon as the power went out in that area that it was most likely the only known source of fresh water available for that community and that there would have been a congregating and drawing effect on anyone that had not managed to evacuate the beach by vehicle. That statement started a conversation that lasted long into the night with the map only becoming half done as they discussed where did David think all those vacationers , living in what David called “condo canyons” ended up when the lights went out?

  Down on the beach in the winter time except for the seasonal migration of vacationers from Canada called “snowbirds” coming to stay the colder months, the beach was pretty desolate with most shops closed until next spring. However, there were a significant proportion of retirees making their homes their year round as well local residents who worked the restaurants and bars, and general caretakers that made the place their home.

  The huge point that everybody considered and speculated upon was that solar storm had hit during the peak of the tourist season. That meant you had an entire small city almost population trying to exit on about three roads all at once with no gas and trying to get home to who knows where?

  He reminded them that when you go down to the beaches you see car tags from Oklahoma, New York, Ohio, wherever. If people hadn’t filled up their cars when they first came into town or possibly even that day of the solar storm that they would be out of luck for a hundred miles in either direction to obtain any sort of fuel.

  He could just imagine the anxiety that the people went through trying to decide about just when to leave or exactly what to do after that maybe half a tank of gas they started with ran out. Oh sure, it was vacation season people had pocketfuls of cash money and thought they could get someone to sell them gas along the way but with no guarantees and a whole lot of other like minded people were thinking the same thing including getting out their pocketknives to cut off and steal a piece of garden hose from the hotel they were staying at before debarking as a siphon hose. All and all it remained evident that congregations of shit out of luck people were going to be spread from here to hell and back trying to get home the roads going there probably looked like apocalyptic parking lots.

  The debate about just how far a vehicle could go and where it would break down at based upon various estimations of from having between a half to a full tank of gas to start with were charted on maps using Dixon’s input and Road Atlas.

  Dixon was consulted for his opinion for several reasons, the first of which was brought up by the representative from the Central Trade Bank as to whether or not Dixon would undertake a possible bullion delivery down that way if it was found to offer possible trade opportunities with any remaining survivors.

  Not a whole hell of a lot was known about that area, matter of fact most people kind of avoided it because of a nuclear reactor just that side of Dothan Alabama about eighty miles away from the port. The reactor thankfully they say, was shut down properly but the military evacuation from Ozark and Ft. Ricker military base said different to many cautious traders. Not having any kind of radiological detectors made many suspect of the living conditions in the area. The National Guard had been through at the beginning of the disaster and the Emergency Broadcast System had issued potassium iodide pills to those that came to distribution points within a fifty mile radius of the reactor when the solar event had first occurred.

  Two weeks later no news, no National Guard and it was said that the facility was secure and shut down safely on the radio. However, more than one Ham radio operator had taken it upon himself to either visit or report on local conditions and it was said the facility evidenced no signs of life or workers present. People in a wide swath were advised to evacuate temporarily for safety reasons and they could return home shortly thereafter but by then it was full electrical grid meltdown nationwide and nothing further was heard about the event as society had already collapsed. There were hundreds of reactors nationwide and a news blackout seemed to go on except for your own localities.

  Dixon told them flat out, not only no but hell no, he wasn’t going down that way! He wasn’t afraid of highway men but has wasn’t into glow in the dark thugs and possible mutants that may be still living down that way, to which Hobe had to be a smart ass and ask him about “what about them zombies that might exist in Bayou LaBatry”, kidding him about the practice of voodoo in some backwoods fishing villages.

  Crick told him he had him a friend with a zombie- mobile just for that contingency and that they ought to invite Neil along because he had been working on his truck for awhile getting all prepared to which Neil reminded Crick that his truck was still stuck on that island at Deer Lick Campgrounds!

  Hot Zones, as they decided to call the likely trouble spots measured out from the length a person could travel in an average vehicle with a quarter tank, a half tank and so on, then guesstimnates were made of what if a hundred fifty thousand folks all have to leave an area suddenly and what would they do as well as end up at. Big concentric circles were drawn on Dixons road map indicating these points of hazardous concentration points of broke down vehicles.

  That’s where David’s knowledge as an Emergency Manager of hurricane routes came in. He told them based on his knowledge of what they do in certain parts of the state; the contra lanes (in other words, make all lanes on the highway go north, for example). He also advised where gas trucks would be supposedly positioned by state or federal responders, aid stations for medical and central food distribution points if anyone had even attempted such.

  The problem of using this logic David said was this was for a planned emergency meticulously announced to the public who had warning both before and after the hurricane event. To mobilize after the event with no prior warning to speak of, things in his opinion would have gotten out of control very quickly and no response would have materialized.

  All disaster and emergency responses depend on governmental declarations and communications. This is a very important note to remember. For example, if you want Federal assistance, the Governor must declare a state emergency they can’t handle and ask for such from the Federal Government. This is only done after consultations with Emergency Management and assessments and appraisals were made of whether or not the state could handle it themselves. No FEMA approved Governor’s declaration, No Presidential Emergency Declaration, No Federal response. How many people have noticed over the last few years, how many Governors declare a state of emergency sometimes a week or more in advance for a particular weather calamity approaching?

  This happens for many political as well as practical reasons. It used to be you wait until the last second almost and commit all your resources while using FEMAS advisors while the disaster unfolded to letting outside resources take over the event before it escalated. When the solar storm hit, everybody kind of knew what it was because the media had been talking about for years to those that would listen what type of devastation and horror would occur should such a tragic ev
ent happen.

  Some measures were put in place in 2008 to mitigate problems and get people together to formulate a plan; however that was fifteen years ago and even most of those measures were never implemented to mitigate the damage.

  What you basically had going on everywhere was a free-for-all panic; an “Oh shit!” moment where the governor, as soon as he came out of his daze or had the wherewithal to realize the lights were out nationwide to pick up that little red phone next to his desk and see if it still worked. Thankfully, most of them worked in the governors offices nationwide. They had their wiring hard lined and EMP proofed enough to go into the emergency database routed through Atlanta. However, some genius didn’t take into account when you have everybody in the U.S. that had access to that emergency phone network trying to call in all at once and say “what do I do?” you get system overload.

  Now take into account how many yahoos that actually knew how to fix the system might have been on vacation in P.C.B or stuck in a traffic jam trying to respond because lots of folks were running out of gas on the interstate and clogging city roads elsewhere and you got basic mad chaos and pandemonium.

  Randal interjected into David’s descriptive analogy of trying to somewhat professionally contingency plan for such an event as he was wont to do by bedeviling him with one of those questions he hadn’t thought of yet and irk him a bit.

  “David, you know how those cops have to wear those microphones on their jacket epaulets and they got body cameras clipped to them and all that? Do you think any of them caught on fire and fried and like the cops went “OH HELL!” and started beating on the electric equipment hooked to their shoulders?” Randal said with a smirk.

  David looked at him a second knowing he wasn’t really interested in the answer to the question but just liked to bedevil David when he could and decided to get back to the question they were talking about and said “Son, I just don’t know. I can tell you this: that telegraphs after the Carrington Event ran by themselves, the operators got shocked and telegraph stations burned down! I’ll give you something to think about: what do you think happened to all those cell phone users that had that thing strapped to their ear or in their pocket I mean, I know those things work kinda like shooting ear muffs and won’t transmit high rate decibels but since they are on computers to control that now instead of the old capacitors and resistors, what’s to say it didn’t scream in their ear like “OH SHIT!”.” David said catching the man unaware by hollering in the man’s ear and going back to the story while Randal gave him a look that he would pay for that later.

  “How about those motorcycle helmet intercoms?” Morgan said before a look quieted him down and David said he wasn’t going to speculate anymore.

  “You got that right, there’s too many damn things about EMP we don’t know like that nuclear reactor you were talking about down in Dothan. I damn sure don’t want to catch no Fukushima fish in P.C. if they aren’t going to be edible and be possibly radioactive or something!” Crick said thinking the trip didn’t sound like such a good idea now.

  “Naw, now don’t worry yourselves about that and I’ll try to put ya’lls fear down about that nuclear plant melting down. If you got something catastrophic going on, the governments going to warn you, might be too late, but they’ll warn you. Now we haven’t heard anything about that shit for some time and they did tell us about those two hot ones we got going off up north that they are trying to contain but just remember it like this: even the frickin’ Russians used nuclear bombs to dig ditches in the past but they told their people what’s what like about Chernobyl for a couple of reasons. One of the biggest reasons is the spread or contamination of radioactive dust to protect their own asses. They don’t want people spreading it around travelling on trains and planes etc. But we won’t get into that at the moment. But I’m like you, Dixon; I wouldn’t be going down that way very often unless that is you care to buy an old civil defense Geiger counter from me.” David said walking over to his desk and handing up an old war relic.

  “Leave it to you David to have one of them damn things! Let alone manage to have a working one available during this shit. Where the hell did you get one of those anyway?” Crick asked.

  “Last time we sent “treasure hunters” down to Archives and History building to find stuff we can’t get in these hard times, I told them to be on the lookout for some of that old stuff. I mean, I used to be an Emergency Manager and you give me hell about that all the time so what was I going to do when ya’ll asked me whether or not that nuclear plant was going to go off or would we be effected by it or not! So I stored me some answers and snagged me some equipment for that possibility. It’s foolproof: and probably came out of one of those old civil defense basements. Dixon you’d be a great operator to go exploring with one attached to that armored bus of yours!” David said chuckling.

  “You’re an asshole, David! Wait a minute now, I better not call you an asshole until I find out how much you want for one of those things!” Dixon said smiling back.

  “Shit man, if you were fool enough to drive one of those things down there and take a reading for me and call Harvey back on the ham radio and not come back home with any radioactive dust on you I’ll give you the damn thing! I’ve been wondering what was happening down that way for years.”David said

  That’s when Hobe stepped up to the plate with Crick assisting telling David that they needed one for their own boat heading down that way and by the way, the Traders Bank should front them a short wave radio to take with them to boot.

  “Now that’s a good idea.” David replied.

  “Hey uh Mr. Trade Bank representative, how about it Johnny? Would ya’ll consider sponsoring a geologic survey here? I got the men willing to undertake such a mission and it isn’t like it doesn’t have precedence in history or something, to pay for exploration. Think of Crick and Hobe here kind of like the old explorers Lewis and Clark! They are going to go explore what’s out there, trade with the friendlies and come back and tell ya’ll about it and how to get there!” David said with a smirk.

  “Well, we’re sort of a centralized bank. By central I mean we are in a generalized area we work in. Most of the Eastern seaboard as you know got pretty torn up with the tidal surges and earthquakes that came off of that solar storm and nobody has approached us about joining our bank.” Johnny began before Crick cut him off.

  “Exactly! You don’t know what’s going on over there. There might be another whole competing bank system going on over there in the Panhandle of Florida, and besides David said look at us like Lewis and Clark but instead of going out looking for riches and gold, we are talking seafood distribution man! You can’t tell me those central trade banker bosses of yours wouldn’t trade some of their wealth for some Oysters Rockefeller” Crick said with a grin.

  “Yeah Johnny, how about shrimp, scallops, crab, barrels of salted fish? Hell I could freeze Red Snapper in the hold of my ship with that battery set up that the “Skunk works inventors” came up with!” Hobe said.

  “Now I must admit that notion has got some merit to it and I for one could offer you a loan under my authority to do such, what would it be you would be that your thinking about offering me for collateral?” Johnny said breaking into his banker mode.

  “No you don’t get it! I don’t want to hear about collateral or wild Indians going to come after us and shoot us up to risk your investment. We are willing to undertake this voyage and brave the dangers and take all the physical risks. We got as good a crew as any handpicked to see some success and profit in this endeavor. Now what you have to do is tell me how much money it is you are willing to invest for a share and how many people I can take along with me on this trip? I think we need three boats, you know like the Nina the Pinta and the Santa Maria?” Crick said poking at the young banker obviously sweating under the scrutiny of this group of old traders counting the lint in his pockets for possible picking with whatever money he had on him.

  “Now I know ya’ll are ha
ving way too fun with me and I admit it’s a good idea well worth considering. But I ain’t any Queen Isabella to be financing you bunch of would-be conquistadors to go on a mission. My limit and personal authority on all my loans is fifty thousand dollars. That by the way was supposed to be for this entire state’s allotment of funds meant for the Trade Rendezvous I never showed up at! And that figure was based on good prudent banking judgment and good borrower credit. Now I can’t say ya’ll look too credible, and I’m using my good judgment, but that’s all I can sign my name for and give you metal to do business with. That funding you got is based on if your own community banker Weatherman agrees. Where the hell did you all find that damn banker anyway? He’s still trying to convince me of the value of those darn Bernie Bucks ya’ll have got and since when does it matter if I agree with ya’ll or not what it takes to buy a meal around here? Johnny said referring to David’s oftentimes belligerent manner of not accepting his individual credit or currency depending on what Weatherman was trying to teach what he called the “lads” conception of value or money in their oftentimes flexible community economy.

  “I mean hell, when everything’s going good and parlays are fine, then I can have whatever it is I wanted to trade for and pay for it however I liked for a boat or whatever. The next day if I pissed off David or the Weatherman, it was you two advising me to convert all my gold into Bernie Bucks for local trade. I have told you many times before you’re exhorting me and that it was unfair and very much uncool to treat a quest or a Central Bank representative this way!” Johnny squawked.