Our asteroid survival: A fictitional history of the ten year survival of a large ELE asteroid impact by a small, pre advised, group

by Lionel Woodhead

  There were two 50 volt LED units controlled by individual switches which were originally set up with one over the table and the other over the bookcase. The tenants were allowed some flexibility over the final lighting layout but not the energy allowance. It would be a strict requirement that our guests would switch off the lights when they were not required.

  Each person would be provided, though families were encouraged to buy as many units as possible after all money would be worthless later, with a LED wind up torch with a minimum of 100% reserve held in central stores (this we managed to considerably exceed from the voluntary purchases). This was the original design which was later, with practical experience, considerably modified. The number of home LED lights remained as two individually switched with one of these being placed over the table. The plan was designed to be as flexible, though maintaining finance and energy restrictions, to allow for any proposal that might be made by the builder when he became available.

  With respect to the builder of our edifice we were lucky as we had previously become friendly with the owner of a contract construction company. His name was Thomas (Yes Thomas must have had English relations) Martinez (No relation to myself). His company was involved, at the university, in constructing an extension for the communication department. The problem we faced was to convince him of the need for secrecy, urgency and, in fact, the reality of the danger.

  I remember that we initially presented the case as a hypothetical discussion over lunch, paid for by us as a friendly gesture, regarding the possibility of extending facilities for our communications department. We additionally presented him with a disaster scenario asking what he would suggest in the event of a nuclear war or natural disaster involving large areas of destruction. The initial discussions were kept vague as we presented the scenario as a communication problem between groups of shelters to be designed later. He was helpful in improving on our thoughts regarding overpressure effects to the point that we increased to one meter the thickness of the reinforced concrete for both the walls and roof whilst maintaining the 0.5 meters for the other floors.

  He considered our 3.2 meter separation of supports excessive but we initially stuck with it as he did not suggest an alternative and too much was probably better than too little. He advised the need for waterproofing the structure as the shelter was to be totally underground in a wet area. We questioned him on technicalities for two further days both in the canteen and casually at his workplace. He eventually picked up on the probability that the requirement might have a more serious aspect.

  As it was essential that we started work on our shelter as soon as possible we had a problem. It was very important that the structure of the shelter be completed before the impact event became an open secret. For this reason we decided it was necessary, in spite of our promise to the contrary, to take him into our confidence and this we did the next day after gaining his acceptance to security.

  We showed him our information and advised him of the source having first obtained his guarantee as to secrecy< it was the best we could do. We presented our current plans and explained the rational for the size and haste. Having been convinced of the seriousness of the situation he became very co-operative though some of his early requests, related to his family, had to be gently rejected. He initially wanted to include fourteen family members, one in their eighties, but eventually we settled on seven being his direct family (Wife Hannah, two sons , Carlos (16) and Jerrald (14), two daughters, Sarah (12) and Elizabeth (11) and a much younger brother, Goya aged 19); his parents had died in a car accident some years before.

  Initially it was accepted that they would all inhabit one enlarged family unit. This was later extended to eight persons with two adjacent, connected family units; this being easier to organize and better for the family. Seven persons in a single, slightly enlarged, home unit would have been excessive and not conducive to long term, psychological, family life. It was a fact that the builder was a very important asset to the initial success of our project and some allowance was made to accede to most of his requests.

  The younger brother would now join us with his live in English girlfriend, Greta Hodgkiss; a mathematics teacher. The young lady was not to be told about the shelter until much later to reduce the risk to our security; one scenario would be for her to refuse to join us which we could not allow once she had learnt of the shelter.

  A lot of work had to be completed in a very short timescale. The younger brother was effectively an apprentice builder with particular experienced in the use of a large mechanical digger having experience in other, relative to our project, building work. He would have a day a week to see his girlfriend in their flat some distance away. The brother would be useful both during the shelter work and later when we had to rebuild our world. His experience, with that of his brother, would be essential as a practical educator, project manager and worker on the shelter. The young lady therefore met the criteria of support for a person with critical experience.

  Later the young lady was, in reality, kidnapped just over two weeks before the impact. This took place as she was packing for a return to England to be with her family for what she probably thought would be the end of the world. Within a short time, as we explained the situation to her, she grudgingly accepted our offer; though, in reality, she was given no choice. From our point of view we were giving her a realistic chance of survival and this, we considered, justified our actions.

  She was allowed to make a last call to her family three days before the impact having been requested not to mention the shelter; a request to which she concurred. She was allowed to speak freely to her family without a monitor and was able to explain that she was as safe as possible in the mountains. She told them, as she had been advised to do, that she had been unable to get her flight because of the situation at the airports. This was not the whole truth but we were hearing of airport problems so it could have been the result of any attempt she might have made to get home. In our opinion the United Kingdom would have been a very dangerous place as the land mass was at relatively low level against the size of the potential tsunami; especially where it passed through the restrictive English channel.

  The call to her family was made about fifteen kilometres from of the shelter in order that any trace of that call would not provide any relevant information. We were, at that time, paranoid about the possibility of our defences being overrun by those wishing to join us. Her journey to the call point was made by bicycle with two protectors; or were they just guards? From my point of view they were protectors as the world outside of the villages had, by then, become potentially dangerous areas.

  Chapter 2. Building & Fitting Out.

  On our verbal agreement with the builder regarding the work on our shelter this started immediately using only those necessary and trusted members of his staff having access to all necessary equipment on the highest level of priority. Our small team of university educated workers would make ourselves available for unskilled labour whenever necessary.

  During this time we made considerable efforts to find those having the skills we required and could meet our criteria. For obvious reasons, not least security and the acceptable health of potential inmates, this search had to be conducted very carefully though, conversely, as rapidly as possible. We urgently needed personnel who would initially assist in the purchasing of the required essential material. I will always be amazed that in spite of what I saw as our limited precautions everything worked out as it did.

  For the builder and us this initial period was very expensive as, to avoid suspicion, the builder would have to obtain the necessary building material while our efforts would have to be directed to obtaining our long term requirements from as many diverse supermarkets and specialist retailers as possible. We also had to obtain a sufficient quantity of our selected fuel (diesel) and again this had to be obtained from as many different outlets as possible using all the credit cards we could obtain. We often resorted to cash as this was less tra
ceable though less loved by the system. All we obtained had to be transported, often in containers, to the shelter area, frequently a considerable distance, without attracting unwanted attention.

  The first choice fuel was diesel or other suitable alternative fuels (for example central heating oils) that could be used with a diesel generator. Petrol was obtained, as available, but would not be stored in the shelter due to the risk of explosive fumes. For this reason we immediately built three small, strong, underground stores sufficiently separated from eachother and, by some distance, from the shelter. These fuel stores would be used for the storage of all potentially dangerous material such as gas, explosives and petrol. They were built as substantial underground structures and the entrances camouflaged to prevent any casual inspection revealing their position or any fumes performing that same function. A major problem here was that ventilation was important to reduce any explosive gas buildup that could be ignited by carelessness or an electrical storm that might be expected around the time of the impact; possibly generated by the EMP. Such explosions would lose us important resources. This never actually happened as by taking great care of the sites unwanted explosions never occurred.

  I once read that the space allocated on the Titanic to feed its passengers and crew, totalling possible two thousand persons, with three meals plus snacks a day for a week was considerable. They potentially required forty two thousand relatively high level daily dietary units. In our situation, assuming an eight year period for one hundred individuals, we required, at the very least, approximately six hundred thousand (assuming two meals a day) considerably less sumptuous dietary units being fourteen times that required by the Titanic. The space required for all this material and other essentials was considerable and ate, no pun intended, into our shelter space. Conversely our living space would increase as we ate through the material and deposited any waste externally. Tins, plastic, glass, paper etc. would not be classed as waste though would, when external conditions allowed, be stored in the house hence outside our shelter.

  To provide even a daily, single, medium sized, tin for each family of four, based on twenty five families for eight years, required more than seventy three thousand tins needing at least sixty two cubic meters. This basic calculation was a major underestimation. The group would require access to the food and the tins could not be stacked too high for too long due to the weight. This necessitated support structures resulting, as a minimum, an additional 25% of the space for that access and support. So the total storage capacity of eighty four cubic meters or forty two square meters of floor space for a single tin per family per day. We would also need to store many more items of variable types to support our living standard within the shelter environment.

  It was finally decided, for calculation purposes, that we would base the basic human larder (mainly tinned food but including packet soup, jams, etc,) on a fifteen centimetre (approximately six inch) cube per day per person requiring approximately four square meters of the larder floor space per person giving a theoretical maximum number of inhabitants of about three hundred and twenty five persons or for one hundred persons with access a requirement of over 30% of the food floor. This calculation did not include the dry food, the animal feed, the stored dried meat products or the purchased uncut, hard, cheese (hard cheese; soft cheese would spoil in a relatively short time) which was, where necessary, immediately waxed by us (to extend its shelf life). Thankfully there would be additional storage space in the extension area that was built largely for this purpose. We still, however, had to be careful regarding the number of inmates we could initially accept into the shelter.

  The fuel requirement (diesel) was set for a minimum of six years which based on the initial requirement of three kW during the day, using for our calculations, fifteen litres of diesel a day resulting in a minimum requirement of about thirty two thousand five hundred litres of generator usable fuel to be largely stored within the accommodation. It was expected, should I say hoped, that within this period we would produce an alternative power source capable of using sustainable energy material, probably wood, obtained from the surrounding area.

  The initial shelter command and control would initially be communistic with a democratically elected president, having limited powers, who could be outvoted, on any emergency decision, by 60% of the people. We believed that both practical communistic and capitalistic systems implied long term instability, though for different reasons. For small groups, however, a vote by all persons over sixteen on all major projects would satisfy most people as being at least democratic.

  All those over sixteen would work. The tasks, almost always allocated by consent, could be on group defined essential research or such mundane, but equally important, tasks as cleaning. We decided that the task of maintaining the cleanliness of the shelter would fall to nearly all adults in an agreed rotation. Those below the normal working age of sixteen would, generally, be receiving an education and/or being trained for specific work if they had showed an aptitude for a particular task and, most importantly, volunteered.

  The directed training of the young was considered essential for the long term viability of our community. The study of subjects outside those beneficial to the short to medium term survival of our group, though potentially important to a civilization, would be voluntary and supported only during non work periods. This restriction was necessary due to our limited personnel resources. It also kept people working rather than thinking of the situation.

  The decision on the number of persons to be maintained in the shelter was a major one. Too many and keeping them content within such a small container could cause many problems. The number of persons dictated the internal volume of the shelter including that required for their food and other essential storage. Too few and there could be an insufficient skill and worker pool to meet our requirements during our enforced incarceration and later to work the land for food, look after our animals etc. We hoped that we would be able to maintain and later develop a technological society to prevent us from decaying into our feared state of barbarism.

  We would have many advantages; including education together with a knowledge of what could be achieved based on our experiences within a high technology world. In addition our lack of knowledge regarding the manufacture of Stone tools would undoubtedly act as a spur to redevelop those technologies that we, with our education and experience, could work with.

  It was essential that those chosen and accepted into our society would not require long term medical support. Those with such medical problems as diabetes, alcoholism or major heart problems had, unfortunately, to be excluded from our “original group”. We would have no facilities to assist those severely incapacitated by chronic illness. In an ideal scenario we would also have liked to have chosen our guests for genetic diversity but this was impossible. For our medium term medical support team we intended to obtain a trained herbalist. We hoped, correctly as it turned out, that this person would be able to assist in the manufacture of medicines for use in cases of minor illnesses.

  We decided to begin our deliberations on the shelter population at one hundred persons preferably under forty. However, where a specific skill was required a fifty year old or even older, having that definitely required skill, would be acceptable. The hundred persons would, ideally, be made up of twenty five, four person families though this too would be a flexible figure and only represented a guide to our objective.

  Each family within our “original group” would have at least one person providing a required skill. All four members of the initial university team were married, only Tomas was over forty, and our families would provide a core and some initial financing. Chosen families would be required to purchase items required for our long term survival being, initially, diesel and food (optimally long lasting) but including toiletries, tools, clothes, thread, wool and cloth.

  The skills required within those to be invited were initially;

  • Qualified teachers (within a fami
ly having another primary specific skill.) 3;

  • Vets (surgical – to operate on both man and animals 2;

  • Doctor (General practice) 1;

  • Dentist 1;

  • Herbalist 1;

  • Pharmacist (this became 2 by default) 1;

  • Chemist 1;

  • Farmer (animal; assumption family would assist and learn) 1;

  • Farmer (agriculture; as previous) 1;

  • Battery expert (install, repair and maintain at least lead acid type battery) 1;

  • Maker of steam models (possibly 2 if obtainable) 1;

  • Motor Mechanic 2;

  • Electric generation expert 1;

  • Electrician 1;

  • Plumber 1;

  • Blacksmith (if available or welder) 1;

  • Metalworker (knowledge of extrusion techniques) 1;

  • Electronic component maker (available in core) 1;

  • Electronic designer (available in core) 1;

  • Builder (head of business with plant preferred) 1;

  • Food storage expert (obtain food and prepare for long term storage 1;

  • Energy supervisor (obtain fuel, store and control) 1;

  • Soldiers (non commissioned officers preferred) 2.

  We unfortunately, in our ignorance, left out many essential experts such as a shoemaker, geologist or anaesthetist though the latter expertise we hoped to get from the vets. Our problem was that we had to limit the number of experts to the available accommodation.

  From experience it is now my opinion that our worst list exclusion was an experimental archaeologist. This expert would have experience of testing old manufacturing techniques and when, by chance, we obtained one he temporarily became our greatest non farming asset. We had left out this expertise as we, as a group, had not considered the requirements for manufacturing such mundane items as soap, paper, ink, pens or even the importance of printing. We had, due to our technical arrogance, tended towards the recognised professions and forget that order of experience owed to other valuable persons within our civilization.