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

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Our asteroid survival: A fictitional history of the ten year survival of a large ELE asteroid impact by a small, pre advised, group Page 4

by Lionel Woodhead


  The inmate target number was set at about one hundred persons not only for the gene and/or specific skill pool but the overall decision was based on a more complicated scenario. Firstly we had calculated the minimum fuel requirement at thirty two thousand five hundred litres requiring sixty five (later, due to our success this was extended to eighty) large five hundred litre storage tanks. This quantity of fuel equated to about three hundred and twenty five litres per person; a figure we then considered obtainable, within our timescale, by our guests. The fuel obtained would have to charge the batteries, provide light and air within the shelter and further provide warm meals and showers. Even with much labour such energy could not be provided by the physical efforts of inmates hence mechanical support, i.e. diesel, was essential.

  This family of four objective would equate to one thousand three hundred litres of diesel fuel being approximately half a litre per day for seven years. Even the most economical use of just over half a litre of fuel would provide insufficient energy for even a single family within a much smaller shelter within which they would have to obtain and store their food, obtain water and remove waste. A single family in this scenario could not, in our opinion, survive.

  The storage of sufficient tinned food has been shown to require a large shelter volume from our available accommodation as much of the store volume would, initially, be unavailable to the inmates. The opposite aspect to the numbers also had to be considered. Every additional person was a security risk and each would require an acceptable level of accommodation, privacy, food and comfort over a long period.

  To provide a little more space for each member of our society we eventually redesigned the shelter making it about 15% larger at about forty three meter internal. We were also lucky that before the closure of our shelter we, by hard work, managed to obtain considerably more than our basic requirement of tinned and other long term food. This achievement was, unfortunately, due to the government’s negligence with regards to food accumulation for their guests.

  It should be noted that, resulting from the lack of governmental effort, our accumulation of excess material would have no effect on the government supported population. It did, however, allow us to look for survivors at an earlier date and thereby, with this additional population, create a potentially viable population within our region. Based on our understanding of the lack of the government’s efforts regarding food and fuel accumulation we were sure that survival was impossible for those hoping to survive within the government system.

  In addition to our human guests we required animals as future beasts of burden, food and clothing. The maintenance of these animals considerably increased our necessary food storage areas which further restricted the overall initial living space. The animals were considered, by the “initial group”, as a requirement for our long term future. It was also considered that this environmental requirement would be psychologically beneficial to the human population and would repay the use of the additional space by this process alone. It would, unfortunately, increase the possibility of pathogens affecting the populations so great care would be required to maintain the sanitary arrangements for both man and beast.

  The ancient mariners lived for long periods in a far more restricted space, with less comfort and on a diet far more rudimentary, though of greater calorific value to meet their physical demands, than we were proposing for our guests. It was considered that for our expected population we would be able to provide a basic, but definitely acceptable, level of comfort, entertainment, privacy, security and sustenance for the period we expected to be incarcerated within our shelter.

  To maximize the benefits of our animals the farmer and the veterinarian were asked to choose between the options with the objective of maximizing the health and genetic diversity within each single breed. Each breed would have to be physically tough and able to live socially with man; this being their future for some time.

  We wanted six young cows and two young bulls to form two breeding herds never to exceed, while in the shelter, a total of twelve animals, twelve goats including two rams, for two herds. One herd, of each of these animal species, would be housed in each of the two available farming floors. The maximum size of these two herds would be decided upon as time progressed; the animals being relatively small. In addition sixty chickens including four cocks for two free range flocks, each separated between floors, which we would allow to grow to one hundred birds; again whilst within the shelter. These animals made up our shelter’s initial animal farm.

  A small area would be allocated to the herbalist and a larger, but again very limited area, to agriculture within the shelter. The agriculture would be performed in plastic swimming pools and other containers that we obtained for this purpose. These regions required some low level ultra violet lighting. This lighting would be provided by a small number of ultra violet tubes over the agricultural units. Access to this facility would, hopefully, improve the health of the humans by supporting the production of vitamin D; a vitamin supplement included in our medical requirements as for some years access to the sun would be limited.

  To amuse the children and to provide future assistance to the humans, two dogs and four bitches of medium sized mongrels would be maintained (allowing a maximum of ten animals at any time while in the shelter). The dogs were chosen and their feeding arranged by the vets and farmers. The farmers would later use these dogs as working animals hence intelligence was an important factor. We left the obtaining of the animals and their store-able food to our experts. Our animals did remarkably well on this regime considering the limitations the environment put on their lives.

  The asteroid impact effects we expected were firstly a possible EMP, of unknown strength, followed some time later by very strong earth tremors. Because of our vertical position above the ground level we hoped for limited compression forces. The earthquake effects would travel at about eleven thousand kilometres per hour, within the ground, taking over fifty minutes to reach us. We expected their effects would last, at reducing levels, over a period of several days; possibly weeks. The initial tremors would be followed by an air shock wave travelling at more than the speed of sound possibly averaging about one thousand kilometres per hour and would arrive about eight to ten hours after the impact. Some time after these effects we expected high energy flood water (which we did not expect to affect us at our elevation) and returning matter. This would include salty water, in the form of extreme precipitation, and solid material such as rocks that had been ejected from the impact. The returning solid material, we thought, might, with reducing rates of impact, last for months. It was unfortunate that, due to lack of human experience, we had no way of knowing what we were in for.

  We had to expect some chemical and physical effects such as acid rain, salt contaminated water, gas and dust (the literal evaporation of the asteroid itself and the local material). All of these unknowns could affect the atmosphere for some time after the impact. Some elements we could reasonably expect were a considerable variation in air pressure (short term) and in the early stages some very high temperatures reducing over a period - possibly weeks - to more acceptable levels. After that initial period the material, such as dust in the upper atmosphere, could be expected to cool the planet for possibly years initially destroying unsupported agriculture and vegetation. In addition, but in opposition to the above, carbon dioxide at high atmospheric levels might increase the earth’s temperature due to greenhouse effects but in an alternative scenario sulphur dioxide might reduce the temperature by reflecting the suns rays. Our solution to all these problems, for our small group, was seen as getting below the surface with sufficient materials, food, fuel and water, to survive for several years while the external environment, affected by climatic deviations, returned to at least acceptable levels.

  We had one of those strange pieces of luck that often affects those in dire need of assistance. A member of our team, whose holiday home we were invading with our shelter, had, over several years, beco
me friendly with a small group of young farmers that had fortuitously set up a self sustaining community within a few kilometres of our project. Here was a group that could meet all our farming requirements and, as they were virtually on site, they would, if they agreed to join us, be available to help with the construction of the shelter

  Over the five years of their community they had set up a self sustaining organic farm being self taught experts in many of the farming elements required by us. Their areas of expertise included food storage, mechanics, welding and generator maintenance with, within their group, a college trained herbalist. This group of six adults and four children had almost miraculously appeared to us.

  The farming group was in no way religiously based they having merely decided to relieve themselves of the stress of modern living and dropped out into the beautiful mountains of northern Spain. They were all English university educated one being a graduate agriculturalist with some veterinary knowledge. They had developed no close relationships with those in the region and were prepared to listen to our proposal having promised to keep our knowledge and offer a secret. They were, therefore, able and willing to assist the work of creating the shelter. Having had previous experience in the restoration of their farm this additional experienced labour would allow the shelter project to continue at a greater pace. From our analysis it appeared to us that with their help the shelter would be ready, if with some remaining areas of damp cement etc., months before the critical period. We soft lecturers, however, still managed to obtain a goodly crop of blisters and painful muscles while getting used to manual labour.

  The work of digging and supporting the hole that would encase our shelter was difficult and potentially dangerous. Fortunately with the expertise and equipment provided by the builder and his small team, who fully understood both the need for haste and quality of work, the hole proceeded rapidly without any major incidents or serious injuries. The builder himself was essential and worked very hard at the work-face, both as a manager and a labourer, in order to complete the facility as rapidly as was possible. This sometimes required his attendance at the site for over fourteen hours a day and the man never once complained.

  We intended to use the mechanical digger access slope to provide additional shelter accommodation. For this reason, on the advice of the builder, we made it considerably wider than originally intended at approximately twenty five meters shelter internal. This proved beneficial to the working units as it allowed the two vehicles, removing the waste from the hole, much easier access to the site where the digger was working.

  During this time our bulk, long term, food creation purchases were continuing apace. We learned that most of the modern edible grasses were hybrids created to optimize the nutritional value of the seeds. This hybridisation increased the potential for problems should the earth climate be rapidly changed; a scenario we now obviously had to consider. Safety seed stores were held in many countries but in the case of problems considerable time would be required to find, open and develop those stores and obtain sufficient stocks from any recovered seeds. To provide ourselves with seeds for our future nourishment we had to purchase relatively large amounts of several varieties. We obtained a considerable quantity of seeds from the north of Europe. This was purchased to enable planting in the colder environment we expected when we initiated external agriculture on first exiting from our shelter. The fact that we were at high elevation would reduce suspicion regarding these acquisitions as many would have considered it a reasonable purchase. We also obtained seeds such as rape (for oil), beet (sugar), carrots, flax (food, linen and oil) etc.

  We managed to purchase, for long term food, nearly eight tons of non seed wheat (mostly hard red spring but also hard white). This amount would provide over twenty grams per initial shelter occupant per day for ten years; surely more than enough. In addition we obtained about five tons of beans both red and black and four tons of good quality brown and red rice. These purchases were made in relatively small packages of up to three tons. All these packages were delivered to the farm; they being the most likely to order such quantities. We hoped these purchases would not attract suspicion and it now appears that this hope was fulfilled.

  Two items that were to prove our most important non food purchases were three and a half tons of transparent, strong, solar protected, plastic sheeting and a large amount of various sized plastic tubes that our farmers suggested could be used to make greenhouses and water pipes for irrigation when we first tried to farm in the open. Much additional use was made of this material during our years preparing the external environment. A small amount was used in the shelter in attempts to bring on certain crops such as tomatoes and strawberries towards the end of our initial incarceration.

  We also purchased a large quantity of sealed long life powdered milk (more than half a ton) and a considerable amount of long life powdered egg, potato and dried fruit from survivalist stores we found on the Internet. We decided that honey would be useful as a sugar substitute and support for our bees so a considerable quantity was purchased from beekeepers rather than supermarkets. This product was supplied to us in large commercial jars which we protected with rubber support.

  Our farm based food storage experts brought two thousand five hundred large, lidded, storage buckets and even more Mylar bags. These units would be used to store our long term food in a protected environment. They evacuated, as far as they could, the air from the filled Mylar bags before adding oxygen absorbing tablets; of which we had purchased a great many. The Mylar bags were then carefully sealed as airtight with a hot iron and enclosed in the buckets. These buckets were then tape sealed, labelled and dated before being added to our food store. Our experts considered this would give the wheat, rice and beans a shelf life well in excess of our requirements and the other material should, at least, meet them. The material would also be protected should we suffer from a rodent infestation; this was not expected and did not occur. It is highly probable that these pests suffered from a similar reduction in their population as did we.

  We managed to obtain a large quantity of good quality wine in wooden barrels. This was obtained from somewhere, in the early days of our work, though I never asked where they came from; and I was never told. This wonderful material was carefully stored in the back of the sump, at an acceptable constant temperature of about twelve degree Celsius, on specially prepared rubberized wooden supports made by our carpenter near the time of impact.

  We also had a good supply of bottled wines, beer (stored vertically) and other stronger alcoholic beverages which were stored in the same area; again on prepared supports specially designed to reduce, as far as we were able, the potential of damage caused by the expected earth shock. Later the bottled and canned beer would be used first as, if left, it would be the first to go stale. We also obtained over one thousand five hundred litres of real English beer in metallic casks from another dubious source. This proved very agreeable after we had finished any bottled or canned versions of this material even though it eventually became a little stale.

  The purchase of food and fuel continued through the farm which was able, by careful purchase, to add the amazing quantity of eight thousand litres of diesel and a little petrol to our fuel reserves. Unfortunately we were then finding that over thirty two thousand five hundred litres (well over forty thousand litres later) of suitable, good quality, diesel fuel storage capacity was almost as difficult to obtain as was the fuel itself. However, by hard work and careful management all these problems were resolved. Some of this storage capacity was taken from our guests central heating systems.

  In addition the farm harvested, prior to the impact, a considerable quantity of food which would normally have been sold at a local market. All, except a little to hide what we were doing, was kept and used either immediately by those on site or, where possible, stored for future consumption in the shelter. The farming group kept producing food until the last moment and in the early period we were able to eat fresh vegetable
s, especially lettuce and tomatoes forced, by them, under our plastic. This latter plastic material was recovered after use and returned to our store; we could not afford to waste anything and it is a pity that the politicos did not demonstrate the same enthusiasm in their efforts to support their constituents when they needed it.

  A large crop of potatoes from the farm was very welcome in the early days of our incarceration as was their seed store which was very carefully maintained as near as possible to their specified storage requirements. The farmers also managed to obtain about a hundred kilograms each of arctic or near arctic grasses, wheat’s, beans and other seeds, in addition to the previous northern seeds we had purchased earlier. Some of this we would attempt to plant during the expected cold spring on our initial exit from our shelter. From the farms mechanical reserve we acquired some valuable tools and a rather heavily used manual engine hoist of dubious reliability.

  The ability to buildup of a large quantity of fuel in such a short time, without raising suspicion, was surprising. Our success, indeed, provided us with a major technical problem as to its storage. Nearly six thousand litres was made available by the builder. This was transported to the builder’s compound, before rationing took place, for use in his machines. He, fortunately, had a small fuel transporter which allowed the transportation of this and the farms original fuel store to the site of the “winter shelter”; as the group in the house was then calling the hole in the ground.

  A problem that soon became obvious was the storage of diesel fuel within the proximity of the shelter. This was partly relieved by the purchase, by the builder, of some of the five hundred litre plastic storage units. The purchase of eighty units, we had increased the number due to our success, had to be achieved relatively slowly to avoid suspicion and the available fuel storage capacity was often exceeded by that diesel we had obtained. Unfortunately because of their shape and size these large fuel containers had to be stored in the shelter prior to the completion of each floor roof putting their purchase on the critical path.

 

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