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

  We left them twenty household gas bottles and a cooker unit. We were concerned about the possibility of gas leaking from these bottles but decided that the risk of leaving them in the house on the top of a hill, unprotected from the potential blast, would have been even greater. We did, however, install three gas (one for carbon monoxide) detectors, with the necessary batteries, to improve their security in this respect.

  The four families would have to provide any special food, clothes and entertainment themselves but otherwise we provided everything for their reasonably comfortable survival for over a year. We assisted them to move into the shelter and again took anything from their homes that we considered would be useful to them or us. Many items from their homes went to the main shelter as we considered they would be useful for the future and there was insufficient space in their shelter. It is surprising to note the bulk of blankets, and clothing not to mention toilet units, heating boilers, radiators, books and tools.

  On their arrival at the rich mans shelter we advised them to protect themselves from the ground shake from half an hour after the actual impact time. Then we described the necessity and method of closing all vents to the outside and be prepared to switch from mains to battery power by, at the latest, eight hours after the expected impact time. This suggestion of a later time was due to the smaller, per individual, air capacity of their accommodation and the weakness of the old mains wiring to the shelter. They were told that two hours after the blast wave had past they could open the air vents and try the mains electricity. If the mains still functioned they could use it to provide light, heat, cooking facilities and to charge their batteries otherwise they would have to use their generators. The inundation period would be dangerous but the external pipes were capped with extending right angled bent tubing which would give them some protection. They were also on top of a hill which should protect them from water buildup and closing the access pipes would remain as a short period option. We considered that these procedures would give them an excellent chance of surviving the initial blast and ground movements. The inundation period was, unfortunately, the unknown quantity.

  We left the new group the two, low wattage, efficient diesel generators, that were already in place, and the air pumps; two electric, two manual. The generators we left were smaller than our reserves and not being the same as ours would have required additional resources to maintain. We left, within their shelter, the four original large, deep cycle fifty volt batteries together with four, smaller, fifty volt car batteries and some fifty volt LED lighting units for their non generation periods (much of this material was initially stored in the large EMP protection box). They were additionally left with some mattresses and seating. We also gave them ten of our valuable wind up torches, to add to their initial equipment requested by the government, and four hand guns with some ammunition and advised them that they should leave the shelter as little as possible as they might leave traces for unwelcome guests which, in the early days, could be disastrous..

  We removed two petrol generators as we left them no petrol due to the potentially dangerous fumes. We, therefore, obtained from this shelter an additional seven hundred litres of petrol in twenty five litre cans and a considerable quantity of lubricating oil and grease.

  We advised the tenants that after six months we would try to integrate them into our accommodation to consolidate numbers and reduce resource use. The implication of “try” was considered necessary as we were unable to know what our, or their, situation would be after the impact

  Chapter 3. Our Home; For the Duration.

  Our home, for the period of the disaster had been rapidly, using our best efforts, designed and built to meet any potential and expected; this being extended to even virtually unknown criteria. Trying to design within such a spread of possibilities had presented us and the builder with many intractable problems. These problems tended to be intractable due to the unpredictability of the potential level of even the expected events. What level of EMP, earth shake, air pressure, temperature, precipitation, contamination and shelter time should we plan on? The problem of analyses was critically enhanced by the inexperience of modern humans to the range of unknown sequences of possible events that faced us.

  The 1960’s nuclear fallout shelter designed to allow inmates to survive for a few weeks in a small box has been shown to be insufficient to meet even the most basic expectations of the foreseen disaster; this being well demonstrated by the experience of Ricardo (The rich man). We had to provide sufficient protected accommodation, food and facilities to maintain an acceptable human existence for, based only on our guesses themselves being based on limited information, up to ten years. Even this timescale was a guess based on our reading of the dinosaur extinction.

  The protection required would be against a potential set of very adverse external environments. These events could, for some indefinable time, have severely adverse effects on living organisms exposed and unprotected to such extremes. The shelter would be our retreat of last resort from which we could go no further. If any guess of any situation was sufficiently wrong there would be no backup or support; they might well terminate our survival.

  We had attempted to predict those problems that might occur, internally and external to our shelter, over our estimated period of ten years. Unfortunately we were in a situation where, lacking experience or knowledge, we were unable to, realistically, predict anything. We were completely at the mercy of events. In addition to this it was most important that the structure of the shelter could be built and enstored within the period prior to the impact and within a budget that could be met by bank support and our guests contributions.

  During our period in the shelter whenever it was necessary to use energy the edifice had to be designed that it could be provided, wherever possible, by manual or other sustainable means. We had to consider that when we eventually left the shelter, as our primary accommodation, the world would be somewhat different from any previous environment that any modern human had ever experienced.

  Indeed we expected that there would be little or no visible life, vegetable or animal, to immediately fall back on. There would be no high technology and most items that we had previously taken for granted would not be available. Especially problematical would be the lack of communications, money, manufacturing and shops all of which would not functionally exist in any form we could use; hence we were not in a saving (money) mood. We had to base our entire future technology not just on what we had taken into the shelter but on what we could manufacture and maintain into the future. This required us to perform, during our time in the shelter, an incredible amount of technical redevelopment sometimes of a very historic nature.

  The animal and human populations we might expect to find would be very much reduced. We expected that all human survivors would probably urgently require a source of sustainable food together with considerable technical and medical assistance. Indeed we expected, from evaluation of what was believed about the extinction of the dinosaurs, to find that the human population and all larger animals, attempting to live above ground, would, within a short period of the impact, be almost, if not entirely, extinct. Human survivors without sufficient food reserves would die within a few weeks of their reserves running out even if they resorted to cannibalism.

  Our food resources, therefore, had to, at least, match our shelter’s manpower resources for the period of non viable external conditions. To achieve our objectives our manpower resources had to include expertise in those areas that might allow us to save ourselves from the ever present danger of barbarism. If barbarism raised its ugly head inter group violence between survivor groups, over scarce resources, would be inevitably. This would occur as new tribal groups developed around leaders based on physical strength, important for survival in a physical jungle, rather than intelligence. From there the human race would descend to almost inevitable extinction or, at best, feudalism and a return to forms of monarchism.

  Throughout the initi
al post impact period it was only within our shelter that our “original group” had any chance of predicting our lives. During this time we had to develop a new system of living such that we could develop facilities and skills for our eventual return to the surface while remaining within a relatively secure and comfortable environment.

  We knew that we would have to adopt novel solutions where other groups might see us as obstructing their objectives with potentially disastrous consequences for all involved. To obviate such possibilities we planned to present what would hopefully be mutually acceptable agreements to other survivors. We intended to achieve this by demonstrating, to any such groups, our potentially superior survival options making our negotiating position stronger and hopefully increasing our numbers to mutual advantage; any alternatives could be wasteful of that then limited resource; human beings.

  The water that had once flowed into the well of the house was now redirected into the upper animal extension floor of our shelter. The water being protected from the environment by several meters of soil through shelter accessible protective taps and cut offs. Any excess water would be initially redirected, via manual pumps, to the cellar. When all our requirements had been satisfied the water would be automatically redirected back to the external well using a simple ball-cock system which we would have to carefully maintain.

  The water, within the shelter, would be distributed to where it was required utilizing only manual and/or gravity techniques. We would not allow any of our powered pumps to assist except in the direst of circumstances; this would have been an unpredicted event which, fortunately, never occurred.

  All pipe work and cables, within the shelter, were designed to be easily accessible for maintenance. All the electric cables had to be insulated, multi core of minimum impedance hence having the largest weight of copper or aluminium (for reasons of oxidation only a small amount of the latter material was used) per meter reasonable obtainable to save energy loss (this loss would be converted to heat) in transmission.

  Lighting was provided, bulbs or tubes, using, wherever available, the most efficient lighting units, both 50 volts DC and mains, we could obtain. We had set ourselves a target of better than 100 lumens per Watt for all standard lighting and this was achieved. This necessitated the use of technology that would not, even into our present early future, be available once we have used our current stock. The light bulbs and tubes were the same for both mains and generator systems and a large number of similar lighting units were held in stores. We did have a small store of the old less efficient lighting units in the outhouses but while in the shelter these were never used.

  We strongly requested our guests to obtain a large quantity of suitable lighting units of different acceptable technologies in order to provide us with efficient illumination for, at least, the period we inhabited the shelter. Generated lighting would only be available in areas where this luxury was considered absolutely necessary. For this reason our residential areas would have the minimum of generated lighting, to ensure safety, enhanced by both battery and our personnel wind up units in the housing units.

  Nearly all our wind up torches, indeed all those brought specially for the shelter, were one of two specified brands and models that we considered optimum for our requirements. Having only two brands allowed cannibalization of none, or poorly, functioning units to provide additional spares for the repair of others. Two brands and models were unfortunately necessary as the purchase of relatively large numbers of a specified brand and model caused a local deficiency over a large area. The deficiency of the original brand model had necessitated the approval of a second brand model to complete our requirement. A good reserve of these specified brands were held in supplies and in addition we obtained a considerable store of spare parts for both units such that we were able to ensure that repairs could be performed for a considerable period. We still held a considerable reserve of these items when we were finally ready to return to the surface.

  There were three primary individual lighting systems in the shelter. The first was the external mains system intended for use while this energy source was available. This level of lighting etc. was generous. The secondary was our generated system. This was far less generous and split into several sections which could be individually switched in or out as required. The main isolation area was the habitation area; this was further subdivided such that the hospital, administration area, recreational area and toilets could be individually controlled. Each house had a single very low level of mains lighting unit as this was more efficient use of energy than the battery lighting units. The battery charging unit was not one hundred percent efficient.

  The lighting, battery charging, ventilation, cooking, and shower systems were all primary users of the generator produced energy. On the upper animal floor, over part of the agriculture region, there was a special section of lighting that gave, every day, a half hour of very much brighter lighting to support the psychological state of the inhabitants. This generosity was based on the doctor’s recommendation and we all unanimously accepted his advice on this matter. From personal experience I do believe the increased lighting helped.

  The final lighting system was the batteries. This was far less generous than even the previous system. Certain areas could be isolated or even, for short periods, enhanced should this be required. It powered a basic lighting and some ventilation units. The battery powered ventilation system was supported to the minimum extent commensurate with maintaining an acceptable atmosphere within the shelter. Tests to achieve this acceptable level took several weeks of experience, under maximum stress, post impact, before we were satisfied that we had the right balance. It should be noted here that we could have existed for several days without pressurized ventilation but we provided some continuous pressurized ventilation, except during the overpressure period, while we were incarcerated in our shelter.

  The battery lighting supported a reading facility in the library area for our out of hour’s workers; but overall the battery only provided the minimum lighting required for safety. This area lighting was about the equivalent of a half moon in the vegetation areas and somewhat less in the animal areas. The food store was normally unlit under battery power except for the stairs to the sump where some light was provided for our out of hour’s workers monitoring this area and our fish.

  The reading area and library were set up on the upper animal floor and were supported by both the generator and battery systems. Here a library of mainly fiction books was maintained though there were many more books stored in the extension area. The extension area bookstores contained most of our technical volumes. These books were catalogued so they could be easily found by researchers or education groups. Those borrowing the technical books were required to register this fact (Lenders ID and book category number) on a washable blackboard; we could not waste paper or pens for this cause.

  The acquisition of books had a high priority before the impact. During this acquisition phase technical, condensed and educational examples, especially old text books, were given a higher priority though fiction books remained very acceptable. Duplication was not considered an extravagance (for a purchaser of books to remember our total library would have been impossible), though not advised, and we tried to obtain as many good quality second hand books as was possible. This option was both to reduce cost and for our security. Less notice is taken of those buying second hand books in relatively large numbers so the purchasing of our library could be completed more rapidly. The idea of buying books by the yard was, however, rejected. We also requested our prospective shelter occupants to maintain any newspapers, magazines and comics that they could obtain by any means but not to consider purchase except for their own requirements.

  We spent a lot of time looking for printed versions of good quality encyclopaedias; especially the old Britannica. This latter excellent information source had become rare since the general availability of computers. In the end we were lucky enough to obtain two complete, relat
ively recent, paper Britannica’s; one from a potential guest, who found it in their loft ,the other in a second hand bookshop. We also had a few individual volumes and our guests provided several old electronic data pins containing this modern masterpiece. These pins were rarely used as we tried to minimize the use of computers unless it was considered essential for research. Access to the computer versions was restricted to agreed researches the results of which were downloaded and registered to electronic books.

  The library, including the extension bookstore, was set up and run as a large part of the workload of two persons with the experienced Julia Sanchez in charge. When set up the books in the primary library were loaned on the presentation of a simple numerical (often the library accepted only the verbal presentation of the number itself) plastic identity card, of which we initially had three hundred, which all original inhabitants were provided. This was not for security but because we did not wish to have a paper record and computers would use energy so a record of book loans was kept on another blackboard indicating the identity card number of the borrower (shorter than a name) and the books reference code.

  A large number of electronic books, quantum disc players, DVD’s, data pins and CD’s were available for group use when authorized by a librarian. The shelter’s players, TVs and computers were maintained in central stores for group entertainment and research but were not normally (except for agreed educational or research purposes) available for individuals. Low energy music and personnel, electronic books, video players using internal data storage were allowed to residents owning such items (everyone in the early days) and where these items had been agreed they would be recharged and occasionally, on request, provided with additional data.