by Don Shift
“I’m sure it’s no problem getting in, but you’ll have to be escorted because the doors are dead and it’s all keys.”
“Joy. I don’t envy you your problems.”
“Same here.”
“Good luck Tino. Oh, one more thing. I guess if the sheriff isn’t here, you’re the man. The county CEO called a meeting of all department heads at 6 PM. The supervisors will be sitting in.”
“Lucky me.”
Villareal did not feel so lucky sitting in the Board of Supervisor’s meeting room. It was more than the fire chief let on; it was a full emergency meeting, though it was rather informal. Several employees and jurors who had nowhere to go and no transportation after they were dismissed early formed the public audience. The supervisors took their normal place at their desks on the semi-circular dais.
Since he was the most knowledgeable, Brad Vaughn was sent to the podium to explain EMP in an abbreviated explanation of the calamitous ramifications to the county. After he finished, one could hear a pin drop in the room. The supervisors seemed most disturbed by the talk of war coming from the Navy. A representative of Southern California Edison explained the science behind EMP and clearly the supervisors preferred Brad’s bleak, but relatable version.
The power was out, and it wasn’t coming back on, was the short explanation from SCE. Thousands of smaller transformers blew across the county alone. Lines were down. Countless over-voltage fused cutouts had blown. These could be replaced in about two weeks under normal circumstances, but the entire country was affected, not a small region like after a hurricane or blizzard. There were only a precious handful stored locally for routine failures like car accidents and malfunctions. The larger transformers at the substations and power plants would take at least a year to replace.
No manufacturing capacity existed in the United States to supply the demand. On top of that, power plants required electricity to start up again and their generators were fried. The Mandalay Bay Generating Station in Oxnard was on fire and burning out of control. Up north, PG&E’s Diablo Canyon had definitely automatically shut down, but the rep did not know if they could sustain the necessary cooling to prevent a catastrophic meltdown.
Fire Chief Greer took the podium next. He was also speaking for Dr. Foret, the county head of Public Health, who was too busy personally treating emergency cases.
“First, the good news. We only have one large brush fire burning out of control in Newbury Park. It started from a burning residential pole transformer. The fire is burning away from the city and into a burn scar. We are not fighting it at this time as it is not a threat to structures and our resources are best spent elsewhere. It should die down by tomorrow night. Last I recall, the weather service was forecasting a marine layer to develop tomorrow around sunset. The increased humidity usually serves as a good damper.
“And now some bad news. Three large passenger jets have crashed in the county. One, a 747, in Simi, a Southwest plane outside of Fillmore, and an unknown plane deep into the Los Padres backcountry. Due to some electrical failures, we can’t get the helicopters up. Two additional general aviation planes crashed, but most of the planes airborne at the time were able to land safely. Nationally, I’d guess several hundred thousand are dead already from plane crashes.
“As far as people, we seem to be at about 90% staffing. Most of our fire fighters live locally and came in. Many retirees and firemen from other areas have joined us as well. The public has been very helpful at suppressing the fires quite literally in their own backyards. By grace or luck, we avoided a very bad scene. Our equipment is in good working order. Our trucks are diesel and the fuel has a long shelf life, much longer than gasoline. Using older equipment, we will be able to slightly increase the amount of equipment coverage we have. Minor equipment failures are not affecting us.
“The really bad news. Water flow in all cities, as of a few minutes ago, is at a trickle. We will have to draft from pools. Our firefighting priorities now will be preservation of life and limiting the spread of fire, not saving structures.
“Medically, things are dismal. Without 911, we cannot learn of medical emergencies in time to save lives. It is my sad duty to report that in order to combat the larger threat, fire, we have had to neglect medical emergencies. Our ambulances and rescue squads have been overworked. They are being flagged down block by block. Though it sounds cold hearted, they have been instructed to refuse any medical emergency that does not require immediate attention to save life and then only if the patient has a good chance of surviving.
“We are in a triage mode. Many of our elderly dependent on oxygen or other life support measures are already dead or dying. There is no way we can care for people who cannot survive without electricity. Those who are likely to die from accident or injury regardless of treatment, we give palliative care. We don’t have the resources to cut a dying person out of a car when they will likely die at the hospital.”
He paused. “I hate myself for saying this, but we have to let people die. I mean, what are we going to do?” He choked up. “We can’t keep pumping air by hand until someone finds electricity, nor can we waste the bottled oxygen. At some point you gotta stop doing CPR.”
One supervisor tried to flick on her mic, looked at the switch, and then remembered it wouldn’t work. “Chief Greer, during Hurricane Katrina, brave hospital staff and volunteers did just that, for hours, until electrical power could be restored.”
“But in that case electricity could be restored. Right now, every county and private electrician, anyone that could be drafted, is working on replacing burnt out connections for emergency generators. We have eight hospitals and hundreds of potential patients that fall into that category. It’s a cold calculation to make, but we have to focus on those we can save.”
“But you can save them?” she asked.
“At what cost? Houses burning down? A gunshot victim who can’t get oxygen while a surgeon tries to repair a sucking chest wound by flashlight? Believe me, I absolutely hate these choices, but there is nothing we can realistically do to save people who need electricity to supply vital functions.”
The supervisor nodded slightly. Supervisor Hong changed the subject. “Chief, how are you able to communicate?”
“From truck to truck sir.”
“And Chief Deputy, your department?” Hong asked.
“Car to car and station to station using portable radios,” Villareal said. “From what I’ve been told, Camarillo station has a volunteer sitting on the roof using a piece of equipment generously donated by a member of the local ham radio community and using a beach umbrella for shade.”
The supervisors looked horrified. “Don’t the stations have their own radios and antennas?” Supervisor Hinojosa asked.
A man in the audience raised his hand and stepped forward.
“I can answer that. Supervisors, I’m Tony Ford, manager, County Communication. The station radios are connected to large antennas and the power grid as well. The surge fried the microchips inside by overheating in matter of nanoseconds. Portable radios were better shielded because of the shorter antennas and car tires isolated them from the ground.
“Here’s the reason the dispatch centers are down: first the radios and other equipment are literally fried. Second, now that we’ve upgraded to the microwave system, instead of just broadcasting radio signal from point-to-point, the signal is sent via microwave, a directional beam, to a receiver on, say South Mountain. That signal gets sent to the other repeaters around the county.
“To make dispatching work again, we will have to hook up radios to the external antennas, which will give us the coverage from the 1970s. That means new radios at each station. We will have to think up a whole new plan, but we will be able to pass information and talk station-to-station. With enough time, we can rig something up, but we need power and equipment. In the coming days, I’ll be working with the ham radio community to get everything figured out.”
“Why haven’t they been
activated yet?” Chief Greer asked.
Wayne Garza answered. “Their radios are down. It’s very difficult to coordinate across the county when everyone is using portable radios.”
“I’m going to be speaking with some of them tonight,” Tony said. He explained that the ARES/RACES organizations were groups of ham radio volunteers trained and committed to providing emergency communications during disasters. “They have an emergency radio net broadcast scheduled. We’ll have a plan by this time tomorrow and the ability to do it later next week, power generation permitting.”
It was Villareal’s turn to speak. Before he could start, Supervisor Lee wanted to know where the sheriff was.
“Ma’am, Sheriff Tennant went to the Santa Barbara wine country with his wife last night. We have not heard from him since. We hope he will arrive soon and safe.”
“So I take it you are in charge?”
“That’s correct. As practice, when the sheriff is away, an acting sheriff is appointed, mostly as general point of contact more than anything else. With the undersheriff in Idaho, I am the most senior chief deputy, so it fell to me. Chief Ostrander is second and Chief Haden is third. I guess after that by seniority it’s Commander Owens, of East County.”
“What are you doing with the jail inmates?” Supervisor Hong asked.
“Unfortunately, we have to release most of them. We have no water and no way to feed them.”
“Isn’t that a bit premature?” Lee asked.
“Ma’am, either the world just ended, or it didn’t. I have to make decisions that enable to me to protect the public. I cannot protect the public if I have to keep half of our deputies in jail watching over largely non-violent or unsentenced inmates. Plus, we have to take into consideration the human rights of the inmates, many of whom pose no danger and shouldn’t be subjected to the conditions they will soon have to endure.” That we all will, he thought.
“But you’ll flood the streets with criminals!” a juror yelled. Stranded at the government center, he didn’t want to be anywhere near the jail when the inmates were let out.
The chairman banged his gavel. Villareal turned around in his seat. “You flooded the streets with criminals when you voted for criminal justice ‘reform’.” Villareal thought better of himself. “Excuse me, it’s been a stressful day.”
“I understand,” Hong said.
Television dramas showed escaped violent convicts wreaking havoc on society after a catastrophic disaster once the prison guards deserted. In the mind of a writer who never spoke with a corrections officer, it made for better drama. The reality is that once the guards realized that the rule of law had collapsed and the prison could no longer be sustained, many of the inmates would be killed outright. It was well-known throughout the corrections and prison communities that the guards would never allow felons to be released in an end-of-the-world type situation. Prison guards generally held the violent and career inmates in deep contempt. Knowing that these men would commit terrible acts if released in a world without functioning prisons, police, and courts, corrections officers felt that they could never just let the worst-of-the-worst inmates go.
Supervisor Hong continued. “How do you anticipate enforcing the law without jails to put people in?”
“We will have to use persuasion and force, mainly presence and verbal commands, to disperse troublemakers. If we make arrests for someone who persists in whatever it is that they are doing, we will book locally for non-serious offenses and cite and release when they’ve calmed down. Violent criminals and felons will be taken to the East County or Todd Road Jails as time permits.”
“What about unsentenced criminals?” the DA asked.
“Judge Fitzgerald and I have arranged to set up temporary arraignments in the jail tomorrow morning, if we can get the personnel for it. We can then focus on getting people released and set up for eventual court dates. The most serious offenders can be jailed with their rights respected.”
District Attorney Mark Beaulieu nodded from his seat. He was a defense and civil attorney who finally unseated the incumbent DA. “So you’ll be able to pull up the details of the cases?” the DA asked.
“We will have the booking records and can pull up each police report,” Villareal said. “It’ll be time consuming, but we’ll figure it out. Honestly, I think we will end up just 849’ing—that’s basically un-arresting someone—and releasing them. The rest will be released on their own recognizance.”
“Okay. I was a little worried how we would get their case information,” Beaulieu said.
“Why?”
“Aren’t your computers down too?”
“Once GSA gets the generators up, we can reboot and go from there. There are plenty of Toughbooks to go around.”
“Uh, guys? Excuse me.” Everyone looked at the guy in the white polo shirt who was standing up in the back of the room. “Hi, I’m Rob Gentile. I work for IT. My bosses are all out. Our servers are all fried.” No one understood what this meant. “The case data isn’t saved locally, you know, on the hard drive of each computer like your files at home. It’s all saved centrally in various servers. The sheriff’s report system, the DA case management files, the booking records, et cetera. Even the generic county network.”
The magnitude of the damage hit both Villareal and the DA smack in the face. The Records Bureau had gone paperless recently, meaning that the few things still done in ink on paper were gone. During a storm, File Net had gone down, taking with it access not just to reports and records, but even the ability to run people’s rap sheets and report cars as stolen via teletype. For several days, the records clerks’ hands were tied.
Without the computerized records of who was in jail for what and why, there was no way to give them an arraignment hearing or a trial. Even trying to see the details of why someone was arrested, which could very well make the difference between a burglar in a home to rape instead of steal, was impossible. The only way to know who was who would be by personal knowledge and their bracelet color, Villareal explained. Even then, no one thought drunk drivers and petty criminals should be left to suffer in the jail.
“So you’ll have to let go of all the arraigned and unsentenced inmates?” Lee asked.
Judge Fitzgerald spoke gravely. “Innocent until proven guilty.”
“We have some felony file print outs,” the DA said. “We can go through those and whatever paper files my deputies printed to get info on the worst.” He whispered instructions to a deputy DA who got up and walked briskly away.
“How many will you have to release, Chief Villareal?”
“About five hundred. Not counting Todd Road. All in all, our population is about 1,400 right now. We were drawing down for a fresh batch of kickbacks from state prisons.” Someone suggested that they round up school buses and bus the released inmates to their own cities to avoid a criminal shantytown from setting up on the lawn. It was adopted.
“Speaking of prisons, do you have any idea what the plans are there?”
Villareal cleared his throat. “Well, from discussions I’ve had with guards and former inmates, it’ll vary. Expect the worst of the worst to be shot in the cells outright.” A murmur went through the room. “I can’t see entire populations being wiped out, but the guys in solitary in Pelican Bay are all dead men along with death row at San Quentin. Guards will take over the complex for themselves and their families, driving out the inmates. Those they can’t or won’t kill, but won’t release, will be left to die in their cells.”
“That’s horrible.”
The chief made a non-committal gesture with his hands. He was spared further questions as a master sergeant from the local National Guard came through the doors. The man in camouflage caught everyone’s attention. The sergeant was welcomed to the podium and introduced himself. He didn’t have any good news. The local unit of the 143rd Field Artillery Regiment, was currently mustering less than one rifle company.
The sheriff’s department outnumbers the National Gu
ard more than seven-to-one, Villareal thought. The county was on its own.
“What about FEMA? Shouldn’t they be setting up camps?” Supervisor Hong asked.
“For the entire country?” Brad replied.
“So what should our short-term—this weekend—plan be? Emergency services and critical infrastructure first.” Supervisor Hinojosa asked as he stared at his desk, head in hands.
Wayne Garza looked at Brad. “Mr. Vaughn is the best to cover this.”
Brad came to the podium again and cleared his throat, nervous about addressing the county leadership with his plans that were not much more than a thought exercise. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Supervisors, as you’ve been told, I’ve prepared a plan for an event like this on my own initiative. It’s not official, it hasn’t been vetted or checked. It’s really just a hobby.”
“Well, you’re about all we’ve got, so let’s hear what you’ve drawn up,” Supervisor Hinojosa said.
Brad exemplified the best of government employees. He was someone who cared deeply about his job, loved what he did, and considered it an avocation as well. A private sector job would be wasted on him because there would be no higher purpose to it. He was a true disaster nerd, who watched every emergency, end of the world, or post-apocalyptic movie he could find. His bookshelf was filled with novels on the same subject and how-to books on every conceivable subject. For him, preparing an off-the-books EMP plan was a way to have fun with his job and knowledge.
“This stuff interests me. I’ve taken apart most of our plans for other stuff and adapted it for a total grid-down scenario. I’ve based this on EMP and solar flare plans and research from a variety of sources.” Brad lifted up a blue binder and opened it, revealing a mixed cluster of handwritten pages and photocopies taken from other plans. “I have some items in here for what we need to do first to preserve emergency services ability to function effectively and to protect critical infrastructure than can help get us through this.”