Curtain Fall: Second Edition, Disaster, Preparedness, Survival, Awakening (The Gatekeeper Book 1) (11 page)

While attending countless after-action reviews after the relief effort, John also learned that the actions of the Mayor of New Orleans, the Governor of Louisiana, and FEMA itself, left many people of New Orleans to their own devices for several weeks.

But John had a hard time sympathizing with the survivors of Hurricane Katrina anyway. They were not only unprepared to handle the disaster, they decided to stay despite evacuation warnings. As far as John was concerned, if you’re not prepared to face a disaster then you leave – you bug-out for safer grounds. What he saw in New Orleans was countless unprepared survivors who stayed, were unprepared for the disaster, and then desperately needed someone, anyone, to come to their rescue.

John vowed to never put himself, or his family, in a situation where they had to rely on outside help for their personal survival. As he learned from watching the recovery and response efforts in New Orleans,
Government disaster assistance would be their last resort. There would be no superficial Super Dome sanctuary for his family.

So from that point forward, John worked very hard to prepare his family to survive any disaster that might come their way. As a result, he was generally prepared for just about anything man or nature could throw at him, which meant he didn’t concentrate on any one specific type of disaster, but instead used a broad-based perspective to prepare. He was confident they could manage most disasters, but his present awareness, that the Caldera was about to erupt, motivated him to do more.

John returned to his desk and removed a legal pad from a drawer. With pen in hand, he wrote the words, urgent, priority, and routine at the top of the page. To John, the three words represented a form of battlefield triage, where “urgent” was for the things he wanted to address first, “priority” was for the things he could wait to get but were important for their survival, and “routine” was for items that could wait, and would be nice to get it they had the time.

After a moment of thought, John began to add items to his list. He knew it wasn’t an all-inclusive list, but it was a list of things he either wanted more of, or to check on when he got home and see where he really stood. It was John’s way of focusing his efforts during the last few days before the ash started falling.

John studied his list. Under the column heading of “Urgent,” he listed his priority needs, sometimes followed with a short note, as follows; Water (Potable - More of it), Food (Inventory & More), Health (Meds, Protective Gear, Toiletries), Warmth (Blankets & Clothing), Light (Batteries, Candles, Chemlights).

Under the “Priority” column, John listed; Fuel (Propane & Gasoline), Ammo (More), Water (Non-potable / Storage and Filtration), Weapons (Clean & Inspect), Tarps, and Rope.

And lastly, under the “Routine” column, John listed; Lumber, Plastic sheeting, Camping Gear (Inspect / Prepare), Fencing Materials (Wire, Engineer Stakes), and finally, Duct Tape (Lots of).

John reviewed the list several times, sometimes adding a note, or removing an item when he realized he was adequately prepared in a certain area. By all outward appearances, John’s list wasn’t much to look at, but it was more a testament to his overall level of preparedness, than to his attention to detail. For John, the list was more a checklist than anything.

He knew the ash would do a number on the American agricultural belt, and that it would choke all rivers, lakes and streams, but mostly, he wondered what the ash would do to the people who tried to live under it. Some would certainly try to evacuate, but that would only work for those living far enough away from the eruption and the heaviest curtain of ash fall.

Scientists estimated that ash from previous eruptions accumulated to several inches in Texas, to many feet deep in Colorado and Utah, and yards deep in Idaho and Wyoming.
“There would certainly be refugees,”
thought John,
“And they’ll come by the thousands. No, the tens of thousands. And they’ll all be heading this way.”

J
ohn bent down to open his gun safe, saw that it was already opened, and was filled with a momentary flash of panic. He shot a hand to the small of his back, feeling the telltale bulge of a weapon already on him, and breathed again. He knew he was totally consumed with thoughts about the disaster, but forgetting he was carrying his weapon was a whole new level of distraction for him. He realized, with a sigh, that the only way to recover his wits was to get out of the office and begin his preparedness work.

He closed the gun safe and quickly looked around the office one last time. The only article of interest that remained was a wall mounted picture of him and his family on their most recent ski trip to Vail, Colorado. After lifting the picture from the wall, he examined it closely. Thoughts of the disaster tried to cloud his mind once again. To think that they, as a family, would never again enjoy such a fun-filled ski vacation saddened him, but he quickly suppressed that emotion, and slipped the framed eight-by-ten picture into his briefcase.

Satisfied that he collected everything he could without leaving the obvious impression that he was abandoning ship, John picked up his briefcase and walked to the door. It felt like he was escaping from a prisoner of war camp, that he was leaving friends behind to fend for themselves, but he felt powerless to help anyone.

John briefly considered stopping by Tony’s desk to say goodbye on the way out, but then he thought better of it. Such a gesture would have been entirely out of character for John. He never before said such goodbyes to anyone, even Tony, when he covered for him.

He recognized the importance of staying in character, but of all the people he was leaving, Terry bothered him the most. He reached Terry’s floor and considered stopping in, but again, he felt the overwhelming need to just leave, to not give anyone cause to suspect something was different. John knew Terry already saw a difference in him, so stopping by his office would definitely raise another flag. “
No
,” thought John, “
I’ve got to leave the way I always do
.”

John’s early departure gave him a jump on the commute traffic, and that’s exactly what he hoped for. Hitting the freeway at four-thirty made all the difference, and he was quickly cruising north, up IH-35W, doing a comfortable seventy miles-per-hour. Though it was true he wanted to clear the congestion around the 820 interchange, John’s primary goal was to reach the nearest outfitter store, which was the Cabela’s near the Alliance Airport, by five o’clock.

Ammunition wasn’t high on his priority list. He had plenty, at least for a normal environment, but he wanted more and didn’t think he’d make it back this way for some time. As for Cabela’s, at least for the most part, their prices were fair and their supply was good.

There was a gun store closer to John’s home, but again, he felt compelled to avoid any place he frequented. He knew the owner of the gun shop pretty well, having done a lot of business with him since moving into the area, and engaging in his regular shooting competitions, but he couldn’t go in and purchase bulk ammo for the same reason he left work without saying goodbye, it would be out of character. John only bought the ammo he planned to shoot for each individual event, saving his home supplies for an emergency. A big ammo purchase at the gun shop would raise questions, and he wanted to avoid questions.

No one at Cabela’s would know him, and since he could pass it on his way home, it presented too good an opportunity to ignore.

John had a rough idea of how much ammo he had, and he mentally calculated his need while he drove. He lost track of his inventory because he occasionally bought a box or two of whatever caliber got his attention whenever the opportunity presented itself.

By his best reckoning, he figured he had about a thousand rounds of 5.56, eight-hundred rounds of 9mm, and another eight-hundred rounds, give or take, of 45. He also had a couple thousand rounds of .22LR, which wasn’t much when he considered their overall usefulness.

At one point, like near the end of the Iraq and Afghanistan military deployments, military caliber ammo was hard to find, and even rationed in some stores. Now, it seemed to him anyway, that .22 ammo was the hardest caliber ammo to find. The small rimfire ammo flew off the shelves as soon as it hit the stores.

John started shopping for .22 on-line, and noticed that many private sellers were asking ridiculous amounts for their supply. And of those who sold their ammo fairly, their stocks were completely depleted in seconds of becoming available on-line. Since .22 wasn’t privately reloaded, it had to be purchased from manufacturers, so demand remained consistently high despite the claims that production was in overdrive. John hoped to purchase some of the small, but very useful rounds, at Cabela’s today.

To round out his ammo inventory, John also had a couple of hundred rounds of .308 and 12ga, in both tactical and game loads, but not nearly as much as he would like to have if disaster struck. He marveled at how quickly his perspective changed with the belief that the Caldera eruption was imminent, and wondered how others would act with the same perspective. “There’d be a mad dash for everything,” said John aloud, “It’d be chaos.”

John exited the interstate and made his way to the parking lot of the huge outfitter. After parking the Suburban on the side of the store, well away from the entrance, he entered the store and was greeted by a friendly clerk. He acknowledged the clerk and grabbed a green, plastic shopping cart.

Every Cabela’s that John had ever been in, and that was quite a few, displayed their firearms and ammunition on the left side of the store when you walked in. This one was an exception, but John knew the store well enough despite the local pattern.

He made his way to the ammo and began looking for and collecting the supplies he wanted. Shopping really wasn’t his thing, but he could handle shopping for guns and ammo. As for deals, he usually always found better on-line, but sometimes he liked to put his hand on what he was buying. His only complaint about shopping, and it was certainly true with Cabela’s, was waiting in a checkout line.

John’s excursion through the ammunition section was quick and deliberate. He knew exactly what he wanted, and where to find it. With the shopping cart adequately weighed down with ammunition, to include a brick of .22, he strolled over to the rifle scope counter.

He had considered buying a night-vision scope for his homemade M4 rifle, but the cost of such an accessory always deterred him. He also didn’t really need one. He wasn’t a night-time hunter, nor did he see the practicality of such a scope for home defense. Besides, John had excellent night vision, and rarely even used a flashlight when he was in total darkness. Still, things were different now, and the threat of perpetual darkness from falling ash presented a new look on night optics.

John had no idea how long the ash would fall, or how long it would linger in the atmosphere after the eruption, but he was certain the skies would remain dark for several days, or possibly even weeks. When he considered the change to the environmental conditions after the disaster, it galvanized his desires to purchase the night scope. He selected one specifically designed for 5.56 ballistics, paid for it at the specialty counter, and then went to find mounting hardware.

He would have preferred to also buy a set of night vision goggles, but they cost much more than he was willing to spend on this trip alone. As a substitute, he instead settled on a pair of Leupold, 10x42 binoculars. They clearly weren’t the same as a pair of night vision goggles, but he knew he’d get better use out of the Leupold binos than the night vision goggles.

When he approached the checkout area, John was a little embarrassed by how full his cart was. He was afraid the clerk would comment,
maybe ask him why he was buying so much ammo, but she didn’t say a word as she scanned, first John’s driver’s license, and then his merchandise. Though John had never seen one as large as his, apparently large ammo purchases weren’t that uncommon for the store.

The cashier dutifully scanned and bagged John’s items, and waited patiently as he pulled out his walled and fished out his credit card. He quickly swiped it through the reader and waited for the cahier to complete the transaction.

“Would you like to donate your change to . . .”

“No thank you,” said John, before she could finish.

“Oooo-kay,” she replied, a and gave John a curious look.

He ignored the comment, and the look. He hated unsolicited donation requests, especially when he was handling money. John was against contributing to any charity, be it a wildlife preservation fund or otherwise, because he thought they were mostly scams.

Given his current perspective on the future, putting money toward anything other than preparedness was a reckless waste. The preservation of his family was now his number one priority, and he would leverage all his available resources to make that happen. Therefore, he saw giving handouts to any charitable organization, certainly one that would cease to exist when the disaster occurred, as a huge waste of resources. Another thing that annoyed John was that he knew the cashier would feel the same way if she knew what he knew. In fact, he figured she’d be right behind him in line.