The Great Unraveling (A Preppers Perspective Book 1) (2 page)

“You think those planes are going to have a lot of trouble landing if the airport doesn’t have any power?” Bert asked concerned and starting to scan the skies with Dennis for whatever mysterious thing he was looking for.

“Those planes that are still in the air probably will have to fly around in a wide circle for awhile or get diverted to another airport while they switch to emergency generator power. How many passengers are you expecting to ride back with us to Montgomery?” Dennis asked not wanting to stir up any unwarranted fears before he knew exactly what was going on.

“I got just one lady on the pickup list and she is 20 minutes late already. That’s why I wanted to call dispatch and see if she had called in before I took off back to Montgomery.” Bert replied watching the traffic start to snarl up on Peachtree Street because all of the street traffic signals had stopped working.

“If we don’t hurry up and leave soon you are never going to get out of here.” Dennis said watching the cars play a game of dodge each other at the intersections when somebody got impatient to cross and took the first gap between cars they saw.

“Yeah let’s go ahead and get going down the road. If she ever shows up and God bless her, she can take the next shuttle home in 3 hours. I am out of here as of right now.” Bert declared and for the next hour and a half they fought horrendous traffic to get to an alternate route home Dennis knew about.

After they finally got back on the highway and were about halfway home was when Dennis had heard the first Emergency of many warnings about the evidence of a nuclear EMP strike come in on Bert’s radio. The cabs radio up to this point had just said that it was a national emergency involving the power grid and to remain calm and try to stay at home. Dennis had been babbling away at Bert telling him what he knew about solar vs nuclear EMP up to this point and convinced him to stop at any store along the way to stock up on things they might not be able to get when they got back home.

He had explained to Bert that distance from a nuke EMP depended a lot on how your cars engine and computer system was affected, but a localized EMP event like what happened to Quebec from a solar storm could also be the reason their vehicle was still moving and planes still flying. If a solar storm had just overloaded some big transformers then you would only have localized damage that could be fixed. Now that Dennis knew the cause of the disaster he could do a little planning.

He only had about $75 in his pockets, his mom astutely kept cash at home so if they were lucky and could find any store open in town he could add to their preps.

“Hell! “ Dennis thought. That is if the panic buying zoo that will be forming up at the grocery stores hasn’t already started up big-time yet.

You would think a city the size of Montgomery that had weathered many a hurricane or tornado would have some plan to keep some stores open or the damn supermarket chains would have installed generators by now, but it had not happened to Dennis’s knowledge unless they did so after the hurricane of last year. It would probably be the same old routine of lock the doors, dump the meat and frozen food aisles and open up 4 or 5 days after the storm to sell some of what was left.

Dennis wasn’t too worried though about having to go to a store for food right away. His mom’s house had at least a month or two of supplies stored in it and he had more than a year worth of food out in the country at his prepper shack which was 30 miles outside of town. He was pretty well set to ride this apocalypse out or as well as he would ever be, because he had been putting his all into prepping for the past 5 yrs or so.

The end of the Mayan calendar and 2012 etc had all come and gone just as he knew it would. But he also knew we were going into solar maximum during this period and had been preparing for a grid down event like this along with a few other disaster scenarios.

He had a small solar light setup by SUNRNR and a solar hot water system by Helios at his cabin as well as propane or wood heat so convincing Mom to bug out to the country with him shouldn’t be a problem. Just common sense, low funds coming in now and rising utility prices had made him try to make his little homestead as self reliant as he could.

The land in back of his cabin had raised bed gardens that he had been organically building up the soil in for a few seasons. He had planted a small orchard a couple years ago and his land and the adjoining acreages woods had lots of wild edibles and game in it so chances were good he would live to see a few more years if people didn’t get too nutty.

“That’s just it, people WERE going to get nutty and soon be down right dangerous to be anywhere around. Deciding when to bug out, or how long to stay” bugged in” was what he had to hurry up and make up his mind about.” Dennis grimaced to himself and then went to listen to the latest radio announcement with his elderly mom.

2

The “Shut ins” and “Shut Outs”

The news on the radio was actually just more of the same. Dennis’s mother remarked that they could at least give a weather report along with the news and this started a conversation between her and Dennis about could the weatherman even accurately predict weather nowadays in a grid down situation.

“I have a very nice ship’s barometer down at my house to predict weather with, but it is not doing us much good here.” Dennis said broaching the subject that they would be moving or bugging out to the country soon. This had been a major point of contention and discourse with his mom the past few days. Bug in or Bug out? Each had their own arguments.

As far as Dennis was concerned they could have left for the country yesterday, but his mom was hesitant to leave that quick and he didn’t want to upset her or her bad heart if he could help it in anyway, so he just played along with her and tried to calmly wait

.

“We will be going to your place in a few days Dennis. I haven’t forgotten. We have got to work on closing up this house first and also eat up some of this food in the freezer before we go though.” Dennis’s mom said trying to rationalize the situation.

“Oh sure I know that Mom, I just wanted you to consider something though... I have a portable ice maker down at the house that we could use to keep some of this meat fresh a little longer.” Donald said playing his trump card.

“That runs off that solar thing of ma jig you got?” His mom said suspiciously.

“Yea it runs off my solar generator, also I can run my bread maker, my food dehydrator and a bunch of other things.” Dennis said proudly thinking about the bright yellow SUNRNR solar generator he had installed in his utility room.

“Does it run your hot water heater too?” His mom queried

“Oh no, I have a totally complete separate setup from Helitos that heats the water. It has its own solar panel that runs the pump that circulates the water.” Dennis explained.

“You think the city water will get turned off here anytime soon because of that, what did you call it? That EMP thing?” his mom asked worriedly.

They had plenty of water in the house for their immediate needs and it was readily available. His mom upon hearing the emergency warning had filled up the bathtub, all the sinks and several containers with water. Dennis had a 15 gallon container and a 5 gallon jug full of water stored in his metal shed office in the back of the house that he used for an office when he was home. His mom had a few big cases of bottled water stored in the cupboard. It could have been better water prep wise, but that was all he could convince his mom to have on hand. They also had the 55 gallons in the hot water heater if need be.

They had plenty of storage space but his mom had a habit of what she called “working things down” which meant she preferred empty space and not cluttered up with preps Dennis would have rather had around.

“Well the waters still running for the moment, I guess they are using backup power down at sewage and sanitation so I would give it another week or so left before water shutdowns start occurring. It depends on if they can or can’t get anymore fuel to run the emergency generators. Seems to me they would be using very large diesel generators so they might be able to scrounge more fuel from somewhere and keep them running for a period of time longer than I can speculate on.

The Water authority issued that boil and conserve water warning over and over on the radio so I guess the main purification plants are already down or running at reduced capacity. We still got natural gas to cook with, which reminds me we are light on charcoal but I need to use it up to cook that freezer full of meat. I think we got another 3 or 4 days before I got to either lose some of that meat or cook it up. As it is, we have more than we can eat and those bags of ice and containers we got in the freezer are melting fast.” Dennis said thinking about the upright freezer he had wrapped in blankets for insulation.

“How much food do you have in your freezer at home Dennis?” his mom asked.

“About a weeks worth, that’s another thing. I am sure it’s all probably mostly unfrozen by now.” Dennis said leaving the decision and facts with his mother to mull over as he got ready to go fire up the grill.

“Well I hate to leave here, but it looks like we need to go down there or you go and come back before it starts to spoil.” Mom called after him.

“Hey Mom, I explained to you we got to really conserve on the gas now, I doubt we will see anymore gas available for a long time to come. I can’t see myself wasting gas on a round about trip just so we can stick around here a bit longer.” Dennis replied a bit testy at the notion.

“Well I am just thinking out loud! You could go cook your food and bring some back and while you’re gone I can finish packing up some things around here.” His mom whined at him upset at his tone for whatever reason.

“
Well if you hadn’t taken all those cans of food out of boxes and rearranged the shelves we wouldn’t have that to do that now.” Dennis wanted to say to her but caught himself and treaded lightly.

“True that’s a thought. I guess my old truck will make it fine
for another few trips. I could run up to the country and come back in the afternoon if I got an early start out of here. I don’t know if I should cook what’s in the freezer up there or bring it back here to grill it. I could bring some more charcoal back with me I suppose Mom. I have extra stored there.. You know I got that neighbor friend of mine up there that’s supposed to team up with me if we ever had this kind of disaster. I don’t know how fixed for fresh food he and his girlfriend are though. Unfortunately all they have are cell phones; some telephone landlines still appear to be working if you have a non electronic phone by the way. I got one in my cabin and I am curious about seeing if it works or not, not that I have anyone to call, It seems everyone is cell phone or electronic phone dependant these days.” Dennis said speculating about who he might be able to contact.

“So Dennis, would you be staying the night in the country or would you be coming directly back here? Don’t you have some things up there you need to get ready before I come down?” His mom asked. not sure if she liked the idea so much now that Dennis might decide to spend a day or two there before returning for her.

“I got a thousand and one things to do as soon as I get there, but not anything pressing that needs to get done right now. I keep that place pretty much ready to just walk in the door and start regular daily living. I do need to be seen some around the local area though. There are several people around there who know I got preps of some sort on hand and might possibly think of breaking into my house if they were getting desperate for food.” Dennis said worriedly.

Dennis made his living by selling books on prepping, so that meant as part of his marketing campaigns he told people about what he sold and wrote about. He was known as a prepper. That fact could come back to bite him one day but he was also sure the folks who might consider taking something from him probably thought he was pretty well armed and would think twice about trying to rob him.

“Dang that reminds me! Dennis thought, he had promised his neighbor Charlie and his girlfriend Monica he would lend them some guns and ammo if the poo ever hit the fan. Well Charlie already had that old 20 gauge single shot shotgun his uncle had given him so he wasn’t totally defenseless. The ties of society hadn’t really started breaking down too much yet, so he would be alright until Dennis supplied him some better fire power. I best get those weapons out of the gun safe and also grab something for mom to use if need be. She didn’t know how to shoot yet, but he had a revolver he could tell her to just point it forward and keep pulling the trigger in an emergency. I wonder if I can borrow a dog off Charles. He had those three big hounds of his and Dennis figured maybe he could sort of temporarily adopt one and  put it in his house for security for a day or two, or maybe to temporarily adopt and keep around fulltime  to make his mom feel more secure. She liked dogs; she just didn’t have one because she didn’t particularly like them in the house. Feeding three big dogs was going to be a bitch now so he thought Charles would go for it if he said he could feed and care for one.

“
Dennis, I was talking o you! Would you pay attention please? I said are you going to be staying overnight at your house in the country?” his mom said looking a bit put out that his mind had wandered far from the conversation and he wasn’t listening or paying attention to her.

“I haven’t said I am going to go without you yet. Give me a couple minutes to think about it while I get the chicken on the grill.” Dennis replied apologetically and went to do the task at hand.

Dennis knew that most folks were most likely only sitting around waiting for the government to come save them and these people would soon become unglued mentally when it didn’t happen.  That is in his opinion, “FEMA “had become a generic name for 'nobody's solved our problems.'" and people would start the rioting and looting before too long demanding aid and wanting it right now.

He had to absolutely get himself and his mom out of city long before that started happening. Not that the country would be much safer to live in. People in the city had no idea how their food was produced and would start looking in the county for farms thinking that the people there had lots of food available. Plenty of transportation was still available with whatever gas a vehicle had in it, so they would migrate to the countryside fleeing the big cities.

“His house was too small and off the beaten path to be an obvious target to the swarm of locusts that would soon be fleeing the city Dennis thought. Now dealing with his starving neighbors out in the country would be another matter entirely.” He thought dejectedly.

“Well Charles and his girlfriend were sworn to help protect his stash of prepper food supplies. Not much consolation in that, but it was some added security knowing they would go to a gunfight with him. The idea now was for him to go as low profile as he could get and keep his food preparation and cooking indoors so as to not alert anyone to how well he was prepared to be eating for awhile. Trash and light suppression would be important too. Can’t be producing too much trash or burning it off or that could tip people off he was eating regular. He had bottles of propane for his camp stove and alcohol fuelled stoves he could get by with, but he hated the thought of using up those diminishable preps when he had a whole forest of wood around him to be cooking with. He would rather save the propane for the rainy and cold days ahead when he had to be stuck inside.

Blending into the community really was the best strategy for survival right now, but it was going to be difficult on that dead end road he lived on. You pretty much knew if your neighbors were coming or going and to keep up appearances he would have to look and act as destitute as those less fortunate or prepared. He would have to be seen going out to look for food, if he met anyone he knew he would also be asking where to find it. That sucked because the whole idea of being prepped was so you could avoid the mobs and food riots and didn’t have to get out on the road. Then you got to worry about folks seeing you leave your house unattended and that seriously complicates matters.

He would have to work out all the little nuances of safety, security, surveillance and putting on a charade of seeking food in town. Damn that charade unnecessarily burns up gas he would need for lots of things like running his garden tiller and chain saw. Maybe Charles could be seen coming and going between their houses and town on his motorcycle and they could seriously cut down on fuel. Of course if he ran any kind of machinery the whole neighborhood would know he had fuel. Car pooling with the neighbors to go to town in search of food made total sense but he barely knew any of them. That was liable to change though as things worsened.” David considered as he was waiting on the coals in his grill to get hot enough to cook up some of the thawing meat he was making for dinner.

Dennis had one of those big old round Weber grills and when he was done cooking he would close the vents on the lid and place it back on the grill to snuff the coals out. He reused the coals from his previous fires and just added a little more charcoal when necessary. This really saved on the charcoal consumption using this conservation method.

“The whole neighborhood must be cooking out.” Dennis thought while sniffing the air and looking around for puffs of tell tale smoke drifting from backyards.

“Good nobody is starving yet, well at least not around here anyway by the looks and smell of things.” He mused as smoke and food cooking smells filled the air.