Loading Up for Mayhem.

By ronde, in 3 parts. Listen to the ► podcast at Connected.

One thing that nagged at me was what I’d do in a medical emergency, like if I cut myself chopping firewood or fell down and broke my arm or leg. The first aid kit in my bug-out bag wouldn’t do anything for either of those situations. I did a lot of reading and finally bought what would probably be in any combat medic’s kit. I couldn’t do surgery, but I had enough to splint a broken limb, stop severe bleeding, and sew up a bad cut.

Every week, I stopped by the local liquor store and bought a bottle each of reasonably good scotch, bourbon, vodka, and rum. My logic for that much alcohol was it’s a good mild anesthetic and all the experts said it would be good trading material if money became worthless. I figured the extra hundred dollars a week that cost me was just good preparation, and I could always drink it or give it away if things got back to normal.

Another piece of advice I learned from one book was the saying, “Two is one and one is none.” What that means is if you have only one of something, like say, an axe, if it breaks you have none. If you have two or more, you’ll at least have one that’s usable while you’re fixing the other. When I was buying tools, I made sure I had duplicates of anything that I thought would be vital to my survival.

The last thing to go into my storage space was more of an impulse buy than anything else. I was browsing through the gardening department of a local big box store that September and looking for what they’d put on sale when I passed a display of garden seeds. They were marked down by half. I’d been reading that having a garden is a must for long-term survival. Like Jeff had said about the guy in Montana, I had no idea what might happen, but being prepared was better than not being prepared. I searched through the seed packets looking for “heirloom” varieties because they’ll reproduce true from seed year after year. I bought enough to plant a huge garden and hoped I’d never need to.

It was surprising how little money I really spent and how much food and other stuff that money bought. Once I had a year’s supply, I looked at it and it didn’t seem very big so I just kept buying food and supplies like I had before. By the summer after my bunker was built and furnished, I figured I had enough food and other supplies to last me about five years if I didn’t hunt and fish and I’d spent a total of about fifteen grand.

That was less than two months of my salary, and if I hadn’t spent it, it would have just sat in my bank. I figured having the stuff more than made up for the loss of interest my bank would have paid me. A lot of articles I  read said in a lot of SHTF situations, money wouldn’t be worth anything anyway.

Prepper Drills.

Once I started stocking my bunker, I started making the drive out there on Friday night after work and staying until Sunday about noon. That gave me a chance to practice using the stove, food, and lighting to see if I needed to change anything. I did miss having a TV at first, but a good selection of books were almost as good and I didn’t have to watch any dumb commercials. If I got tired of reading, I could go outside and listen to music, news, and even some people on short wave on my hand-cranked radio.

What I found is that living in my bunker wasn’t all that bad. I learned how to cook on my little wood stove and how to make my beans and rice taste good. I even figured out how to make cornbread in the little oven. That all worked out really well up until the twenty-eighth of December of the next year.

White-out.

When I woke up, it was snowing up a storm, but I had to go to the base. There was a software upgrade to one of our simulators that absolutely couldn’t wait until after New Year’s Day. It took me an hour to drive the twenty miles.

I was making pretty good progress on the upgrade when about ten in the morning all the lights in the building went out. The emergency lights came on when the emergency generators started, so I figured for some reason one of the main circuit breakers in the building had tripped. Sometimes one would trip for no apparent reason, and resetting it fixed the problem.

When I went to the power house in the building to see, they were all fine. The meters on the main switchgear were all dark though, and that told me there was no power coming into the building. That meant it was probably a circuit breaker at the base substation, but when I went outside, there were people coming out of all the other buildings as well. It looked as if the whole base had lost power.

That couldn’t happen, or at least it wasn’t supposed to happen. The base was connected directly to the grid and the base substation and lines that serve it were supposed to be hardened against about any natural disaster. There was no natural disaster taking place, so at least a major part of the electrical grid must have gone down.

I was rapidly getting a funny feeling in my gut, because there were only three reasons I could think of that would cause a major part of the electrical grid to go down.

One was a nuclear device detonated high in the atmosphere. That would cause a massive EMP that could take the control systems at almost all the generating plants and distribution stations off-line. It would also disable most communication systems, including communications satellites and their ground-based relay stations. At least some of the military communications equipment on the ground, in the air, and at sea would survive, but without the satellites, they would be useless.

Protecting against EMP was expensive and troublesome to work with because it entailed enclosing all equipment in a wire cage that was grounded to the earth. That’s why most protection was done by the military. They could afford it.

Power companies and factories couldn’t afford to protect the huge substations they had without government money, and the cost to do so was astronomical. So far, Congress hadn’t seen fit to provide that money because doing so would have meant cutting back on the social programs most politicians used to keep getting themselves elected.

Another was a solar flare big enough to do the same thing, but NASA would have figured out that it was going to happen and sent out a warning days before it was to hit the earth. They hadn’t.

The other was a terrorist attack, either physical or cyber that did the same thing. All it takes to effectively kill the U S electrical grid is to shut down ten major distribution substations. We know that because of studies that were done by Homeland Security after 9 11. Terrorists may be a lot of things, but they keep proving they’re not stupid. It wasn’t crazy to think at least one group knew what ten substations would kill the grid and had a plan to take them out when they were ready.

Even if something or someone didn’t manage to take out all ten, once part of the grid was down, operators would try to shift the load to another part. This would quickly overload the grid in that area and operators would shut it down in an attempt to keep from damaging their equipment. It would be a chain-reaction of shut-downs until the whole grid lost power.

It really didn’t matter why the grid went down. Whatever the cause, it might take a long time to get it back up again. Any damaged hardware would have to be replaced and a lot of that equipment is not on the shelf someplace. It’s made to order and delivery times are months to over a year. If there was no power, there would be no way to make replacements. Even if there were replacements available, they’d have to be installed and then the grid brought back on-line in a very controlled manner to prevent phase mismatch and overloads.

Doing that was sort of a “Catch 22” scenario. Some of the electricity generated by a power station is used to run the control systems for that station. Without some source of power, even if everything was repaired, they’d have to get electricity from somewhere in order to fire up the generating plant. The plan for most of the generating plants on the grid was either one special generating plant or diesel-powered generators mounted on trucks. An EMP pulse big enough to take out the grid would also take out the control systems for those special generating plants and truck mounted generators. A terrorist attack would surely have included those special generating plants and at least some of the standby generators.

Taking Action.

I left everything where it was and got in my truck. The fact that my truck started pretty much eliminated an EMP event as the cause of the black-out. Any electronic device would be affected by EMP, and the computer controls in cars and trucks would be among the first to go unless they weren’t older than a couple years. My truck was five years old.

My first stop was my apartment. I put all my clothes in plastic garbage bags, filled a plastic storage box with all my pots and pans and kitchen stuff that didn’t need electricity, and filled another plastic storage box with my books and magazines about survival and engineering. After I hauled all that out the door and dumped it in the bed of my truck, I took a last look around for anything I’d missed that I might need. All I picked up was a picture of me, Mom, and Dad in front of the old farmhouse on the farm taken when I graduated from high school. I didn’t need it, but I wanted it.

My second stop was the assisted living home where my mother was staying. I wasn’t about to leave her there with no guarantee that she’d be safe. I tried the local radio stations, both AM and FM on the way. They were broadcasting with generator power and confirmed the blackout was across at least the entire state, but had no explanation for what happened.

As I drove into the drive of Fairlawn Retirement Community, the newsperson said they had unverified information that the entire U S electrical grid was down. Cell phone towers would continue to work until their battery backups failed, so law enforcement was still monitoring the 911 system and responding as quickly as they could.

It might take weeks to find out what really happened if we ever could. With no electricity, it would be impossible to check any servers for any unauthorized entry of any computer control system for manipulation of the control parameters. Since nobody seemed to know the cause, I was putting my money on a cyber attack on the U S electrical grid, and probably the attack had been aimed at damaging as much equipment as possible.

With no electricity, Fairlawn’s intercom system didn’t work so I had to pound on the door for a while before one of the nurses came to the door. Thankfully, she recognized me and let me in. When I found Mom’s room, I didn’t give her a chance to tell me no. I just grabbed all the clothes in her closet and told her we were leaving. All she said was she needed some underwear and shoes too, so I waited until she stuffed them in a suitcase. I wouldn’t have let the nurses stop me from taking Mom out if they’d tried, but they were too busy trying to make sure everybody was in their rooms.

From there, I drove to my bunker and parked my pickup beside the hatch, then helped Mom down the stairs and inside. After a couple trips back to my truck to get her clothes and my other stuff, I parked the truck behind some trees, went to the bunker, and locked the door behind me.

Mom was pretty shaken up.

“Teddy, what happened and why did you drag me out of Fairlawn? The electricity has gone out before. It always comes back on in a day or two at most. At least at Fairlawn I’d have been warm. It’s like a refrigerator in here.”

As I built a fire in the stove, I tried to explain what I thought had happened and why I wanted her here with me.

“Mom, you heard the radio. It’s not just this area or even just South Dakota. It’s the whole U S. My best guess is somebody hacked into the U S electrical grid and shut it down. The grid and other businesses have been hacked before, just not on this large a scale. There was even a nuclear power plant in Kansas that was hacked in 2017. It’s also happened in South Korea, India, and Germany. In the Kansas plant, the FBI said it looked like the hackers were mapping the computer systems in preparation for another attack. I think this was that attack.

"If the whole grid is down like they’re saying, the U S will basically come to a screeching halt, because nothing will work. Factories won’t be able to make anything, including food. Trucking companies won’t be able to dispatch trucks or re-fuel them. Warehouses won’t know what inventory they have or where it is. You won’t even be able to pay for something a store has and you need because the cash registers won’t work.

"What that means is people who need food will be breaking into anyplace that has food. Other people will be waiting to take that food from them. People who are cold will be trying to find someplace with heat that still works and they’ll break in if they have to.”

I put my hand on her shoulder so she’d know I was serious.

“Mom, I really, really hope I’m overreacting, but what I’m talking about is riots in the streets and nobody there will be safe. Here, I have enough food to keep us going for at least a couple years, I can keep you warm, and nobody can break in here. That’s why I dragged you out of Fairlawn. Please don’t be mad at me.”

Mom looked up and smiled.

“I’m not mad at you Ted. Your dad would have done the same thing in this situation. He’d be proud that you did.

"So, what do you do down here for entertainment? I guess I won’t be playing Hearts with the girls for at least a while.”

Settling In.

I gave Mom the bedroom and I slept on the fold-out couch. After I cooked a couple of meals, Mom laughed and said she hadn’t done a very good job in teaching me. I had to admit her meals were a lot better than mine. At night, we’d read or just talk. We hadn’t just talked for a long time.

I guess that’s what happens when your parents are close enough you see them a lot. You tend to talk about the small stuff instead of what’s really important. I found out more about Mom and Dad and their relationship than I’d ever even suspected.

I’d always thought Mom was a prim and proper housewife who lived for her husband and me. Well, she was that, but apparently not before I was born. She was waiting tables in a bar when Dad and a couple of his friends walked in and sat down at one of her tables. Dad took one look at her and said, “Honey, what time do you get off?”

Mom laughed then and said he only looked at her because she was only half dressed at the time.

“I knew guys liked to see boobs and long legs and I had both so I dressed to show them off. They got me a lot of tips. They also got me your Dad, though I didn’t know it at the time. He said he had a little ranch and he’d teach me to ride a horse if I’d come out. Well, I did, and he did teach me. I moved in with him two months later, just to try things out. After another three months, we decided we fit together pretty good, so we got married.”

Apparently, their first years had been a struggle. Cattle prices were down so Dad went to work at a sawmill so they’d have enough money to eat. Mom told me some of the ways she stretched the food budget, ways I hadn’t thought of but proved to be useful as time went on.

Every day for the first week, I’d crank up my radio and go outside to see if anything had changed. The only thing that had changed was the radio stations had evidently used up their generator fuel supply because none of them were broadcasting. I did tune in a couple of ham radio operators every day. They didn’t know anything more than I did, but they confirmed the entire U S was affected as well as at least some of the European Union. They were able to transmit only because they had solar panel arrays and battery packs.

I also watched the sky in the direction of the base. In addition to housing the 28th Bomb Wing, Ellsworth AFB was a training center for B 1 B bomber crews. All training flights had been cancelled for the holidays, but now that it was January, there should have been at least one or two flights a day. I didn’t see anything in the sky except two turkey vultures and one bald eagle. If the training flights weren’t taking place, the base wasn’t up and running, and that probably meant nothing else was either.

At night, I noticed another thing. My bunker was about twenty miles from Rapid City, but on the nights I’d stayed there, I could see the lights of the city reflected by any clouds in the sky. I hadn’t seen that since the power went out, so Rapid City and Ellsworth were still in the dark. I decided I needed to find out for sure.

It was a Tuesday morning, if I remember right, when I told Mom what I was going to do.

“I’m going to drive over to the base and see what’s going on. Don’t worry. I’m not going to take any chances. I’m just going to drive close enough to the main gate to see if anybody’s going in or out. If things look OK, I’ll take you back to Fairlawn. If not, well, at least we’ll know.

"Now, I showed you how to lock the deadbolts on the door. Lock them all when I leave. When I come back, I’ll tap on the door three times, wait for two seconds, and then tap two more times. If you don’t hear that, don’t open the door.”

I strapped the 3 57 Mag on my belt and left. When I was outside, I waited until I heard each bolt slide. Ten minutes later I was on the county road and headed toward Ellsworth.

National Emergency.

I got within a block of the main gate at Ellsworth and it was worse than I thought it might be. Before, the main gate was always open and guarded by two guards with M-4 rifles from the 28th Security Squadron. If you had a sticker on your windshield, they’d salute you as you drove through. If you didn’t they’d stop you and ask why you wanted on base. If your name was on the access list for the day, they let you through. If it wasn’t they’d ask for the name of the person you were going to contact. They’d phone that person and ask if you had a legitimate appointment. If you did, they’d apologize for the inconvenience and let you through. If not, they’d respectfully tell you they couldn’t let you on base and show you where you could turn around.

That day, I counted ten guards with M-4’s, three standing in front of the closed gate and the rest behind sandbags on each side of the entrance drive. When I looked closer, there was a machine gun with crew on each side as well.

I didn’t try to drive in. I’d seen enough to know that Ellsworth was in a maximum security scenario. Instead, I turned down the street before the gate and then drove to Fairlawn because I knew Mom would want to know if everything was all right there. Along the way I passed several gas stations and stores that were all closed. A couple of the grocery stores had plywood screwed over the windows.

Because of that, I decided not to tell Mom about