A Preppers Perspective

A Preppers Perspective-2

It was always cheaper to

take a flight out of Atlanta versus starting out in Montgomery, so

many people would op to pay 50 dollars for a ticket on a shuttle

van which made the trip every few hours between the two cities. He

was in luck and a van was in the service area and would be

returning to Montgomery shortly, so he paid the cabbie off and

bought himself a shuttle bus ticket for a quicker more comfortable

ride home.

A ride home that wasn’t

going to stop at every little town along the way like the Greyhound

bus does and it appeared it would be just him and the driver for

this return trip.

While Dennis was waiting he

and the driver speculated on what could have possibly happened to

the power. It wasn’t until the driver tried to call back to talk to

his home base that Dennis got a sinking but knowing feeling in the

pit of his stomach that said something more than a local blackout

was going on. Either a coronal mass ejection had gone off or a

nuclear EMP had been exploded somewhere.

“The damn sirens would be

going off it was nuke, there were hardened warning communication

systems and underground wiring for that. But were the damned sirens

themselves dependant on the electric grid? Dennis didn’t know the

answer to that and began to get panicky and check the sky for a

mushroom cloud or something.”

The driver looked at him

suspiciously as he began to frantically look all around seeking

some kind of answer to what was going on.

“You are looking up there

in the sky for something in particular?” Bert asked trying to keep

one eye on Dennis and have a look at the sky himself.

“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. I ain`t going to be staying around here

waiting around for her any longer. 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 warning about the evidence of a nuclear

EMP strike come in on Bert’s radio. The 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 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 freezer 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*****e 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 for a few seasons. He had planted a small orchard a

couple tears ago and his land and the adjoining acreages woods had

lots of wild edibles and game 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 thought 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 tell or predict weather by, 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, so he just played along

and tried to calmly wait

.

“We will be going to your

place in a few days Dennis. We have got to close 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 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 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 any time 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 that 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 so I

would give it another week or so left if they possibly 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 stay 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 so I guess the

main purification plants are already down. We still got natural gas

to cook with, which reminds me we are light on charcoal but I would

rather 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 got more than we can eat and that ice we

got in the freezer is melting fast.” Dennis said thinking about the

upright freezer he had wrapped in blankets for

insulation.