Week 1 (d)
The new government center had been constructed within the last decade with federal money ponied up to take advantage of green energy initiatives in geothermal... not that that actually worked that well since as it turned out the design was woefully insufficent for dealing with summer heat in the south... which would have been the problem that he'd have normally been focusing on.... was the inevitable oops something failed in the new system... which was his usual double duty. The Sheriff's department had complained about running dispatch through the government center, but they'd wanted that federal funding for upgrades too... they shouldn't have acted like it had been just the city.
Not that city or county asked his two cents.
He had been getting run ragged since Monday... really since Sunday, but they'd wanted to do, news broadcasts that were largely impromptu speeches while people were shouting, and carrying on. As the head of the local office of the state's emergency management he didn't actually report to the mayor, or the executive of the county, and he certainly didn't report to any single member of the state legislature. It was a mostly academic point though. He was five six and all pointdexter. He was not configured to the take charge and start barking orders to people... and that wasn't what his job was. His job was to proffer advice, and make recommendations, which was the opposite of what local governments wanted, they wanted him to pick a side.
The problem with all of the scenarios his office had on hand were about dealing with mundane things like hurricanes. Oh sure there were some copies of the what to do in the event of nuclear war... that had probably been last updated before the Berlin wall had fell, and there were some more modern outlandish things like dirty bombs, but nothing about being transported into the past. Never mind what to do in the event of a war.
That wasn't to say all of the scenarios had been completely useless. Plans for forest fires useful, as were the ones for major disruption of civil services, and how they related to natural gas mains and safety. That had been what most of his people had been working out with the local gas company about how to go about it.
He had given the best advise he could give given the information he had available. The situation did seem very bleak. Without modern necessities society was going to break down. Even with national aid Hurricane Katrina had failed because at every level beginning at the local one there hadn't been a plan, and without local roots the state had had nothing to build off of, and the national program had clumsily attempted to wing it after they'd finally been given the go ahead. By that point the damage had been done. On the plus side they weren't dealing with a hurricane, on the downside they didn't have any kind of higher level aid to come. Most of his recommendations were based off of emergency management guidelines, that presupposed outside help, in the short term they needed to keep people fed and safe. They were sheltering in place, because there was no where to evacuate to, and there was no immediate danger structurally speaking.
In Katrina of course with safer grounds to run to those with the means had done so. The result had been that wide swathes of emergency services had hightailed it out of there with their families before the mandatory evacuation orders by the state had even been considered. That had in turn led to uncontrolled looting, and only compounded other mistakes by the city of New Orleans even after the National Guard had arrived. Everyone here was stuck here, and at home... just without electricity.
If they had been at home in the heat of the south he'd have put more priority on the city civic center getting power back. That way with power to it people could have escaped the heat and sheltered there during hottest parts of the day. Given it was barely seventy degrees outside right now, and cloudy at that, he didn't think summer heat was going to be all that much of a problem. Winter on the other hand... months down the road if they got there... was a terrifying prospect. That would still have been getting ahead of themselves though.
Part of the problem with everything was that most of the large public structures, in contrast to the building, weren't new enough to have been constructed with renewable energy in mind to take load off the grid. The University system had a few on geothermal, and solar. Those were purely supplementary though the University had basically had to cut off its air conditioning because the power requirements for their usual cooling was out of the question in their situation. They apparently did have enough power to run lights, and the computer labs though. Their cafeteria might be the best option for a food kitchen, but right now the university administration was trying to carefully stradle the line between city and county government not wanting to alienate either when it was unclear who was going to end up in charge if they even did manage to figure something out. It didn't help that the univeristy was one of the city's major employers... it wasn't inaccurate to call it a college town... and then on top of that there were a lot of young people here because of the university, or the community college.
That was what... part of what still put government still up in the air of course. He wished they would figure something out, but until they did he could only give advice, and hoped he was making the right suggestions, and that they listened to them.
They had been here ... here ... for a few days now, and people were struggling to make sense of it all, and most people weren't going to good of a job at it. All of the material in his office talked about fundamental basics, but presupposed certain things. Things that everyone took for granted that had now been stripped away. That was made even worse by apparently being surrounded by bloodthirsty savages.
He leaned back into his plush office chair and sagged into the cushions. They had the police for the time being they'd be able to put them at any food kitchen... but given the guys who had attacked them had had guns... okay primitive guns... they were going to have to put them... on the border, which was a really odd notion to contend with. That hadn't really been a FEMA planning topic except jokingly when it came to interacting with the Federal agency... and none of their supervisors had found it very funny so they had had to stop talking about it. He'd never actually thought they'd be invaded... but it wasn't really an invasion.
They weren't in America anymore. There wasn't really an America anymore. Pretending otherwise when they'd been wrenched to who knew when, what was in allegedly Germany. He wanted to curl up under his desk and hide... but thankfully there was enough order he could afford to work without worrying someone might try and hack him into pieces for fun. So no national guard was coming, and he really hoped that the arguments between everyone would chill out.
He looked mournfully at his phone. He regretted that there was no internet, and that the increasing sophistication of the cell phone had largely rendered obsolete mp 3 players... never mind the walkman he'd had back in the nineties. He needed the upbeat rock music to cheer him up, or he was never going to get through all the hard copies of 'what to do in emergencies' that he had piled in front of him.
He also wanted coffee, and then tossed the guidelines for 'social media during emergencies' into a corner... that wasn't going to help him given they had no facebook. He knew now that he'd thought about it he might as well go get some... coffee that was. It wasn't even noon even... he had had coffee with breakfast. He got up and trudged to the break room, as he considered what all had happened at the 'meeting'.
It wasn't like Martial law had been a terrible idea... a wildly impractical one with their manpower sure, but the idea itself wasn't bad. A curfew at least... that was just sensible. Unfortunately people were already throwing sense out the window... and while they hadn't been writhing in panic they had been ready to argue vehemently over small details. So far it seemed like the whole county had come along, and it had happened on a weekend so the workforce who would have been here from neighboring counties wasn't... which really would have been useful to them now.
The City had no interest in listening to the county administrator. The council had no interest in taking orders from the mayor of the county seat. The police chief and the sheriff had nearly come to blows with one another. The latter hadn't even made sense to Patrick Huff, but as a much shorter and pudgier man in glasses he had shut up and let them argue. So had most people It had taken the former sheriff to calm his successor down, and then a ten minute recess turning into a twenty minute one to get everyone calmed down enough to actually start talking about anything productive... and they... all they had by the end of the meeting were ideas. Most of them weren't even really that great ideas... just simple should have been obvious things like the curfew idea that hadn't actually gone into effect until the day after
Patrick Huff looked longingly towards his vice of choice, and groaned. He really didn't look forward to the idea of them running out of caffeine.-
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They had driven over largely in silence. The radio remaining tuned to the emergency broadcast channel... but truthfully they had harris radios handy and expected if something happened t would be through those that word would come first. Walter's SCAR 17 had its suppressor on it, but was racked in the seat space between, along with an also suppressed HK.
He doubted they would need the rifles.
Oliver couldn't make it, which would slow down moving stuff. Maybourne popped his trunk door, "I appreciate this man." It was wet Wednesday morning. Mayboure had a clean set of olive drab pants, and a matching Massif shirt. Over laid with his plate carrier, and his other gear. He'd gotten time off to do this, which was a little surprising actually.
"Not a thing." The man replied stepping out of the driver's side of the trunk, "And you have a giant shoot me first sign on you."
Maybourne rolled his eyes, "Fuck don't I always." He crossed in front of the truck, "Come on Mary's at her office talking with the partners. Her mom has the kids." The deputy's house was a little under four thousand square feet. Five bedrooms, five baths, two stories... built before the housing bubble went under. The backyard was fenced, and not in a way that practical to drive into the backyard. At least there wasn't a basement. "You think we can move the safe?"
"I want Oliver here for that, maybe two other guys, like how we brought it in." The last thing he wanted was a sixty gun safe being dropped on anyone's toes never mind for it to tip over.
"Yes sir." Maybourne grunted opening the gate to the back. "We'll start with the storage building, and then I guess the pantry." Maybourne's lot was a bit under an acre and a half. It was a picturesque yard, and basically ideal suburban property. Blame the HOA, for that of course Maybourne had joked often enough. "My boy is going to go crazy without the Playstation." He unlocked the storage building, and gestured around. "Its three months worth of food. We can pack up my reloading press. The ammo." He continued talking as they walked.
Loading took, nearly two hours with just the two men. The drive was... eerie in that they were the only car on the road.
Victor Lucius Gunther lived on more rural portion of the county. They hadn't exactly worked out the elevation differential, not for sure, but he was certain they were no longer two hundred meters above sea level. They were definitely higher than the surrounding European land mass, but certainly not by the difference in home and here were. Whatever the differential was he was going to be worried when the rain came in... washouts and floods and mudslides besides.
Acreage spread out before them. Mostly untilled. Part of it was woodlands that his uncle Vince had allowed, starting in the late eighties, sections of to be cut for timber most of the farmland was fallow kept cut by a tractor with a bushhog attachment, and scraped down even over winter, and occasionally seeded with winter wheat. Mostly to draw deer in to fatten them up for hunting season, "Bet you wish you'd planted more this year." Walt grunted leaning to watch the birds fly.
"Not really."
"What?" Maybourne bug eyed him as if the reply had declared the sky was in fact purple.
"Gas, fertilizer, nitrogen treatment, pesticides, I'm not used to handling much more than this. I certainly wouldn't be ready to deal with it on top of everything else thats going on." The ranch style fencing was multi layered most freestanding rectangles that didn't connect to the others. "I doubt I have storage space, and even if I did that still wouldn't address gas to actually handle harvesting, or water for irrgation. Getting right down to it, we can sell seed stock to the locals, but we're gonna need to buy their produce."
Maybourne nodded, "Didn't think of that." He stopped, "Wait your house is on a deep well how would water be an issue?"
His friend shoved a long bony finger out towards the fallow patch, "I don't have anything to irrigate those untended fields, the well is drilled right by the house. I also haven't checked the creek yet either, but it might go dry if its not connected to a source. The dam stops the lake from draining down river , but that's probably why town doesn't have power." or more accurately why it was having power problems.
"Shit." Maybourne snarled. "The fucking idiots in city." He glanced sideways, punched his steering wheel; lightly. "Come on those assholes are why we lose wars. You know it. People like them." He looked like he wanted to punch the door, "boss my kids weren't in Afghanistan with me when they were shooting at us."
He turned the truck off, and stepped off, "Its not like I don't have room." It wasn't a plantation house per se. It was too 'new' to be from that period, but it was old and huge in comparison more modern construction, on the outside anyway, at three stories, brick, and three fireplaces it hadn't been built with modern HVAC in mind, and the rooms for sleeping space were smaller than modern norms for housing construction. "The lakehouse also came."
"Its on propane too isn't it?"
"Yes."
He laughed at the succinct replied, "Nice." He wanted to say something more about that... but wasn't sure how the lake was going to work out. There were fish in it... but...
"I was going to let Tony rent it if he decided to move back here," Maybourne nodded, his wife had been trying to convince Luke to sell the place to her firm since it had come into his possession, and he had moved back to town.
He laughed, "Don't let Mary know you were gonna that." He got out and leaned against his back against the truck and sunk down, thumping his head back, "Shit. So much for hanging out there with the kids this summer. So if the waterways are fucked up boss, what do we do?" Both men abruptly snapped towards the road at the approaching car. The oddity of the noise compared to their previous isolation. Maybourne started to relax as the black BMW convertible came there way, only to stop when the narrowed slits of his friend's eyes became apparent. He'd known that there had been bad blood. It wasn't like the property division had been some kind of surprise. There ways you could get around death taxes if you had time to put it in writing. "Boss?" He asked.
"Lets see what he wants." It was amazing how people you least wanted to see tended to turn up when they had problems, and likely expected all previous issues to be dropped without a word. If that was true normally the veritable end of life as people new it certainly held to that.
Walter made the distinction between the two men pretty easily, family resemblance aside it was the musculature difference really, though the differing tans gave a little contrast to how they looked. There had been less difference in high school, where the two Gunthers had been on different sports, different classes different clubs, but still in the same age bracket. Charles Alexander shared all the usual family traits. High cheekbones, long ish face.
Tony was standing there on the railing of the deck watching them. "Whats up?"
"Lets not move anything off the truck until after he leaves yeah?"
"What if your cousin doesn't want to leave?" Walter shot back.
Viktor grunted conceding that point as he left the rifle racked in the center. This was a different sort of fight.... and probably an opportunity. "Charles."
There ws a crack about using the end of the world as nopportunity to get the gang from high school back together... it wasn't like that.
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Notes: looking at my original outline because of course this is both an old story, and its tied up, and disorganized across a collection of sub folders on an old computer. The original plan was for Chapter 2 to be just Monday after the ring of fire, and then Chapter 3 to be through out the week 1 of the event.
What will happen is that there will be a second engagement with a scouting party, before we move into machine parts, and metal fabrication down time. I should clarify that in American Vernacular, a civics center is a combination public venue, hockey rink in door soccer stadium presentation concert hall large building its not a 'government/administration building' They were enerally built to have emergency shelters since they proliferated during the cold war but most major government funded buildings (post offices, primary schools, and such were required, I think banks also were required to have fallout shelters if they were constructed in certain zoning areas, transportation hubs as well IIRC)
