Day 14: Morning
Awfully bright for me to just be waking up. I hear the wind-up wall clock striking…
That's eight strikes. I haven't slept through the alarm in years. What does the little battery-powered alarm clock show? 8:02AM and the "Alarm" indicator is on but it apparently made no sound. What does my phone… It's off and doesn't respond to the power button being held down. The phone's battery was at 83% when I went to bed so - lightning, solar flare/CME or EMP? Neither of these was near any wiring, so probably not lightning. Failure or partial failure of two electronic devices could be either solar activity or EMP related. I should check the things in the Faraday cage in the basement.
There's a duplicate of the little clock down here. Fresh AA battery and it displays "12:00". Set the time from my self-winding watch, now 8:23AM. Set the alarm for 8:45 and turn that ON to see if it works. Get out one of the cheap cell phones, install a recently charged battery and the screen lights up. Take these upstairs, put the clock in the bedroom and then see if the phone finds service. Very slow about finding service and not nearly the usual number of bars. Either the nearest cell tower has damage or it's down and I'm barely getting to the tower maybe two miles from here. Move over to a window on that side of the house and I have another bar - two more bars if I hold the phone in a specific place, with repeats of that signal level at spacings that would be one wavelength at 900MHz (about 13 inches). I'm on the more distant tower so the EMP or CME or whatever was strongest near the closest tower and less strong but still somewhat damaging here but not obviously damaging two miles farther out. Will other electronics have been damaged and will that depend on where they are in the house? Back to the basement to check the backup power.
The solar panels are producing very little power but that's typical at this hour and it's about the same as this time yesterday. Nice to have analog meters in addition to the digital monitors on some of these things. The laptop monitoring the charge controllers is still working. Did the brick-over-concrete-filled-concrete-block wall behind it block more of the pulse than the single layer of brick did on the upper levels? The charge controllers are OK as are the USB-RS485 monitor links between the laptop and the controllers. The inverter is producing 122 volts and the Kill-A-Watt says 130 watts - the watts tell me the upright freezer is running plus a circulating fan or two in the fridge/freezer plus the one LED light over the kitchen counter that serves as a nightlight for most of the main level. Looks like the added copper screening plus inductive and capacitive filtering (and the #6 ground wire for that screening and filtering) on the wiring to and from the inverter and the controllers were adequate to protect them. Need to go turn that light off and wake my better half. I should put some water on to heat for her morning coffee and my tea, plus whatever warm beverages the kids may want. Do that on my way to the bedroom. After I wake her, I'll see if I can get through to Tom for a status report.
"Good morning, love."
"Unusual for you to be awake and me not hear the alarm."
"The alarm didn't go off and my cell phone is dead…"
"EMP or CME?"
"Don't know yet, just that our nearest cell tower, the one to the East, is down but the one to the West is still up."
"Burner phone from the Faraday cage?"
"Yes. One of several Tracfones purchased at WalMart on Black Friday for less than $20 each. It does find adequate signal near a window on the West side. Water is on for warm beverages and I expect the others to be awake when they hear or smell breakfast in progress. I didn't think anyone would complain of a little extra sleep before getting bad news."
"No complaints from me. I'll go start the sounds and smells of breakfast while you try to contact Tom because I can see your finger itching to start dialing."
"You are correct."
Beep!Beep! Beep!Beep!
"And that clock?"
"The replacement I brought up from the basement and it did go off at 8:45 so we're covered until the next problem."
---
Be nice if the "Your call cannot be completed as dialed" messages still had the audible area code tag, such as "901, 2" so I'd know which area code and switching office the call is failing in. Can't reach Tom's number in the 202 area code at the moment, so let's try the numbers for the other SIM cards in his phone. The 470 number gets the same message so try the 303 number as the last resort.
'This is Baxter. How did you get this number?'
'You gave it to me when you got that new phone…'
'Jack? You're OK?'
'Lost a battery powered alarm clock and my cell phone but this cheap phone from a Black Friday sale was in a safe place and the solar backup power is still working.'
'Series of small nukes in LA, Seattle, Detroit, Boston and Atlanta…'
'That explains the cell tower to the East being down with the more distant one to the West being up and things more exposed to the windows on the East side being affected. Seems we're just at the edge of the EMP.'
'All the bombs were relatively small but were detonated in a Cessna 180 at 5000 feet so each had an appreciable EMP footprint. Have you checked for internet or other access?' ***
'Not yet. I was awakened by the light in the room around 8AM so I woke up rested this morning and just checked the essentials before calling you. How much of the grid did we lose?'
'Not as much as we might lose in the next few hours. Not all the people involved in the plot understand how the US time zones work - the bomb they found in St. Louis was set for 9:30AM CDT - so their 6:30AM EDT "synchronized" detonations haven't all happened and we've scrambled fighters to destroy any small aircraft that does not have a human pilot or that has a human pilot who does not respond when challenged. We're probably running out of time in the Central time zone as it's about 9AM there but we might have better luck in Mountain and Pacific. The "Immediate Grounding" directive from the FAA should get all the good guys on the ground in those two zones before the deadline.'
'I plan to sit this one out. There is nothing I can do or tell you that can't be accomplished from here.'
'You're right. If we need face-to-face or high speed data, I can send a comms truck.'
'Be sure it's armed and brings its own power. I would expect the surges associated with the Atlanta nuke to have shut down much of the grid in the Southeast, at least temporarily.'
'That's the reports we're getting. The ballpark numbers are possibly major EMP damage within 50 miles of the detonation but minimal damage to things 90 miles or more away but the 5000 foot altitude was what was planned and we don't know exactly how high the plane was. The quick and dirty math is to add another six miles to the footprint for each 1000 feet above 5000 and subtract six miles for each 1000 feet below it. Expect things outside at that distance to not have fared as well as those inside a brick or concrete structure.'
'The solar panels and controllers all seem to be running at the same levels as this time yesterday. I'll check the outside security lighting after dark. I do have replacements for most of it.'
'As I expected. I'm sure I'll have questions for you. Check your internet access and text me back.'
'Will do.'
'Very glad you're alive.'
'Me too. And so is my wife.'
'Later.'
---
"I saw the light was on in the kitchen and the fridge is still cold. Anything else we need to check?"
"Whether we have any type of internet access. Without commercial power, I don't expect Uverse to be up and I don't remember how much data I put on this phone. That's easy enough to check with a half dozen taps."
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
"Says 2GB but maybe their server is up for purchases and I can increase that. Not great with only 6GB free space, but I can save things to a thumb drive or use the wireless network to move that data off the phone and to my laptop as needed. Now to power up the Uverse router and see whether it finds a connection."
"And?"
"Looks like it's trying but there's nothing at the other end. I'll bring up the phone line monitor and set it up."
Ten minutes later, the Uverse router is still trying for a connection but there's no response from the fiber terminal out here. AT&T never did fix their backup power problem with the high speed internet in this area. Text Tom that the phone is my only internet access, he can send things to my email address, the total file size will be limited to 1.8GB until I add to the data plan IF I can add to it now (tell him 1.8 just to have a cushion). Text is sent.
Bzzt!Bzzt!
Text response already?
[This number has unlimited talk, text and data for the next year and that is transferable if you change phones. Will keep individual files below 2GB for easier management on phone. Leave it on charge as it will be working hard for the next few hours.]
What is he sending me?
---
"Dad, how much longer will recovery of the grid take?"
"An unknown amount of time, Sarah, but probably more than a year at each location that received - or maybe will receive - a nuclear detonation. Reliable sources say up to 20 nukes are available. They captured one and the pilot at a small private field near St. Louis. With the five detonations, that leaves 14 unaccounted for. You know that every nuked location will be lobbying to be first in line for recovery and that's a total political quagmire. If someone asks me, I'll want to know what each location produces that is needed for keeping people fed and clothed. Microsoft may be big business in Redmond, Washington and therefore in Seattle but we don't need next year's version of office software or a flight simulator to provide food and clothing. Starbucks is a luxury provider, not a meat and potatoes provider so they aren't important in the big picture of my recovery plan. And add another 10 or 20% for each additional nuke that goes off because that will be an increase in the amount of equipment needed and the number of people required to make repairs. And some of the areas needing repair may be too hot for human entry for weeks, months or years. That will depend on how big the nuke was and how close to the ground it was. There is also fallout to deal with for those East or Northeast of the detonation sites, depending on today's winds."
"Are we OK here?"
"Best I can extrapolate from what Tom told me, we are. Not so much for your sibling up North."
"Possible fallout from LA and from maybe three other cities if they're on the to-be-nuked list."
"Correct. I don't know that they could get here now if they had been packed and ready to leave when the first nuke went off. Speaking of getting here. General Baxter's wife and their teenage son and daughter are on their way. There's room in the bunkhouse and they'll be bringing food for several months. I may have to use the water pipeline you kids helped me install..."
"From that hill at the end of the road?"
"Yes. It may need to be back in service to bring water from the spring directly to us and not be getting it out of the creek after it's picked up that high mineral content from running over the ground."
"We'll be doing the cliff climbing things?"
"First we go to the spring itself and open the valve that feeds that pipe and then we check for leaks. If no leaks or only pinhole leaks, we'll use it as-is. If bigger leaks, I have more than 2000 feet of potable water hose that we might be able to thread down through that pipe. The pipe is inch and a half and the fittings on the hose are 3/4 of an inch so they should fit through because all the turns are gradual. Beats hanging from a rope and replacing a section of ABS pipe."
"Worth a try. We let the water trickle through the pipe for lubrication?"
"Correct. If all goes well, it should be finished in one day. We'll wait for them to get here before we start. They need to know that they'll be working to eat anything fresh."
"Can we make the garden bigger?"
"If we put the slats in the chainlink portion of the fence to block everyone's view of what's behind the house. Just as with the garden next door, people shouldn't be able to see that we're growing food and that will probably be a security item for the next year or two."
"Two years, Jack?"
"At least, love. Some of the original electrical equipment may have been made in South Korea or possibly even China. There can be a lead time of three months to a year or more on some of the big transformers and switchgear and then several weeks at sea plus truck time from the receiving port to the destination. If the original equipment location is too hot to work in, they'll be starting from scratch designing a new facility and planning how to get the lines in and out of there. Some of that can be done while waiting on replacement items but new high voltage distribution lines will require new right-of-way and all new construction of a portion of those lines. Some of this can only be planned after the nuke teams check the areas for radiation levels and determine when or if it will be safe to work there."
"So where do those people live or work while there is no power?"
"Living at a Red Cross camp or in tents at a military facility? Perhaps not working unless they already telecommute, have their laptop and the camp provides wifi? The company they worked for might be too hot to retrieve records from, even the backups in the basement storeroom."
"What about us getting power back?"
"I think all the viable generating installations will be running at maximum output to make up for some of the lost capacity. The plant nearest us, the Millers Ferry hydro plant, is about 100 air miles away and more likely to be in the mix for providing power to us than to the metro Atlanta area. I think it's reasonable to assume that the nuke in Atlanta damaged Plant McDonough which used three combined cycle gas turbines **** to produce 2520 megawatts of power. The 90 megawatts Millers Ferry can produce is 4% of that and literally a drop in the bucket of what would be needed - if the water level was high enough to support that level of power. I think Harry said the current water level might support 10MW but that's not worth reconfiguring the high voltage lines to get it to Atlanta. My first guess is Atlanta would try to get some power from TVA, some from the nuclear plant near Dothan, Alabama and some from a nuclear plant in South Carolina but other outages could change that greatly and some areas could be on rolling blackouts with power on four hours and off eight or whatever can be provided by the available generating plants."
"Not much better than we are."
"We don't have unlimited power but we do know how much power we have on an on-going basis. That's probably better than being on rolling blackouts and never knowing exactly when the power will go off or come back on and having zero power during the off time."
"You said there were 14 nukes not accounted for?"
"The last I heard from Tom. I think he'd be sending me updates on that along with whatever huge downloads he has queued - he said to keep the phone on charge because it would be 'working hard for the next few hours'…"
Bzzt!Bzzt!
"A text. From Tom."
[Found 11 nukes in time. One hit Hoover Dam. It's toast, as is everything downstream and anyone relying on controlled release of water from Lake Mead (18 million people and over a million acres of farmland). One hit Grand Coulee. Between the two dams, that's a loss of 8,889MW of electrical production. The Southwest US will be returning to desert; not sure how badly the Pacific Northwest will be affected. Might have that info tomorrow. An A10 is in pursuit of the last Cessna which is headed West from San Diego. We would prefer to have the nuke on dry land and recoverable but will accept it being in water less than 500 feet deep and easily recoverable, or greater than 2500 feet deep and unlikely to be a problem. More later.]
"So no fruits and veggies from California for a while?"
"Very long while, love. It's possible that both dam areas will be too radioactive to work in for years. No dam means no reliable source of water for people or crops and it means no electricity for a long time. The combined loss of power and water means what was once desert in Nevada, Arizona, California and elsewhere will rapidly become desert again. Many of those people have nowhere to go and, once any surviving crops are harvested this month, they'll have no local sources of food. With no flood control on the Colorado River, the area downstream of the dam is no longer prime real estate for anything and I expect we'll see video of the flood as it happened - a wall of water that scoured the land of just about everything in its path. Some of that video will include cameras being washed away - and maybe their operators included."
"It's already over?"
"All but a little rescue and lot of body recovery work. A wall of water that big would be moving very fast so it's already reached level ground and spread out to make mud."
Bzzt!Bzzt!
"Tom again."
[DefCon officially at 1. Chinese ships spotted by the A10 chasing the Cessna. The A10 pilot used his machineguns to put the Cessna down on one of their carriers and the final second of his video is a nuclear fireball. Satellite images show what has to be the carrier sinking plus several other vessels damaged. Round one of open warfare in WWIII has the US losing one plane and one pilot and China losing perhaps 7 ships and thousands of sailors and that done with one of China's own nukes. Their first offensive naval encounter is not off to a promising start. Detailed damage to their fleet not confirmed but better surveillance on its way. All active and reserve military called up. You know what this does to grid repair plans.]
"Jack, what does he mean about the repair plans?"
"Will, grid repair priority goes to whatever the military needs. Military facilities will get commercial power 24/7 as long as possible even if civilian power is four hours a day - maybe less. Most military facilities have extended self-power capabilities but they'll not do that unless they either can't get commercial power or need to be in total lockdown."
"The nuked cities are a lost cause."
"Very possibly. The most qualified nuke recovery people are military because they've been preparing for a nuclear war since at least 1945. All the old Civil Defense equipment and supplies are gone, almost no one has a radiation meter of any type and the nuke trained people are few and far between. While I had the training as part of my nuclear power responsibilities, I have a very small stock of equipment and protective clothing."
"What about all the injured?"
"How will the first responders get to them or help them with anything more than bandages? We're well beyond the estimated edge of the Atlanta detonation's EMP 'footprint' as Tom called it but my cell phone is dead. Tom said major EMP damage within 50 miles which means vehicles newer than perhaps 1960 don't run, radios don't work, LED lighting doesn't work and on and on. Heart attack? Sorry but the defibrillator doesn't work. Blood pressure problem? Sorry, we only have the digital gauges and they don't work. Broken bone? We can get you to the hospital in this wheelbarrow but the Xrays are done electronically and they don't work. Internal bleeding? MRI and CT scan don't work so we must do exploratory surgery but the anesthesia machine is electronic and it doesn't work. That's not a problem though, as the pain of the first cut or two will cause you to pass out and then you won't feel anything until you wake up. Blood transfusion? If you know your blood type we can do that but if you don't know, that testing is electronic and we can't do it therefore we can't do a transfusion because the wrong blood type will kill you so we hope you don't bleed out on the operating table. But we need to operate in the next 12 hours because we no longer have refrigeration for the blood. And we're operating by the light of old flashlights from the maintenance department because the generator doesn't work either. And if the heat is a problem for you, we can't fix that because air conditioning needs power that we don't have and the controls are electronic."
"Massive die off in the nuked cities."
"Correct. And few, if any, willing to risk the radiation to bring those bodies out for burial. If they do risk it, they also get to be buried. If they don't, you'll be feeding the rats and the loose dogs and you could have other diseases running rampant."
"That's horrible!"
"That's war, Sarah. 'War is hell' is a very good description. As of right now, I want everyone armed all the time. If you take a shower, you have a weapon you can reach. When you're asleep, you have a weapon you can reach. If you answer the door or go outside, you wear a Kevlar vest. If you go outside, you check the cameras before you open a door and you do NOT go out alone. I think it's appropriate to say that we are in a SHTF situation created by an elephant in a wind tunnel. There should have been a Presidential message about the possibility of the nukes but there was no alert on the weather radio. That makes me suspicious of the circumstances and anyone who comes to the door and says 'I'm from the government and you must…' may very well end up as hog feed."
"What hogs?"
"The ones on the next road over. That's where the 'Boy, but that's good!' bacon came from."
"What else should we be doing?"
"I have two copies of Cresson H. Kearny's book 'Nuclear War Survival Skills'. I'm reasonably sure Will has never read it and Sarah hasn't in a number of years. Plan to spend time reading it today and I'll also be finding related work for you to do."
"Appropriate that it has a red cover."
"Will, that was intentional. It comes in green, black and red but if you need to reference something in this book, you probably need it desperately."
"Makes sense. There'll be a test?"
"If you remember enough of it, you might survive."
"Nothing like starting with the proper incentive."
---
Bzzt!Bzzt!
Another text from Tom.
[Cloaked B2 bombers made neutron bomb runs over Beijing and the major Chinese military installations. No immediate response from any of the locations so they didn't see the B2s coming. Doing the same for the remaining at-sea vessels in the Chinese navy. Expected Chinese military and ruling group casualties are greater than 95%. The US did try communicating with the enclave the Chinese High Council goes to during our DefCon 2 and higher but got very little response. Last message sent to them was 'Respond this frequency in 30 minutes or be utterly destroyed'. They still have 11 minutes. Chinese commercial ships all directed to the nearest port or be sunk.]
"So WWIII will be over in one day?"
"The major events may be over in one day, Sarah. I'd expect some sporadic ground-based fighting but some of that will be the factions within the surviving military units. I'd expect us to have a recorded message playing in Chinese on their primary military tactical frequencies, listing the places attacked and the level of death at each place. Also listing the various carrier groups, where they were and the amount of damage done. All Chinese shipping has been directed to the nearest port under threat of sinking if headings not changed."
"How can they know where all those ships are?"
"Satellite surveillance. We can see everything. The newer ships are GPS guided and we can tap into that for current position, speed and heading."
"We can actually get to hundreds of ships?"
"Not quickly, but we're easily in range of the first 30 ships. Would you want to bet your life on where your vessel was in that list?"
"And probably most of them don't want to either."
"Which means we just watch for the outliers and plan to take them out."
"'Neutron bombs'? The ones that kill people but don't destroy things or create fallout?"
"Correct, Will. We could move people into some of the factories and restart production as soon as the bodies are removed. Any factory producing high power electrical distribution equipment could be repurposed to produce the things needed to rebuild our power grid. Nothing we can do about the dams at either Hoover or Grand Coulee because those are multi-year projects that will each cost billions or maybe trillions, but the rebuilding in LA, Seattle, Detroit, Boston and Atlanta might be sped up by having production lines dedicated to equipment matching the US standards."
"The people there would build things for us?"
"Would you question the orders of those who destroyed the entrenched regime? And for any surviving leaders, we still have the hole card of taking out the Three Gorges Dam and shutting down much of their manufacturing."
"Do you want to have any economy at all or fall back to a series of feudal states?"
"Correct, love. Any surviving leadership will be forced to convince the people to do things without having the military available in huge numbers to back the leadership up. Best they come up with reasonable things or they will have a popular revolt to deal with."
"The Chinese people know of their attacks on the US?"
"And the details of their 'glorious' first encounter with a single US Air Force pilot who took out a carrier and six other ships with one of China's own bombs. That's a major 'loss of face', plus the other carrier groups now being taken out by neutron bombs and torpedoes. The Chinese craft were left to follow whatever course had been set by their crews. They're being tracked by satellite and will be sunk if they're headed to a place that could cause harm to others but most are scheduled to be taken over by SEALs and brought together near Guam so we can explore their current offensive and defensive technologies."
"Any submarines in those groups?"
"Love, some of the satellite images show two Chinese subs surfaced, so at least two with their missiles and torpedoes."
"North Korea got its weapons from China?"
"Correct. We'll have all the secrets of their fleet as well."
"So the military will be available to work in the nuked cities?"
"A good number of them and they have the proper test gear and protective equipment."
"How soon?"
"Probably a matter of hours and I expect to hear from Tom when that will start."
"So more help than you initially thought?"
"Much more, now that most of our military forces won't be doing feet-on-the-ground in China. Still some high losses in the cities but those bodies will be cleared and the risk of disease greatly reduced."
"Individual burial?"
"Possibly no better than '1600 block of East Main Street' unless there is positive ID on the bodies. Anyone who was asleep was probably far from any ID so the best they can do might be finding out who lived in the area and making the best guess from that info. It's possible that all that survived was dental work of some type and we'd have to identify the dentist to find the xrays, if they survived."
"I think I need a cup of chamomille tea."
"Me too."
---
**** Detonation at 5000 feet would have EMP out 86.6 miles.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_electromagnetic_pulse"The pulse can easily span continent-sized areas, and this radiation can affect systems on land, sea, and air. ... A large device detonated at 400–500 km (250 to 312 miles) over Kansas would affect all of the continental U.S. The signal from such an event extends to the visual horizon as seen from the burst point." Federation of American Scientists. "Nuclear Weapon EMP Effects"
visual horizon distance:
www.ringbell.co.uk/info/hdist.htm****
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle_power_plant