Shenandoah

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Neillsville, Wisconsin

By John Galt

July 30, 2008

Sheriff Mack walked calmly into the Mayor’s office with a hurried manner in his face. Mayor Williams looked at him and asked immediately “What’s wrong Bill?” The Sheriff took his hat off and unzipped his coat while responding “Tom, we’re getting reports that Minneapolis and Chicago just got nuked. No further news as the EAS sounded on the Eau Claire and Stevens Point stations then nothing. Every station on FM and AM were off the air and power is out citywide” The Mayor calmly walked over to his office safe and pulled out the antiquated Civil Defense manual last updated in 1978. Mayor Williams said to the Sheriff “Well, we still have generator power. Break the book open and see what we are supposed to do.” The Sheriff dusted off the thirty-four year old book and just as he unsealed it and opened it up he noticed a crowd of people forming outside the Mayor’s window. “Tom, I had best get out there. Let me know what we are supposed to do next.”

The people of the sleepy Wisconsin town of Neillsville had no idea what was going on. They just knew that their long time Sheriff and two term Mayor would know what to say and do. “Sheriff Mack, what happened? The television warned we were at war and to take cover immediately” a young lady yelled out almost hysterical with fear. The Sheriff calmly said “Then why are you out here exposed to the possible dangers? You need to do what the TV says and we’ll advise you on what to do next when we get more information. Fill up your water jugs and use the plastic sheeting to seal off your windows and doors. We’ll use the squad car to go door to door and let everyone know what is up as soon as we get more information.” Before the next question could be uttered the Sheriff said “Now go home!” in a very stern fashion which caused everyone to disperse.

Then Sheriff Mack walked back into the office somewhat concerned now. “Tom, we need some information and quick. All of our squad car radios are loaded with static and the cell phone system is down. I can not even reach my wife.” Sheriff Mack continued, “I think I’ll send a deputy up to Stevens Point and try to see if they have any information for us. This is getting spooky.” The Mayor nodded while buried in the section of the old Civilian Defense manual about food preservation when he looked up at the Sheriff and said “Bill, we need a satellite or ham radio rig as soon as possible. Do you know if the weather radios downstairs are working?”  The Sheriff shrugged and headed towards the door “I’ll check right away and send a deputy to the Point.” 

The deputy was sent but the old weather radio was of little use. There was static on all of the frequencies there and the EAS tone was the only thing being received on the Eau Claire frequency. The Sheriff then ran up the stairs and yelled out “Tom, I’m heading out to old man Tompkin’s place. He’s the only ham within twenty miles of town!” The Mayor yelled back “Hurry, time could be short and we need information as soon as you can get some on just what the hell is going on!”

The Sheriff started his car up and cranked up the sirens heading up towards Christie where the old farm was just South of. He pulled into the driveway but notice that Jim Tompkin’s car was gone, and even weirder his front door was open. The Sheriff drew his pistol worried that looters or worse had already hit the area when he walked inside to see a note on the cocktail table in his living room:

GONE TO DULUTH, YOU SHOULD TOO

Now what the hell kind of whacked out message from the old feller was that? The Sheriff walked around the house and noticed that the ham gear was almost all gone except for one Drake rig with a label of DSR-1 tuned to ‘239′ that was blaring Morse Code through the headphones. Sheriff Bill Mack was a skilled man, known for his experience in Gulf War I, his ability to solve any kind of crisis but he never learned the Morse Code and Jim was the only one in town he thought that knew it. Before turning the generator off outside and unplugging everything, Sheriff Mack found an old battery powered cassette recorder and held it up to the headphones to try to record about five minutes of the Morse Code. After nabbing the recording, he grabbed the rig, the headphones and then powered down the generator so it would not run dry and cause more problems for Tompkins when he returned. “That’s strange” the Sheriff thought, “Why Duluth?”

When he got back to City Hall, the rest of his deputies minus the one on the way to Stevens Point had assembled. He asked everyone in the Mayor’s office “Do any of you know Morse Code or anything about amateur radio?” The Mayor cut everyone off and said “Why Bill? What did you find out there on his farm?” The Sheriff showed the Mayor the note about Duluth and said “this radio was on with a loop of Morse Code playing over and over again tuned to what looks like 239 on the dial.” This was just too strange for everyone and nobody knew what the heck was on the cassette loop. The Mayor looked at one of the young deputies and said “Go straight to the library and find me a book on amateur radio and hurry.” The deputy, unaware of all that was going on said “Why don’t we just look this up on the internet?” The Sheriff snapped back “THERE IS NO INTERNET. NO CELL PHONES. NO TELEVISION OR RADIO. NOTHING. WE ARE ON OUR OWN.”

As the deputy hurried out of the office, the Mayor asked everyone assembled a simple question: “What was the weather forecast for today? Does anyone have it handy?” 

That question stunned everyone and the Mayor’s secretary said “I have a paper out here but may I ask why?” The Mayor replied “Per this book, we need to know the wind direction and weather forecast so we can determine if the fallout is coming here.” That made sense to everyone, especially since the trouble started some six hours ago and with darkness falling, if people needed to get indoors and head for shelters, the time was running out before sunset. It was mid-November and snow would not shock anyone now so that added threat to today’s events really got the attention of the gathered group. 

The deputy’s siren was heard as well as the screeching tires of his car slamming to a stop in front of City Hall. He ran up the stairs and threw the 2006 ARRL Amateur Radio Handbook down on the desk and said “Sheriff, can I run home real quick and check on my wife? She’s got to be freaking out by now!” The Sheriff replied “sure Mike. Hurry back, we need everyone now.” The Mayor was looking through it for anything on Morse Code when another deputy ran in yelling “I’ve got it! The Morse Code is in my Boy Scout Handbook that the local troop uses!” They looked at the code and then the Mayor uttered “now what?” The Sheriff asked the deputy if he knew the code and he looked back at the Sheriff sheepishly and said “Sorry sir, we never got into the radio merit badges so we never worked on it.”

The Mayor looked at his watch which displayed 4:37 p.m. then peered out the window and as the snow started to fall he spoke softly “Well, I guess while you guys go downstairs and set up the ham radio, I’ll start transcribing the recording and see what we can get from it. I hope it is not some clown playing around with another ham rig.” The sun was starting to go down but little did the Mayor, Sheriff or anyone else in this small little Wisconsin town realize that it would be one of the last sunsets they would ever experience. The nuclear event was now some seven plus hours ago. And unfortunately for them, they would not get the tape transcribed for at least two more hours. The message was clear and concise and explained why the allegedly “crazy old man” left the note that he did about heading north to Duluth….

Hours later, the Mayor had finished the transcription. It read:

EA, EAU CLAIRE, 239 KILOHERTZ, 1800 UTC FALLOUT ADVISORY FOR CENTRAL WISCONSIN…..ETA TO EAU CLAIRE 2000 UTC, ESTIMATE OF 1200 RADS PER HOUR…ETA TO STEVENS POINT 2130 UTC ESTIMATE OF 1200 RADS PER HOUR…..ETA TO MADISON 2230 UTC, ESTIMATE OF 1050 RADS PER HOUR…

There you have it. The oldest method of communicating was the only one still up and working. The government still functioned, somehow, broadcasting information vital for people’s survival but only those with the skill, although antiquated, knew what it meant. Information is what this prepetorial is all about and the question it raises:

Are you able to receive and comprehend information from almost any source?

When things break down in a civilization, be it due to a terrorist attack, all out war or worse a major natural disaster, the government and amateur radio operators will do all they can to transmit information back and forth to decipher the nightmare that is upon us. The station in question above is real, does broadcast as far as I still know and transmits information that most people would go “huh” about. It is a long wave radio beacon for navigation purposes and transmits on long wave only (frequencies below 500 kilohertz). As one proceeds down the radio band below medium wave or the A.M. broadcast band, you hear some broadcasters primarily from Europe, Africa and Asia on occasion and a lot of utility and navigation stations. At 60 khz you can hear a time standard station, WWVB, which is the sister to WWV and WWVH that broadcast the tones and time 24/7 or at least until such an emergency in the fictional story above occurs.

Why is this information important? Consider this; anything that survives any EMP event will be used to transmit information in whatever mode is possible. If it is a beacon station it will be in Morse Code and could save your life. Many  amateur radio operators or “hams”  will switch to QRP or “low power” modes and use  Morse Code to transmit information. Why QRP? To preserve battery strength and broadcast the signal as far as possible to reach and warn the largest audience they can and get as much news, region by region, out to the world.

Beyond that, a second language, maybe not fluency but knowledge or understanding of, will be crucial. While nations who may or may not be involved in the conflict will broadcast propaganda of every sort, you have to consider the prospect of getting your news via shortwave radio from nations like Ecuador, Chile or even Morocco being broadcast in Spanish or French. There is little doubt that some nations would survive such a crisis and continue to broadcast in English, but do you know how to tune it in? What antennas you need? How to operate a basic radio and what kind to buy? While I am not going to go through a “how to” on shortwave radio, there are many excellent forums and clubs which can point the way.

The message I want to get across is do not marry your survival, your family’s future or your community’s to a satellite news service, cable television, cell phones or standard broadcasters. You will need the ability to receive all sources of information regardless of the source so educated decisions can be made and the noise separated from the fluff broadcast by many in all directions. Restricting ones ability to discern a course of action can be lethal. Be it as simple as not knowing Morse Code to get a critical advisory from the government or ham operators or learning that the world is reverting into a “Mad Max” society. Those with that ability will usually survive and prosper.

Those that do not, well, enjoy your future. It will be short, bleak and probably quite painful.

July 25, 2008

by John Galt

Tonya and Tony were exhausted. They had hiked for an over an hour to the outskirts of Ellisville, MS after abandoning their X5 SUV just outside of Richton, out of gas and too dangerous to keep driving as it attracted too much attention. They had followed all of the advice of their best instincts reading books on the “new survivalism” but when the time came to bug out of their comfortable north Atlanta suburb, they never dreamed how much work it was to hump a seventy pound Jansport pack into the woods of Mississippi in the heat of August. Tonya said her designer Columbia hiking boots were hurting her feet. Tony snapped back “I told you to wear those more often and break them in. We have at least another fifty miles to go and only a day or two to get to Yazoo City.” Tony was depending on the data from his Garmin GPS as he was assured by the salesman at the Bass Pro Shops it would show him the way in any conditions no matter where he was in North America. Tony hoped that this fact held true as the mushroom cloud which lit up what used to be the city of Atlanta left him shaking some two days later.

Tonya asked Tony if he could get any information and he broke out his I-Phone. “Sorry honey,” he said, “still no signal.” She then asked him about the windup Grundig Red Cross radio and he broke that out of his Jansport pack and wound it up. He turned it on the FM band first but nothing other than EAS broadcasts could be tuned in and only three of those at that. He switched it over to the AM band where the static was horrible between the crashes of lightening in the distance and the buzzing heard ever since the war started. He found a local station which his organizer said was in Jackson, MS but it was broadcasting EAS information only. The SW band gave him some hope as some ham operators were operating in the open and clear in the A.M. mode advising folks that there was safety to be found in Yazoo City but the other hams were in what was called Single Sideband and he could not understand what they were saying.

Tonya started to sniffle then, like she was going to cry again when Tony said “Honey, please, not now. We have to get moving again. Put another pair of socks on and let’s get moving.” 

Tonya opened her bag up and broke out a pair of her favorite white Victoria Secret’s exercise socks and slipped them on over the first pair. As she sat down on a downed tree, she casually tossed her boots on the ground landing on what she thought was just a branch when suddenly it hissed and struck digging its fangs into her left calf. She screamed out “Tony, HELP!” He wheeled around and saw the rattlesnake in her leg and as the snake withdrew from her leg he hit it with a large heavy branch, either stunning it or killing it as it did not move afterward. Neither of them believed in guns so they trained themselves by reading a lot about what to use for self defense with their bare hands in the wilderness. Tonya grabbed her calf bawling and screaming in agony as the blood started to ooze from the fresh bite wounds. 

Tony instantly remembered some of what the books he read said. He told her over and over again to calm down and to sit down on the log. He grabbed her pack and started tossing things out of it on the ground, digging through it in a panic. She cried out “Tony, it’s burning, please do something.” Tony snapped back “Damnit, I’m looking for the first aid kit and the field manual. Hang in there baby!” About two minutes later after dumping her pack on the ground, Tony took out the first aid kit he bought at the Sports Authority but could not find anything in the little book that came with it about snakebites. He remembered seeing a story on television once and said to her “I remember we have to cut the circulation off so it does not seep up to your heart. Sit down over here and stay calm. Let me cut this stick up to make a tourniquet.” Tony hurridly put a tourniquet on her leg just below the left knee and dug through the pile to find the Army Survival Manual he knew he had packed. Tonya, started to hypervenilate and said “are you sure you didn’t leave it in the Beamer?” Tony said “NO! I know I packed it. Let me find it! Stay put and don’t move!” He then dumped his pack on to the ground, frantically looking for the book among the contents of his B.O.B. “Found it!” he screamed out. he flashed hurriedly through the book to the index and found the page on Snakebites on 3-22. He flipped to the page to read what to do and to his shock it said “DO NOT USE A TOURNIQUET”. Instead of following the instructions of the manual, he rapidly removed the restriction and that of course caused a rush of blood into the wound area and an instant scream of pain from his wife.

“Sit tight honey, let me put it back on. I know it said not to use one, but if you were not hurting, let me keep it on while I go get some help. I saw a town about a mile away and could run there quickly.” With that Tony tied the tourniquet back on and gave her two Tylenol tablets then ran towards town without even thinking. Tonya, in great pain, laid down, hoping to grab some sleep while he sought help. 

As Tony approached the small town of Ellisville,  he noticed it looked like a ghost town. He saw a small church not far from the cemetary and ran screaming towards it “Help, Help, is anyone here?” A tall sheriff’s deputy stepped out from behind the church in full tactical gear and yelled back at him “Halt or I’ll shoot!” and with that Tony held his hands up. He pleaded at the deputy “Sir my wife and I are refugees from Atlanta. She is in the woods about a mile southeast of here and she has been bitten by a rattlesnake. I’m not armed, please don’t shoot me, I came here for help!” The deputy lowered his AR-15 and got on the radio calling for the town’s doctor, “Doc we have another snakebite, I need your help.I’m out here by the graveyard.” The Doctor had a small pack and looked at Tony with a distrustful look and said “I’ve got the anti-venom, where is she son?” Tony, still excited from having a rifle pointed at him and his run into town said “about a mile southeast of here, I can take her to you.”

 With that exchange the Doc, the deputy and Tony headed out of town. He was freaking out as the Doctor kept asking him questions like “what kind of snake?” Tony replied a rattlesnake I guess, it was about five feet long and had a rattle on it it’s tail. The deputy muttered “city folk” and kept the pace with Tony while watching the woods with the rifle ready to go in case this was an ambush. As they entered into the forest about two hundred yards deep Tony realized he did not recognize the surroundings. He called out “Tonya, Tonya, where are you honey?” The deputy said “this is not a wild goose chase is it son?” Tony cried back “no, it’s not, my wife is out here dying.” 

After about forty-five minutes, Tony spotted some of the material he had dumped out of his pack and yelled to the doctor and deputy “over here” and waved frantically for them to come on over. As he approached the log where he had left her, the mess they had made looking for the manual and the first aid kit was everywhere but she was gone. “Oh God, where could she have gone! Tonya! Tonya!” he started screaming. “Calm down son, that’s not going to help” the deputy said. “Were you two mugged or attacked or something? These packs are scattered everywhere and it doesn’t look right” the deputy asked. Tony, crying now, huffed back “no sir, we were looking for the first aid kit and survival manual. I have no idea where she could be. I put a tourniquet on her leg to keep the venom from her heart and I know she couldn’t walk.” The doctor and deputy both snapped around “you did what?!?” The doctor said “we don’t have much time. Let’s look for blood or tracks, she’s probably dragging the leg and went looking for him” pointing at Tony with disdain. Tony grabbed the I-Phone out of his pocket desperately calling her cell phone but the “NO SERVICE” was still being displayed full color on the little LCD screen. “Where could she be, oh God, I’m so sorry” Tony cried out. Suddenly the deputy yelled out  from a steep drop off into a ditch about five hundred yards west of where they were, “Over here Doc, there’s no hurry.”

Sad? Certainly. True? Not yet, obviously, Atlanta is still there, still hot and still full of yuppies and preppies who think camping consists of a RV with the Dish Network and a generator with a keg cooler, etc. There is a sad reality that there are people who think that having the latest, greatest, most expensive and chic gear makes them the best preppers. The ultimate “new” survivalists because they have toys that others only dream about.

Prepetorial#18: Vienna Weiners

By John Galt

July 17, 2008

The little store marked “Joe’s 24” sitting off Highway 87 near Jay, FL  has changed hands a few times in the last 4 years, but now in 2010, it became the meeting place for everyone crossing from Alabama into Florida and vice versa to get goods and gas. This little country store had become a symbol of the resilience of American ingenuity and business acumen because despite the food and gas ration programs, Joe always had enough gas and stock to meet the needs of the residents in this part of the panhandle. It did not hurt that Joe’s brother worked in the newly formed US Department of Economic Allocation and that department was as messed up as Homeland Security so insuring regular deliveries was not an issue. The concern Joe had was what happened to his brother if he got caught.

On the normally sleepy morning of August 23^rd, it became apparent that the news on the new war in the Middle East was not going as well as planned. The fact that President Obama had received a near unanimous vote approving the reintroduction of the draft after Iran sunk the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan on a lucky missile shot put the fear of a total war in Biblical proportions into the local residents. The shortages that oil priced at $227 per barrel created were so numerous that Joe wondered if it was worth keeping the store open. Yet on this hot, sunny and soon to be terrifying morning, he had no idea his life would change forever, nor did his customers as events spiraled out of control.

Joe knew something was up around 11 a.m. when a truck driver ran into his store and said “ turn on two and eight and keep the change!” The driver threw ten crisp one hundred dollar bills at him and Joe happily obliged since he recognized the company truck was out of Mobile and ran through his area all the time. But the urgency caught Joe off guard. As Joe determined how much to pocket he figured, it’s time to turn the television on and see if there was some news. There it was scrolling across the bottom of his local NBC affiliate:

NEWS ALERT, NEWS ALERT, WARNING, Los Angeles California severely damaged by two nuclear detonations…….Kansas City, Missouri communications lost five minutes ago, rumors of multiple attacks on U.S. Cities…Homeland Security to assume control of all broadcasting at 11:27 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time…..

“Crap”, Joe thought to himself. The refueling truck was due at 2 p.m. and now he knew that was not happening. Thankfully the only customers were the truck driver and Mrs. Carlin from her farm and there was no sign of any further trouble. Joe called his wife and told her to start filling water jugs and what had happened. She reacted as he had feared with a typical “And so what? How does this affect us?” Joe screamed into the phone over and over to her that “we could all be dead in one hour and your butt had best get in gear and grasp reality woman!” She cried then told him she would get right to work. Joe had no idea she was so clueless, then again, she had no idea he was equally so.

Mrs. Carlin was a nice sixty year old widow living on the property about four miles from the store and all she ever bought on her trips to his store were the fresh doughnuts and some gas. Today was no different except she walked up to the counter with two cans of Vienna Wieners and gave old Joe an extraordinary stare. “Don’t you think $1.72 per can is a bit steep son?” she asked poor Joe. He replied in the only manner he could at this point in time “Ma’am, haven’t you been paying attention to all the inflation we’re are dealing with here?” She just shook here dead and put five cans on the counter and said “I hope you are preparing like I am. I bought some more plastic sheeting and tuna too. I’m ready for this war sonny.” Joe said “Yes ma’am, we are ready I think. Good luck to you and I hope to see you again soon” as he gave her change and watched the flashing news updates out of the corner of his eye.

As she walked out the door, the truck driver walked in, somewhat agitated but still sociable. “Sir, how much bottled water do you have here?” was all he uttered. Joe said “What you see is all that I have sir.” The driver looked around the store, walked down a few aisles and scraped can after can of food into his t-shirt then walked back to the counter. “I figure this is about two hundred bucks worth; I’ll give you three hundred and you can keep the change” and with that the driver asked if Joe would help him load all the water in the cooler and on the floor into the sleeper door of his truck. Joe agreed and loaded the entire stock up and started to worry a lot if his wife did not obey his instructions.

Joe tried calling her again as the driver pulled away when he noticed something very disturbing about a half mile north of his store off the highway. Without thinking Joe started walking up the road as his ear as glued to the cell phone trying to reach his wife. The phone kept ringing busy and as he got ticked off hitting redial, he noticed the pace of his walk picked up more. As he got about 125 yards north of his store, he saw the blood on the shoulder of the highway, two cans of Vienna Winers with the $1.72 price tags still on them and Mrs. Carlin’s car on fire. “What the hell?” he wondered to himself. Then he realized the trouble she was in as he approached the car and it was empty. He called 911 instinctively but it was busy as was 411 where he wanted other numbers to get anyone out there as soon as possible.

As he ran towards the other side of the old Buick, he saw what he had feared. There she was on the pavement, bleeding from a gunshot wound to her head. Her groceries and money gone from the car with not another soul in sight. “Oh hell, the store!” he realized and ran back the half mile in record time. “Thank you God” he screamed aloud as he got back and saw it empty as before, with no cars or trucks near by. With the cell phone glued to his ear Joe began locking down the pumps and shutting the store down. Just as he tried calling home again, his wife pulled up and ran to him screaming “Honey, I’m so scared, what do we do?”

“We hunker down honey. We have food, some water here, and we watch the news. Once we find out what is happening, we’ll take what we need from the store and go home to watch what’s next.” Joe’s response comforted his wife, but not for long. There were cars approaching several miles up the road that Joe could see and he needed to shut things down. Joe had her pull the car around back and pulled the hurricane shutter down covering the glass in the front of the store with the garage door type shield and painted on it was “Sorry Joe’s is closed” all over it in large letters.

Joe walked in the back door and locked things up. He then loaded the shotgun under his counter that he had hoped and prayed he would never, ever need. The television just had a blue screen with the EAS notice he had gotten accustomed to seeing from hurricane season plastered all over it so he grabbed is radio and tuned it into the Dothan talk station. He heard a stately, calm male voice which was obviously a recording instructing everyone to remain home and that anyone in violation of the national curfew caught outside after 6 p.m. local time could be arrested or shot. Joe was stunned. His wife was crying.

And then as he tried to tune into something else a thundering crash hit the hurricane shutter in the front, splashing glass and canned goods everywhere. Joe grabbed his shotgun and before he could take the safety off a man jumped out of the back seat of the old four door and shot him and his wife dead on the spot. With the annoying EAS tone as his last memory, Joe faded away, as the gunman along with his crew proceeded to clean the store out with some other looters helping themselves as the flies circled the corpses.

The moral of the story?

Well, for those of you that have been reading Prepetorials over the last year plus, you know there is one. This is a simple one:

Don’t hunker down in a target.

The first place criminals and immoral souls will go is where they think there will be relatively easy access to ill gotten gains, food, water, firearms, etc. If you advertise that you have that in your home, then you put a bulls eye on your family’s home and should be prepared for the consequences. The ideal is to be stealthy, not obvious.

The “bug-out” strategy has to be equally as discreet. You can not load the family truck or car up in broad daylight and head down the street without thinking someone is not going to follow. If you are going to bug out the key is to pre-position your supplies in a safe, discreet secure location. This is not the time to be wondering if you have a good strategy for this; you had best know now and have everything in place. Once the freedom of movement is restricted by the government, be it local or Federal  your options are narrowed down by a factor of 95%.

To plan ahead is the key. This is the time to plan and please, do not take these warnings lightly. The citizens who thought they could stay locked down during Katrina found out quickly that the Constitution means nothing during anarchy and martial law. The failure to plan ahead means you should be kind enough to have one thing in your house to accommodate your new masters:

A body bag that you will fit in.