“It sounds to me,” Bishop said quickly while looking directly at Mel, “that what Travis told you had more than a modicum of truth to it.”
Tara quickly brought the children inside and closed the door to the deck.
Bishop ran to the back hall, by the door to the garage, opened the electrical breaker box and threw the main switch. All the lights and appliances went off. Carly and Tara had filled the sinks, tub, and water coolers with water earlier in the afternoon, after lunch.
The Ingraham clock on the mantel below the TV, which Carly had inherited from her grandfather, showed 3:56. It had started.◘
Chapter 6
Coronal Mass Ejection
They all migrated to the front patio, which was uncovered, to look up toward the sun. The sky was a crystalline blue, like Carly’s crystal flower vase, so the light was being refracted and reflected.
The birds stopped singing and the quiet was palpable. Then the dogs started howling and were joined by the coyotes in the surrounding hills.
They scuttled back inside, just in time to see Chloe racing for the bedroom, finding shelter against the wall under the farthest reaches of the bed.
They sat in the great room and waited; not knowing what to expect next. The clock on the mantel now read 4:04. And then World War III began, or at least it sounded like it.
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At first there were just small pops, like gunshots from far away that were carried on the wind. And then an explosion, close by, as the transformer on the pole at the corner of the property, overloaded with neutrons carried down the electrical lines exploded, sending hot shrapnel flying. Fortunately, none of it hit the house. The mantel clock now showed 4:05.
They felt the vibration underfoot and a large explosion occurred from the direction of Highway 179. It was the three-megawatt electric substation, at the corner of Verde School Road/Jacks Canyon Road and 179, blowing up. The explosion sent hot shrapnel onto the roofs of the stores in the Prime Outlets, just across Jacks Canyon Road from the electrical facility, and all the way across the highway to the Oak Creek Estados Apartments, and the Chase Bank on the opposite corner, igniting all three.
The bank had closed at 3:00 p.m., sending its employees home and locking the vaults. The vaults worked on electrically timed locks and the manager’s pass code. No one recognized at the time that the bank’s vaults were now a time capsule loaded with money, jewels, and heretofore important documents, which might never be retrieved.
The shrapnel imbedded into the vehicles on adjacent streets—and those in the vehicles. The vehicles had ceased operating as the neutrons fried the vehicles’ electrical systems and they were sitting ducks for the shrapnel. There was no phone service, so no one could call 911 to seek help from the fire station that was only two blocks away.
Another large explosion and then a massive one rocked the house. It came from the direction of the IGA shopping center. But it wasn’t the Center it was Chapman’s Chevron Station.
Chapman’s was getting its fuel delivery when the CME occurred. The tanker truck’s hoses were connected to the underground tanks and the driver was talking with Irene when the three-megawatt electrical distribution substation, located in the lot behind and to the side of the station, exploded. The distribution grid had become overloaded, as the one down the road had mere seconds before. The hot shrapnel imbedded in the truck, severed the fueling hose, and ignited the fuel that had instantaneously spread. The fuel tanks and tanker exploded. The fireball reached over 100 feet in the air, carrying flaming fuel and debris with it. The entire station was incinerated, along with the Chapmans, the fuel truck driver, and six customers waiting to fill-up. There was nothing left but twisted steel, smoke, and flames—and a big hole in the ground where the gasoline tank had been.
The flaming fuel oil ignited the dead grasses and shrubs in the field, which started burning toward the Wild Turkey Townhomes. The burning debris and fuel landed on the roofs of the shopping facilities and restaurants in both directions from the former station and quickly enveloped them. The panic and screams of those caught in the inferno could be heard for blocks.
Burning debris, caught on the wind, floated into adjacent neighborhoods, which also caught fire and sent debris on to other neighborhoods. Fortunately, the prevailing wind was from the south and east and the fires stayed mostly west of Verde Valley School Road, with the exception of the Estados fire which quickly spread to the rest of the multi-family structures below the Mavericks’ homes. As the fires created their own weather patterns, the flames raced up the south side of 179, picking up speed as they went, joining with other fires that had started in neighborhoods where transformers and downed power lines had ignited brush or homes. They would, within hours, join the fires burning in Sedona, leaving a swath of smoldering neighborhoods and burning juniper forests behind them; and leaving dead and dying people and animals in its wake.
The VOC fire department had heard the first explosion and started to respond when the second and more violent explosion occurred. They were only a block away from Chapman’s, or at least what was left of it. They poured water and foam onto the flaming remnants of the station in a valiant, but losing, battle to subdue it and then had to turn their attention to the two shopping areas adjacent that were now fully engulfed. They had two engines and were no match for the inferno. They moved to concentrate their efforts on the Wild Turkey Townhome complex that was not yet fully engulfed and had some success; but they knew it was a losing battle because fires were burning everywhere.
Where they might have been able to expect mutual assistance from the fire crews stationed at the Coconino Forest Headquarters just a mile away, those crews had all been sent to marshalling areas farther north in the forest, where they would be ready to protect the huge forest reserves from the predictable 4th of July fires started by fireworks. They never expected the inferno that was now burning in their own backyard.
The stench of burning flesh was overpowering but was, at least, moving away from Morningside on the prevailing winds, providing respite where it could have been far worse.
The firefighters, facing the hard truth that there was really nothing they could do, began worrying about their own families, returned to the station, and drove home. None of them lived in the Village. It wasn’t long before the fire at the bank, burning west through the adjacent motel and small businesses, and the fire from Chapman’s station that had ignited the small shopping center just east of it, merged on the fire station and fully engulfed it.
Individual homeowners fought the fires that threatened their homes, or their neighbors’, either at least temporarily succeeding, or facing the truth that they’d done all they could.
The massive explosion at Chapman’s had also ruptured a water main. There was exceptional use of water from the Big Park Water Company’s seven storage tanks and without electricity to run the pumps on their seven wells, to put more water in tanks or to run the pumps that kept the water pressure up, the water supply was quickly being depleted. Without the Water Company staff to turn off the valve on the rupture, one tank was obsolete. The ruptured line compromised one of the Village’s four pressure zones; the one serving the core of the Village. The total capacity of the Big Park Water reserves would last only one day under normal use. And this was not normal use.
As more and more structures burned, more explosions erupted from broken gas lines, propane storage tanks, private stocks of ammunition, and automobiles. Cyclones of flame leaped into the air and swept flame and burning debris ever deeper into the community. Miraculously, Weber’s IGA and the Ice Cream Shoppe remained unscathed, except for the pall of smoke over everything; at least for the present.
A mass exodus began, regardless of whether or not their homes had been destroyed, using vehicles that still ran; the residents joining the lines of tourists on 179, primarily heading east.
Many residents had left the Village in advance of the long 4th of July weekend. They were either snowbirds, who
spent the summers in the north, RVers who spent the summers traveling and camping, or those who went to visit friends and family elsewhere for the holiday. And there were those who knew that tens of thousands of tourists headed to the red rocks for the holiday and, therefore, chose to be elsewhere when the masses converged on the Village. Fortunately, many tourists had either turned around or stayed home when they heard the first News Alert. The residents who were left had started leaving when the first News Alert was heard and most of those remaining now joined the mass exodus. As a result, the actual resident population was extremely low before, during, and after the CME occurred.
It was obvious to most that heading toward Sedona would be useless; as they were sure the same conditions existed there. They were right. Heading out of the Red Rock Valley to Flagstaff or Phoenix or points beyond seemed to make the most sense.
In addition to the billowing smoke that was making breathing difficult at best, the air was also filled with 4th of July fireworks, the result of illegally purchased fireworks now being ignited by the flames. There was no celebrating now, and doubtful there would be any tomorrow.
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What was happening in the Village of Oak Creek was simply a microcosm of what was happening across the United States. Electrical substations, large and small, had been unable to handle the overload of energy and had exploded, wreaking havoc in neighborhoods, towns, villages, and cities. Where the large transmission lines crossed the Great Plains and vast open spaces to bring power to the masses, the lines had arced and sent flames into the mostly dry grasses below, or the forests they traversed, starting a conflagration that would burn for days, weeks, or months before they finally encountered natural barriers that would turn them on themselves and extinguish them. As a result of a three-year long drought, that was still continuing, much of the Mid-west, Southwest, and West was tinder dry and hungrily fed on the tendrils of flame accosting them from all directions. Prevailing winds were now a thing of the past as the fire generated its own winds and weather.
Despite warnings that went largely unheeded, without computers or electricity, train rail switching devices and signals failed to work causing collisions of massive magnitude. Loss of life was in the thousands and those not directly affected by the collisions were subject to becoming collateral damage of the massive explosions and fires caused by erupting fuel tankers and toxic spills whose vapors carried on the winds across vast swaths of rural and urban communities. Millions perished within hours or days.
One such event occurred in a small farming town in the Mid-west when a failed switch sent a southbound freight train carrying coal and petroleum into a northbound train carrying tanks of hazardous materials, including chlorine gas. The resulting collision sent a cloud of chlorine gas over the small community wiping out everyone: men, women and children, as well as all the livestock, and the fire resulting from the rupture of the petroleum tanks raced through the wheat and cornfields incinerating them and every structure in its path, racing unabated to the horizon. The Farmer’s Cooperative corn and grain silos exploded as the gases inside them expanded and ignited. The only thing left standing was the small water tower that serviced the one square block downtown, which now lay in rubble. The coal in the freight cars spilled by the impact and ignited by the burning petroleum continued to send black smoke into the already darkened sky for weeks to come.
American commercial air carriers and shipping had, for the most part, heeded the government’s warning and had sought the closest airfields and ports. Some ships, caught too far at sea, had to rely on navigation by the stars as they had no GPS, no communication. Their compasses had been rendered useless by the electromagnetic field of the CME. Some ships were dead in the water because their electronic operating systems had been fried, and they now drifted aimlessly at the mercy of the wind and the tides.
In the cities, not only were they fighting fires and gas line explosions, but looters. In Chicago, the murder capital of the U.S., lawlessness began as the first reports of the impending CME began to spread, and it only became worse following the solar event. It was open season on anyone that didn’t belong to your gang or was recognizable in some other way, and it didn’t matter whether or not they wore a uniform. First responders were overwhelmed and looters, as had been the case when previous riots or severe weather events had occurred, took to the streets and stores in large numbers. They stole flat screen TVs, jewelry, money, appliances, furniture, and anything else they could carry or load on to conveyances of all description. They had no concept of what was happening and how ridiculous their criminal exertions were. Only those who raided supermarkets might have benefitted themselves, but most of them took cigarettes and liquor. Where fires were not already burning, they set them. They took some sense of power and satisfaction from their anarchy. As in VOC, the first responders were quickly overwhelmed and finally diverted the efforts to their own needs, leaving to join their families. They faced the same water supply issues to varying degrees but, over time, the result would be the same: no running water.
Police services were outmanned and outgunned in most places, particularly in the big cities, and soon retreated to their own families.
Most of the major penal institutions had electrically operated locks on the individual cells and cell blocks whose default was to lock everything down when the CME hit. And, when the guards and employees deserted their posts they left the inmates locked down – permanently. In some instances, however, the liberal thinking guards manually overrode the locks and turned the prisoners loose, adding to the already large criminal element roaming the streets of our cities.
The border between Mexico and the United States had always seemed to be porous, now it was non-existent. Immigrants, good and bad, now crossed the border with impunity in hopes that conditions in the U.S. would be better than those south of the border. When they reached the larger cities they found chaos and lawlessness reigned and simply became part of the burgeoning mass of humanity that could not find sustenance upon which to survive; adding to the mounting numbers of dead and dying.
Though National Guards had been put on alert, the only assignment given to them, other than to assist when requested by the Governors, was to secure the perimeters of nuclear power plants. To secure them from what, was unclear. And they were only issued rubber bullets. The governors were in no condition to request anything, even if they had communications with their respective Guard units; there was no logical way to assign the troops on such a broad front. As a result, the National Guards were never activated, except at the nuclear facilities where, as it turned out, they were least needed. Desertions were rampant.
Fires raced up and down the state of California, consuming everything in their path. The winds created by the holocaust made the traditional Santa Ana winds seem like a whisper of breeze. In just two weeks, California was a smoldering line of desolation from San Diego to San Francisco. As the fires reached the numerous oil and gas storage facilities along the coast they erupted in black mushrooming clouds, obliterating the sun and making breathing nearly impossible. But those with underlying breathing difficulties had perished the first day and millions more had followed; the result of fire, smoke inhalation, injuries from explosions, automobile wrecks, and cardiac arrest—and murder.
Most hospitals could only operate without power for a matter of hours or days. Many doctors and nurses simply deserted their posts. Those who stayed with their patients would have no life-saving equipment with which to work, no sterilization, and no lights. We were given a glimpse of what could happen when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans—and this was a thousand times worse. Without electricity, patients were left to die or were euthanized when temperatures rose, or their pain became too great. There was nothing the medical professionals could do then to help, and nothing they could do now. Death was certain and only the means was in question.
Survival was a free-for-all. The strong and willful managed to survive hour by hour and day by day, but
the meek, the frail, and the unlucky perished. Those who lived gave no thought to the even greater danger that lurked in southern California: the nuclear power plants.
Though they had been shut down by the President’s decree, they had no power by which to operate the pumps that kept cooling water flowing over the nuclear rods. The backup generators had only a finite capability to perform this task. Once the fuel core overheated, causing a meltdown, the reactor would explode or, at best, begin leaking. It would be another Chernobyl, Fukushima, or Three Mile Island event, spewing radiation that would not only affect those nearby but would spread around the globe in varying degrees.
The big cities were the hardest hit, in the United States and around the world. Lawlessness prevailed and the have-nots rose up against the haves. Actually, those who needed or wanted something rose up against whoever had what they wanted, and they took it, or at least they tried. Suicides and homicides ran rampant. What the anarchists didn’t want, they burned. Little did they realize in their frenzy they made Nero, who reportedly fiddled while Rome burned, appear miniscule by comparison. They burned the very things they might need to survive! Life in the cities became incredibly difficult and returned to what life in Europe was hundreds of years earlier, when sewage was dumped from buckets out of windows into the streets. Rats and disease thrived. Food and drinking water were in short supply, and then ran out. It didn’t take long for people to be reduced to a completely barbaric existence.
It was the small towns and communities and the compounds of survivalists, who knew how to pull together for the common good, who had the best chances of survival. As a group, farmers in the U.S. and abroad would fare better than most because of their knowledge of farming and animal husbandry, at least giving them a leg up in meeting their own food needs.
Retirement communities were deemed by looters to be prime targets. But they soon discovered that seniors were armed and unafraid to use their weapons, many of them trained on the battlefields of Korea, Vietnam, and the Desert wars. They turned the looters and other miscreants away, blockaded the entrances to their communities, and tried, as best they could, to look out for each other.
Sinagua Rising Page 6
