Chapter 12

Day 11 Monday 23 April 2007 - Impact Plus 7 days

I don't know if I will ever get used to waking up with other people in my bed, let alone three beautiful women. I guess I will just have to keep doing it until it feels natural. Oh, the inhumanity of it!

I could feel Betsy snuggled up to my back, her arms around me, and her shallow breathing tickling the back of my neck. In front of me, one of the Chickering twins snuggled up to me. One of these days I am going to have to figure out how to tell them apart. Maybe I can get one of them to change their hair color ... NAH, I kind of like them looking identical.

I started to hear the first bumps of movement upstairs, so I figured it was time to get the day started as well, besides, I had to pee.

I took a deep breath, stretched a bit, and then started to gently extricate myself from bed. I guess I wasn't gentle enough.

"Where are you going?" Betsy asked.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you, but I have to pee," I answered, then kissed her and continued to get out of bed.

I walked to the bathroom, did my business, and was standing at the sink washing my face when the door opened and Betsy walked in and sat on the toilet.

I just smiled, "How did you sleep?"

"Like a rock. Keeping up with you and this schedule you have us on, definitely promotes a good night's sleep," she said.

"You can say that again, I didn't even feel the twins get into bed, and they had to crawl over us."

"Yeah, I didn't feel them either."

"Oh well, let's get finished here. Then go wake them up and start another wonderful day."

"Sounds like a plan."

We finished up in the bathroom and went back to our room, where we found the twins already up and starting to get dressed.

"Good morning girls. How did you sleep?" I asked.

"Like the dead," one of them said.

"You keep us so tired that all we want to do when we get into bed is sleep," the other said with a grin.

"Damn, you found out about my plan to keep you from knowing my inadequacies," I joked.

They studied me for a minute, "You don't look all that inadequate," one of them said then the other agreed. "What do you think Betsy?"

Betsy came around and studied me for a minute, "I've seen worse."

I turned scarlet, as I quipped, "Damn, you're rough on a guy," and did my best to get dressed as fast as I could.

"Doesn't he look cute when he blushes?" Betsy asked.

"He sure does," the twins chimed in, and they all started laughing.

I had my pants on by that time and sat down on the bed to work on my boots, when they all dog-piled me on the bed and I had my arms filled with giggling, beautiful young women.

"Are you mad at us for picking on you?" one of the twins asked.

"Nope," I answered.

"No?" the other asked.

"You're not allowed to dish it out if you can't take it in return, and I know you aren't trying to be mean, you're just having fun," I said and hugged them all tight.

They all took their turn kissing me, and then got up to continue getting ready for the day.

We finished getting ready and headed upstairs to see what was going on this morning, and walked into a tornado of activity.

I found Lisa in the melee, "What's going on?" I asked.

"Good, you're up. You can go help set things up in the Quonset hut," Lisa said as she rushed by me.

I just looked at her for a second, snickered, "Let's go out there and see what's going on."

We went outside and wandered over to the Quonset hut with all the activity going on around it, to find out what was happening. When we got there, we found a lot of people setting up a dining room and buffet tables. About that time my mom found me and came over.

"What's going on mom?" I asked.

"Well, Lisa had so much trouble feeding everyone last night, she figured the solution was to set up a couple of buffet lines and run the people through them."

"That's a damn good idea, and I see you're setting up the tables and the office chairs we picked up a couple of days ago."

"Yeah, it seemed the way to go. Your dad even made sure they picked up a few of the big guy chairs for you to sit in."

"That was nice of him to look after me like that."

"We all look after you like that," mom said quietly and then hugged me, followed by the girls.

"Y'all stop before you make me cry. I appreciate it though ... Well, let's give them a hand so we can get some breakfast."

We had the room set up and ready by the time Lisa and her group had breakfast ready for us. She set up two buffet lines full of food and everyone started to make their way through the lines. Then everyone found a place at the tables to eat.

When it looked like most of the people were done eating, I stood up and started the morning meeting.

"Good morning ... As you can see we have a lot more people running around here this morning. I want you to meet Lieutenant Burr and his men, they agreed to come and help us with our situation here, and with their help I think we have a much better chance of not just living through this mess, but flourishing," I started.

There was a big round of applause and the lieutenant and his men stood up and waved.

When things settled down, I got going again.

"I also want to thank Mike and his crew for all the hard work that they have put into getting the buildings up so fast. I also want to thank everyone else that is working so hard to make a life for us here, your work is not going unappreciated."

There was another round of applause, "That being said, we have a lot of work that we still need to get done. First thing we need to do is to start setting up the tents we picked up yesterday, so everyone has a place to sleep in comfort."

"I was wondering if we could pick up some regular beds for people to sleep on, instead of ... Army cots," Mom said jumping in.

"Well, they are a little better than cots, but a regular bed would be a lot more comfortable, and would have more room for those of us with loved ones," one of the soldiers answered.

"And is there any way to section off the tents to allow a bit more privacy?" one of the new women asked.

That got a laugh. "Anything is possible. It might not happen overnight, but I think that is something we can work on," I answered, "Now, as ya'll saw this morning as we were running around getting set up for breakfast, we have to get the new kitchen set up so Lisa and her crew have a place big enough to cook and serve our meals."

"Why can't we just cook our own meals?" one of the new people asked.

"Because we will waste a lot more food and fuel if we do it that way. All we have to do is give Lisa a few days to find out how much everyone eats and she will cook according to that and we won't have as much waste. If there are leftovers, she is very good at turning them into something else. So, how long will it take to get Lisa into her new kitchen?" I said.

"As you can see the building is done, all we have to do is set the equipment in place and hook it up. If we can get some help, we can have it ready to go by dinner time," Mike said.

"Sounds like you have things well in hand, by the way everyone joined in to help this morning, I'm sure you will have a lot of volunteers to help you. Ok, next on my mental list is getting the water purifier, waste plant, latrine and shower facilities up and running," I said.

"That brings up another problem," Tony said.

"What problem is that?" I asked

"Power. Those systems take a lot of power to run," Tony responded.

"The waste plant takes at least 25KW a day," one of the soldiers said.

"They both have generators in them to power the systems, but they take diesel and a lot of it," the Lieutenant said.

"I have been thinking of a solution to our power needs, does anyone know if the Highland wind farm has got their wind turbines yet?" I asked.

"I know they have. Before all this stuff started to happen, I was working up there pouring the footings for them," Mike said.

"Perfect, I think we have the answer to our power problem," I said.

"How so?" Tony asked.

"We go get the wind turbines and set a few of them up to power the whole place," I said.

"A little ambitious aren't we? You do know how big those things are?" Dad asked.

"Yes, I know how big they are. But it is the only way we can generate the power we need here, and I don't think that they are that big," I said.

"The turbines are Vestas V-27s; they are 106 feet tall and start to generate power when the wind reaches 8 mph. They reach max output at 33 mph and put out up to 225KW each," Mike said.

"See, that doesn't sound all that bad," I said to a quiet room.

Then finally the Lieutenant said, "We're going to need a big assed crane."

"It's not that easy, we have to find an old big assed crane, or at least one we can fix the electronics on," Tony added.

"Where are we going to put them?" Dad asked.

"Back behind us on the ridge, it's 3400 feet high at the top of it," I said.

"Do we have a way up there?" Dad asked.

"Yes. When our neighbor bought the land behind us, he put in a road, and it goes most of the way to the top," I said answering him.

"Then we have to run power cables down from there, and then we have to find transformers," Tony started.

"We have most of the things we will need to set things up already here in camp," one of the soldiers interjected.

"Enough to do the whole camp?" I asked.

"Yep, it's set up to run off the big generators we have, so hooking it into the turbines won't be all that hard," he said.

"Great! Problem solved. Now all we have to do is implement it, as well as wire and plumb the entire base. Any idea how we can run the pipes so they don't freeze?" I asked.

"We don't have a problem with that; the pipes are made by the same company who makes the tents, so they are also ready for multiple environments," the Lieutenant added.

"So they can go from 130 degrees in Death Valley to -60 in Antarctica with the same equipment?" I asked.

"Exactly, the Army has to be ready to go anywhere, anytime, for anything," he said.

"That makes it better for us. Next thing on my list is the animals. How are we doing on that front?" I asked.

"We have started to stockpile hay and feed, we're still waiting for the barn to be finished before we start to bring the animals here," Tracy said.

"Mike, how much longer until the barn is ready?" I asked.

"The building is built, spray-foamed, and Rhino-Lined. So all we have to do is get the stalls in place and the chicken coop put together. The team can start to bring the animals here at any time, we should have the stalls set up in an hour or so but it will take us a little longer on the chicken coop," Mike said.

"Great! We'll start bringing in the animals today," Tracy said.

"Ok, next on my list is to figure out what we are going to do with all the canned goods we have collected," I said.

"What do you mean by 'do with them'?" Lisa asked.

"Oh, sorry. How are we going to keep them from freezing when the temperature drops to -40 degrees," I corrected.

"Ah, yes, that could be messy," Lisa said.

"Very messy, and we lose all the food," I said. "Anyone have any ideas?"

They thought for a moment then Mike came up with, "We could bury the trailers - that would help keep them warm."

"Yeah, that would help, but with temperatures as cold as it is going to get, they would still probably freeze," I said.

"We could heat them, put a radiator in each of the trailers and heat them with one of the wood furnaces," Tony added to the conversation.

"But would the trailers stand up to being buried?" Dad asked.

"I don't know for sure, but I think they would," I said.

"Why don't we use the shipping containers we brought in yesterday," the Lieutenant said.

"Now that's a great idea, those things are tough," I said.

"Getting them buried is going to be tough with all this rain," Mike said.

"Well, as cold as it is starting to get, it's not going to be rain for much longer," I said.

"How much time do you think we have?" Dad asked.

"It's hard to tell, but if I had to make a guess ... three maybe four days," I guestimated.

"That doesn't give us much time," Dad replied.

"No it doesn't, that's why I've been pushing everyone so hard. We have to get it done before we get buried in snow and ice," I said.

"What will we do with the rest of the food?" Cathy asked.

"Nothing. We can just leave the dry goods were they are, the cold temperatures will actually make them last longer," I said.

"That's good to know," Cathy said.

"Doctor Breuer, do you have your wish list ready for us?" I asked.

"Yes we do, I got together with Doctors Asher and Alice Berlinger, along with Tim and Anita and we came up with a very 'in-depth' list," the doc said.

"Did you hear that we picked up medical facilities yesterday?" I asked.

"No I didn't. What did you bring back?" he asked.

"We have full trauma and ER setups, plus four operating rooms and the equipment to support their use," the Lieutenant replied.

"With what you picked up yesterday, we might be able to thin down the list of wants a little bit," the doc said.

"That will be good to hear. Is there anything else we need to talk about this morning?" I asked.

"I have some good friends in town and I was wondering if I can bring them here to live?" Joseph asked.

"Well, with the tents we got yesterday, we have the room now and I can't be the only one who brings new people into the group, it wouldn't be fair. So I say yes, and if anyone else knows of people in town that can help us out, let us know and we will go see if they want to come and join us."

"Shouldn't we vote on that?" Cathy asked.

"OOPS! My mistake. Yeah, that would probably be the best. All those in favor of bringing friends into the camp, raise your hands,"

Just about everyone raised their hands.

"Opposed?"

A couple of people voted.

"The "Aye's" have it. So let us know if anyone has someone we need to go talk to ... Is there anything else?" I asked.

"Well, you have three doctors now, but I have not heard you talk about a dentist yet," Alice Berlinger said spoke up.

"Ah yes, another thing that has slipped my mind. My dentist, Dr. Jakob Claussen, lives behind his office just north of Franklin, so we can go and see if he would like to come here. Then, when the crews are out and about, they can stop by some dentist offices for supplies and the whereabouts of other dentists," I said, "Is there anything else you can think of this morning?"

I gave it a couple of minutes then continued speaking.

"Ok, let's get the jobs sorted out for today and get to work. But before you go, I want to thank everyone again for all the hard work you're putting in to get us ready to survive the coming storm."

We broke into groups and decided what everyone should be doing today. We added another truck to my team, one of the M1070's, so we would be headed out with four trucks plus two up-armored Hummers and one of the bigger MRAPS, which I think they call a Buffalo, the smaller one being a Cougar.

My team was after more food, so we gathered everyone together for a pre-trip meeting to make sure everyone on the team was up to speed. When that was done I told everyone to gear up and meet at the truck in 15 minutes.

I already had my gear with me, but I spent my time going through it checking it over and making sure all of it was in working order.

Mark came up to me, "So where do you want me today?"

"Why don't you come with us, we can always use the help. Come with me and I'll get you geared up."

We went into the basement and got him fitted with body armor and helmet. He already had his Beretta pistol and chose to take an AK47 for his rifle saying it hits harder than the M16.

We made it to the truck with time to spare, and started loading our gear into it and getting it checked out and ready to go. We had to make sure we stopped for fuel today, carrying 300 gallons of fuel on the truck makes it seem like you can drive forever but you still run out eventually.

We were the first ones out of camp, leaving just after 11 am. We had the Buffalo lead the way towards Monterey, getting there without any problems.

Nothing was going on in Monterey when we drove through, must have been the rain keeping people inside.

Franklin was the same, not seeing anyone as we drove through town. It made me nervous in a way not seeing anyone, kind of eerie, and I wondering what people were up to.

We made it to Harrisonburg, pulled into the SYSCO lot and saw some older pickups by the door that we hadn't seen last time we were here.