Chapter 7

Day 6 Wednesday 18 April 2007 Impact plus 2

I've said it once and I'll say it again, there is nothing in this world better than to wake up in the arms of someone you care a whole lot about, and it is even better when that special someone is naked in your arms. But no matter how much I loved lying there holding Betsy in my arms, I really needed to pee, so I had to get up.

When I got back to the room, Betsy was sitting up in bed.

"Did you sleep alright?" I asked.

"Slept like a baby, especially with you holding me all night long, I really liked that a lot," Betsy said.

"Well, I really liked it too," I said as I walked over to her.

I sat down on the bed and pulled her over onto my lap and gave her a nice, long, slow kiss.

"Ooh, I liked that," she said.

"I liked it too," I replied and kissed her again.

'Well we are not going to get anything done if we just sit here and make out all day, I guess it's time to get dressed and see what's going on," I said.

"Do we have to?" Betsy whined.

"I am afraid so, but I have a feeling that we will have plenty of time in a few weeks to spend all the time we want cuddled up in bed if you want to," I said.

"How is that?" Betsy said.

"Well, if my thinking is correct, it is going to start to rain pretty good here. That will lead to flooding. It will probably get so bad that we can't get the trucks out of the valley," I said.

"Will that affect us here?" Betsy asked.

"I don't think so, we are pretty high up here, but the river will probably leave its banks and make it so we can't get out," I said.

"Then, while it is still raining it will start to get very cold, and the rain will turn into snow and the river will freeze and we still won't be able to go anywhere," I said.

"And since we can't go anywhere we can just stay in bed and snuggle to keep warm."

"That is my thinking exactly," I said smiling at Betsy.

"Depending on how much snow we get, all we are going to be able to do here is eat and try to stay warm," I said.

"Ooh, I like the sound of that," Betsy said and she cuddled closer to me.

I kissed her again and stood up with her still in my arms, turned around and sat her down on the bed.

"Come on, we still have work to do so we will have stuff to eat and stuff to keep us warm while we are waiting for the weather to get better," I said.

Betsy grumbled a little bit but started to get ready for the day while I did the same.

We made it upstairs about 7 am and Lisa was there, with a few other people working on getting breakfast ready.

I walked over and smacked her on the butt and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

"Morning Lisa," I said.

"I'll 'morning you' in a minute," Lisa said violently.

I moved out of the way when she tried to hit me with the spatula, we just laughed and went on our way.

I got to the living room where most of the rest of the people had gathered. They were already talking about what was needed and adding stuff to their lists.

"Good morning, can I have your attention for a minute or two?" I asked.

I waited for everyone to settle down, then said "For those who were not up last night when we got home I want to go over again what we found," I started in.

"We were all told this morning when we got in here," Mom said.

"That's good to know, but I just wanted to make sure that everyone knows the whole impact of what we saw yesterday," I stated.

"Like what?" KC asked.

"Like what a tidal wave of that scale hitting all the coasts along the Atlantic would do. We are talking about Florida being wiped off the map type of scale here," I said.

"Would they really be that bad?" Anita asked.

"Oh yeah and worse, we're talking about the destruction of most of the east coast, New York, Boston, Baltimore, Norfolk are all gone. Then move into the gulf and most of those states would be hit extremely hard also. South America, Africa, Europe would not have been spared either, they all would have been hit hard by them," I stated.

"I was just thinking about our own little part of the world and didn't look at the bigger picture," Cathy added.

"That means most of my family is dead now," Kristian said sadly.

Cathy and Mom went over to comfort Kristian, who looked to be close to breaking down. "I am very sorry to say so, but yes, I am afraid it does," I said.

Everyone got quiet for a while after that, just thinking about people they might have known that were no longer with us because of the impact. I then went on to explain what I thought happened to Staunton - that it was an asteroid that air-burst above the city and did all the damage.

I also went on to explain to them what I thought about what was going to happen in the coming weeks, the same conversation I just had with Betsy, and what I thought was going to happen in the future.

A few people were white as ghosts, but some of the others were nodding along with me. They must have seen the same programs on the Discovery channel that I had.

I also told them about the looks from people I got yesterday, and that if anyone left the valley that they needed to be well armed, just in case. I know I wanted to live through this mess, and that meant not getting shot for what little I had.

By the time we got through that, Lisa and her crew had breakfast ready for us and we all headed in for something to eat. After breakfast we all converged on the living room again to go over everyone's lists they made up yesterday.

I had Cathy break out her laptop so she could type up a master list for us, then we could go through that list to prioritize the items.

While we were waiting for Cathy, I asked "Tony, did you get a chance to look at those reefer units yesterday?"

"I sure did, and was able to get them hot-wired to run. The thermostats that controlled the units have all been fried so I just wired around the thermostat and got them all up and running. I let them run for a few hours and then shut them down just to make sure everything inside stays frozen," Tony said.

"If I can get the parts, and they are still good, it should be no problem to put them all back to working on their own," Tony added.

"I think you should head out with our team today and see if we can come up with the parts. Then, if we keep the reefers running for a few weeks, it will probably be cold enough outside so that we don't have to run them any more," I said.

"Tim, Chris I think you and your team should head down to the Homestead. Go to the ski resort, pick up some skis, snow shoes, snow mobiles, and even a snow cat if they have one," I said.

"It would probably be a good idea to check out Snowshoe, West Virginia for some equipment also," Lisa threw in.

"Yeah, they are a bigger resort and they would probably have a snow cat up there, and there are also a few outdoor equipment stores up there where we could pick up winter gear and other equipment," I said.

"I was also thinking..." I started.

"That's a scary thought," Lisa said laughing.

"Yeah isn't it?" I replied with a smile. "Anyway, I was thinking if we get the generator hooked to the batteries to recharge them and use the batteries for our main power source, we could extend the time between recharges if we use low voltage bulbs like the ones in the RV's when on battery power."

"That would work ... It would just take time to wire it all up though," Tony said.

"Well we are going to have plenty of time here shortly," I said.

"We already have most of the things we need for it in the trailer from the electrical store, and we can look for more stuff to get it set up today while we are out." I said.

"We also need to get started on the wood, get it run through the splitter that we got and stacked and covered for later use," I said.

"We should also get more wood in here, it will be a lot easier to just get more loads of timber than it will be for us to go cut down trees in a few months, so I think we should get as much timber as we can," I said.

"We need to get the stoves hooked up also so when the time comes we have something to burn the wood in." Mike said.

"We should also get them installed in the RV's or no one will want to sleep out there when the weather turns bad. We should also start building roofs over the RV's so that the heavy snow loads don't damage them and make them unlivable," I said.

"That shouldn't be much of a problem," Mike said.

"Mike, how long would it take you to get a place set up for a double or triple wide house or trailer?" I asked.

"Probably a couple of days, but why would you want one?" Mike asked.

"I was thinking we could use it as a meeting house and a place where everyone could meet and spend time together. You have to admit, with all of us here in this house, it's a little crowded," I said.

"If we get one big enough we can set it up to have open space and then we can put in a big commercial kitchen to make it easier for Lisa and her crew to feed us all," I added.

"And it will also give us a place to sit down and eat, instead of having to find a place to sit and eat on our laps," KC chimed in.

"That sounds like a great idea to me," Lisa said.

"Instead of a big trailer, how about one of those all steel buildings, or better yet a Quonset hut," Tim said.

"That is a damn good idea. We can get it up and put together, then spray foam on the inside for insulation and maybe Rhino Line the outside to keep it water proof for a good, long time," I said.

"That is a great idea," Mike commented. "And it would not be very hard to put up and the way they are designed they will be able to handle any snow load with ease."

"Well thanks to Tim you have an armored D9 bulldozer out there to help you clear off a place to build the thing on," I said while smiling at Tim.

"Hey, what can I say, I like my toys," he said and started to laugh.

By that time Cathy was back with the laptop and we started going through all the lists, combining them into one long master list. There were a bunch of very good ideas and there were some I probably wouldn't have thought of, at least until it would have been too late. One of those was farm animals, I probably would not have thought about them at all.

"So what type of animals do we need and what do we need to get here to keep them alive?" I asked the group.

"Well I guess just the basics, cows, pigs, chickens. Horses could come in handy also and maybe goats or sheep," Lisa said.

"Yeah, just the basics. Lisa, why don't you, and some of the other people here who know about animals, come up with a list and we will go over it tomorrow morning," I suggested.

"I can do that. We will also need a place for them to stay," she said.

"How about if we put up another Quonset hut and use it as a barn," Mike suggested.

"That sounds like the best bet. Let's go with that idea," I said. "Cathy see if you can print everyone a copy of the list. They will have it for reference so if someone comes up with other ideas, they can easily look on their list to see if it already there."

"Sure, that shouldn't be a problem," Cathy said.

We spent the next few minutes getting jobs assigned and teams set up, once that was done we all headed for our assigned jobs.

Betsy and I grabbed our gear and headed for our truck, Tony and dad grabbed one and Kristian and KC grabbed another and we all started for Harrisonburg to get more supplies.

We got into Monterey soon after we left and had a lot more people watching us today. It was starting to worry me a little bit, but I thought we could handle most things that might come up. I was just real glad I got that body armor out for Betsy yesterday. At least she should be in good shape if fighting were to start. I made a mental note to spend some time seeing if I could get some for me also. I guess I will have to break out my sewing kit and see if I could modify some of the vests to fit me, or at least give me some protection.

We were starting to get a lot of attention all the way into Harrisonburg. I think, just to be on the safe side, that we will take a different route home and not give anyone any ideas about us.

Our first stop was the Peterbilt dealer; they also have a big repair shop, so we went in and started looking for parts to get the refrigerated units working right again.

"Tony, should we get some spare parts for the trucks while we are here, just in case something happens to them we might be able to fix them?" I said.

"Sounds like a smart thing to do, I'll start pulling parts and you guys load them in the trucks," Tony said.

Instead of loading parts into the trucks, I just went out, got a trailer and backed it up to their loading dock and proceeded to load everything we could find into it. Tony started going through and loading up the tools to work on the trucks while Kristian and dad started in on the truck lifts and jacks. It would be hard to change a tire on one of the trucks if we didn't have anything that could lift it off the ground. Everyone got together after that to move the spare parts into the trailer along with all the repair manuals we found.

It was after 1 pm before we got done loading up the trailer with the parts and tools, and on the road headed for the steel building company.

We got to the company's lot at 2:30 pm and found several buildings already loaded on trailers, just waiting to head out to customers. We broke into the office and found the manifests to see what building sizes were loaded already.

They had the perfect buildings for our purpose; two 50 by 80 foot buildings and a 50 by 100 foot already loaded. I figured the 50x100 would be perfect to store the trucks in to keep them out of the weather so they will be ready to go when we needed them again, plus it would give us a warm, dry place to work on them. There is nothing worse than being cold and wet, lying on the ground, while you are trying to fix something.

The buildings were also of the Quonset hut design, so we really didn't have to worry about the snow piling up on them or the wind blowing hard and damaging them. They should hold up nicely for what they would be put through.

Everything we needed was already loaded up on 4 flatbed trailers, but we went to the warehouse area and grabbed extra hardware just in case we might need it.

We got the trailers hooked up and then headed for a company that did spray foam application so we could get the machine and chemicals to get that accomplished.

We found the shop with no problems, then grabbed one of their own trailers and started loading extra barrels of the chemicals into it for our use. It was almost 5 pm by the time we got everything ready to roll.

Our next stop was the company that did the Rhino Lining where we got their equipment and chemicals loaded in a trailer to take back to the house. I wanted to make sure we had enough products to do the job so we also stopped at the Line-X company and grabbed their equipment and chemicals. Just to make sure we didn't run out.

Our next stop was to the SYSCO warehouse for more food and supplies. We got there and Tony started working on the refrigerated units so we could take more meat and frozen foods with us. The rest found some regular trailers and started loading up on canned and dry goods.

It didn't take Tony long to get the units running again so we busied ourselves with loading meat, frozen vegetables and other frozen processed foods. We definitely didn't know when we would be able to start growing our own food again, so we needed to have enough food on hand to see us all through.