Poison Earth
A short story by Ronald W. Hull
It was the worst of times, squared. It wasn't Armageddon like so many religions had predicted. But it certainly was hot and fiery, more so than any description of the depths of hell. Only that didn't happen on Earth. It happened on the Sun. It was just another one of those solar storms, those great big canker sores of eruption that loop out from the cauldron of fusion that is the eternal fire source of our very lives halfway through the solar system like a hot fiery brand with no known antidote except the unyielding power of magnetism. The Earth's protective magnetic field–breached.
There had been special solar flares like this before, in prehistoric, and even in historic times as recently as 1859. But those flares, different and described as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) were only witnessed by those below as massive displays of Aurora Borealis, colorful sheets of weaving light, lighting up the cold night sky to the point of obscuring even the countless stars with their kaleidoscopic, moving magical impressions that gave wizards of old thoughts of god like activity taking place in the skies overhead. Some may have even fled in fear, hiding in shelters where they couldn't see the fearful thing happening to the skies. These events also caused effects to much of life on earth that could sense radiation and magnetism, and felt the impact of the Sun's fury much more dramatically than human fear. The radiation and magnetic fluctuations from these events that overcame the Earth's magnetic field left lasting changes through many mutations in living things--some good, some bad. The bad ones usually died out quickly because they were incompatible with survival in the tough niches most living creatures live and die in.
But not since the advent of electricity as a useful tool of human activity had such an event occurred. This time, it was catastrophic.
High Mountain Colorado, near Homer… Mid February
Douglas Bentley was at his usual station that night, his 16 inch telescope, taking photographs in hopes of being the next to discover a new celestial object, most likely a asteroid or comet, and perhaps, name it for his wife, children, or grandchildren. Hoping that this would be the night when he might find that named or unnamed asteroid, as yet undiscovered, on a collision course with Earth, he waited and watched. A strange hobby. But a highly useful one for those concerned about such things as the serendipity of the universe around us. But there was another concern. Earlier that day, through his usual sources, Doug had received automatic emails warning of a solar eruption, a CME that seemed to be much greater than the usual cycle of these sunspots and their flares. And more were predicted.
And then, the lights went out. It was about 11 pm, Mountain time. A minor inconvenience for Doug and his wife. They had their own windmills and solar panels, and most days were getting a paycheck from the power company, a handy addition to their retirement funds. Doug trained his sighting scope not to the skies, but to the surrounding valleys below and saw no light at all. That's strange, Doug thought. In numerous power outages in the past, there were always those private parties and emergency centers where they had emergency generators. While he did see spots of lights coming on here and there, they were immediately extinguished, and, a short time later, the only light he could see was from the stars above on that cold, clear winter night. He turned out the propane heater in his comfortable little astronomy dome made out of marine plywood and a healthy layer of insulation, to walk back to the house to see how Ellie was doing.
Eleanor, or Ellie, as everyone affectionately called her, was upset. Snuggled in bed for the evening with a good book and a good movie on their satellite TV that she wasn't watching, when the TV and the lights had suddenly failed. This was very unusual because, even though it was a calm night and the wind turbines weren't working, they always had battery power for at least two days without any sunshine or wind. Something was terribly wrong. She stumbled through the darkness to find some candles to light and checked on their propane furnace. It was still working so they had heat. She could hear the back door opening.
"Are you all right?" Doug's familiar voice rang out.
"I guess. But I don't know what happened to the power. I was in the middle of a good book and movie, waiting for you to come in out of the cold and dark from your infernal hobby, when everything went dark."
"It must be those solar flares we were warned about. Coming back from the observatory the sky has suddenly erupted in the darndest display of Aurora Borealis I've ever seen. You've gotta come out with me and see this. Come to think of it, grab my video camera and your cell phone. We've gotta capture this while it lasts!"
Ellie was in no mood to get dressed to go outside, but she complied, because she knew that she would never hear the end of it if she missed seeing what her husband was so all fired up about. She knew him too well after all these years, to complain about something he wanted to do that was exciting to him. After all, that was the spark they had when they met in college so many years before. She pulled on some mukluks and grabbed her parka. She unplugged her iPhone from the charger and stuck it in the pocket of her parka. When she reached the kitchen carrying a candle for light, she unplugged the video camera they kept on the windowsill charging so that she could video any cute critter or bird that might happen by so that she could send videos out to the relatives showing them what a wonderful life they had in the mountains. At least when they had power. She was careful to close the back door all the way to keep the heat in the kitchen as she stepped out into the clear cold night to join her husband's crazy whim. She looked up to see a dazzling display like she had never seen before. Guess it was worth it after all, she thought. Didn't tell Doug though.
Ellie handed the digital camera to Doug and he began filming the scene from horizon to horizon as spectacular sheets of violet, red, yellow, and green moved across the sky in great rolling draperies of the wildest colors that nature could create. Doug was in awe the whole time, until about 12 minutes had passed and he ran to the end of the Mini DV film cartridge. At least he thought that until the camera lights went out and he couldn't get it to turn back on. Doug turned his attention to Ellie who was swearing silently under her breath. "What's wrong," he inquired.
"Oh, I got some good shots with a lot of brilliant color, and even a couple of amazing short videos of what's happening, but when I went to send them by email to the kids and my group of email friends, the emails wouldn't go. I kept getting a message 'No Server.' And now the damned iPhone seems to have quit. What's wrong? You always know everything, dammit. What's going on?"
Doug had already surmised what was going on. And it wasn't good. "Honey, I don't want to tell you this, but a massive solar flare, or several solar flares, has knocked everything off the electrical grid. The satellites. Probably every moving or running vehicle and every operating electronic device. We're in deep trouble." Doug turned and hugged his wife of 47 years. "No use worrying about it tonight though. Let's go to bed." Doug shook his head in disbelief. They went to bed. But neither of them slept.
Morning brought more bad news. While their solar panels were still working, providing DC power to the batteries, the rectifiers weren't working. Neither were the three wind turbines. Doug knew what it was. In his other life, he worked for both Western Electric and General Electric and had hands-on experience with building all sorts of electrical devices including some requiring sophisticated integrated circuits used in most modern electrical appliances. Any device with a motor or generator like the alternator in a car and the transformers on light poles, as well as some of the integrated circuits, would be affected by the magnetizing bursts coming from the sun… Essentially short-circuiting and burning them out.
Fortunately, Doug knew how to find the problems and fix them, even in small devices like computers and cell phones. He'd been known to crack the code and break into a couple of cell phones just to see how they worked. At a time like this, Doug's knowledge was invaluable to their survival, but he wasn't sure about the rest of so-called, civilization.
With no power, but with heat from their propane furnace, Ellie set about making a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs with biscuits because she knew that Doug had a long day ahead of him, fixing things. She started a fire in the fireplace and placed her skillet in it, making their food the old-fashioned way, along with a pot of camp coffee. Power outages were something she had a lot of experience with, growing up in the country all her life until she went to college. Once the coffee was brewed and the eggs fried, they sat down in the light of the kitchen window and discussed what was on their minds.
Doug was sitting at the table sipping on a too hot cup of coffee with a very pensive look on his face as he stared out the window. Ellie could sense that something was terribly wrong, because he was usually much more jovial in the morning regardless of what kind of night's sleep that he got. She also knew that he was up to challenges like this, and usually quite eager to get to work. This morning was different…
When Ellie got settled at the table, Doug shared his thoughts. "You know, this just doesn't affect us. From what I can surmise, that flare, or flares… there may be many… have probably brought down the entire satellite communication system serving the earth, the electrical grids in every country, and wiped out any vehicle that runs with a coil or complex integrated circuitry. Even if vehicles are capable of running, like diesels, most of the fuel available is pumped by electric motors and would be difficult to obtain except by siphoning. I expect that folks in the cities have settled in thinking that everything will be repaired very soon, gathering up what supplies they may have in the house or at the corner store, but panic will set in very soon when the only news they have is by word-of-mouth because their telephones, radios, and other devices they depend on aren't working. Except perhaps, battery-operated radios tuned into the emergency broadcast system that may also not be working. Since it's February, I expect that people in the northern half of the country are already very cold and trying to figure ways to heat their houses with fireplaces because their space heaters don't work without electricity. Repair crews might be out trying to replace transformers, but if every transformer in the entire grid is blown up, there simply aren't enough transformers available to replace 1/10 of what might be needed. I expect that looting has already started, and that things will go down hill very fast. With nothing working except what's working on people's minds, civilization will disappear very quickly. I fear for us, Ellie."
"But what about Roger and Susan and the kids? What about Jeanne and Mike and little Jennifer? I tried to call them before you got up and couldn't get through. Phone was dead. What's going to happen to them?" Ellie got that look on her face that scared even Doug, because he'd seen it before."
"Roger and Susan live only 30 miles from here. If I taught Roger right, he'll be thinking like me, and be on his way here already. I know it's a long walk, but if he and Susan are smart, they'll get out of that little town before some of those rednecks decide to take everything. As for Jeanne, I know they live in the Springs, and it's a long way here. But both Mike and her are experienced mountain cross-country skiers with winter camping experience. They have a belly pack for Jennifer. I won't count them out. Besides, they probably will find shelter and supplies along the way if they're careful. You and I have taught both kids to be self-sufficient. We'll just have to see if they can make it here. In the meantime, I'm going to spend the day trying to get some of our systems working again and figure out a way to protect our perimeter from any bad element out there that might try to take advantage of our good fortune."
"Be careful Honey, I'll see what I can do here in the house to prepare for whatever we might face coming up. I sure hope we don't lose any of the food we've got stored in the freezer." Ellie now had a very sad look on her face contemplating what Doug had said. She sipped her coffee and thought about the kids. She prayed that they would be able to make it all the way here. Only time would tell. Doug finished his last biscuit and coffee, pulled on his boots, and put on his parka. As he went out the door, Ellie poured another cup of coffee and started to worry even more.
To keep Ellie from worrying, Doug set about making use of mother nature for their frozen meat. They had a couple of ice chests that they had used on hunting and fishing trips to keep meat and fish. He retrieved them from the shed and brought them into the house. He asked Ellie to unload the freezer into the ice chests. He went outside and started chipping ice away wherever he could find it, including icicles off the building, and placed it in buckets that he brought into the house so that Ellie could pack the ice around the meat as she placed it in the ice chests, making sure that the meat they would eat first would be on the top and easier to get to.
When the first chest was full, they donned their winter clothing and went out onto the blinding white sunlit snow looking for a place, not too far from the house, on a north facing slope, where Doug knew that snow and ice stayed on the ground until June at this altitude. Digging down into the snow until he reached the frozen ground beneath, behind a big boulder, they placed the chests there, and covered them over with snow, ensuring that they would have frozen meat at least until June. After that, Doug figured they would have to preserve by drying or smoking any meat or fish they had until the next winter when they could freeze meat again. Doug was thinking ahead… way ahead. He expected the grid would be down for a very long time. Freezing food in a freezer was a luxury their electrical system couldn't afford. If he could get it working again.
As for the remaining meat in the freezer, by merely keeping it in the shed where it was located, unheated, Doug figured that its contents would last for some time. Something else bothered him though, so he didn't repair any of the electrical equipment although he could. He had to be sure that the solar flaring had stopped, or any repairs might be undone by more magnetic pulses reaching the earth. He thought about all the hospitals and other places where they probably turned on the backup power as soon as everything went off. If the solar flaring continued, those sources would also fail. Doug hoped that wasn't the case, but he couldn't predict what the sun would do. He only knew that these flares always eventually died down. At least they had in the past.
Ellie went back in the house and made preparations for clothing and bedding, expecting some cold nights ahead. Doug went to the vehicles and other machinery to see if any of the components had been damaged. Their old Jeep Wagoneer, their two snowmobiles, the two chainsaws, the lawnmower, and their ATV. While he didn't find anything damaged, he didn't start any of them, but made sure their coils were isolated by disconnecting them and wrapping them in aluminum foil so that they could not burn out if someone tried to start them up during a flare.
Doug didn't make any repairs to the electrical system that wasn't working. But he did check the wind turbines and found the problem. He disconnected the coils in the generators there and would wait until he was certain that the flares had stopped before making any repair and starting the turbines up again. He checked the rectifier on the solar panel system, and it was burned out. Rather than repair it like the wind turbine, Doug would wait until the coast was clear before making those repairs as well.
He couldn't see much during the daytime, but at night, the more Aurora Borealis were powerful again that night. Doug's worry for people in the first world grew because he knew they were the first to succumb to a lack of water and food, Their supply chains far too long, far removed from the source. While few remained, he knew that primitive people, without modern conveniences who still hunted and gathered, would probably be largely unaffected. But all the rest would, and many of those might seek to go into the wild areas to escape the inevitable chaos and bloodshed, only to disrupt the ability of the remaining hunters and gatherers to survive with their superior firepower but lack of survival skills.
The thin veneer of civilization would quickly peel off when the masses were faced with lack of drinking water and food. Man is and always has been a savage beast when confronted, and worse when in great need. Anarchy would probably prevail over order.
All that Doug could do for now was set up a primitive perimeter of rope and noisemakers to try to catch anyone coming in at night because that would be the worst time to confront anyone. Fortunately, the winter and mountains prevented many from coming this far. From his vantage point near the top of a mountain, both he and Ellie could see for miles around and the snow made it easy to spot anyone coming. The winter is on our side. He found himself thinking. It was an abhorrent thought, but he had to face the fact that they could be in danger, and prepare for it now. Fortunately, they had hunting rifles and shotguns enough for the whole family when they came there to hunt. There was also ample ammunition. None of that fancy semi automatic shooting range stuff, but good hunting rifles with scopes used for bringing down elk at a good distance. Enough to provide adequate protection–especially the shotguns.
The retired couple didn't get much sleep that first couple nights. What with watching the Aurora flare up again and again, and watching for the kids to come… if they were going to make it. Doug put heavy filters on his sighting telescope and watched the flare occasionally. After two full days and nights, it still wasn't over. Doug wondered how many emergency generators, vehicles and other backup equipment had been destroyed trying to get things going too soon after the initial outages. He could imagine people getting desperate already and looting the stores to get as much supplies as they could.
Doug new this scenario was unfolding worldwide and feared for what it would mean for the future. Would it throw everyone back two centuries? He didn't know. Only time would tell. Doug was in the observatory about two in the afternoon taking a look at the Sun when he heard Ellie screaming up at the house. He grabbed the rifle he had by the door and headed along the snow shoveled trail back to the house. The screaming turned into, "They're here! They're here!" When Doug got to the house, Ellie met him with a hug. About a half mile away, they could see two figures in snowshoes and backpacks headed their way. Ellie slipped into her boots and threw on her parka, and both of them ran down the driveway to meet the kids halfway. Hugs and kisses later, they were all back at the house.
At the mouth of the Columbia River… The first night… 10 pm Pacific time
George Matthews, chief engineer in charge of the swing shift at the Columbia Generating Station of the Bonneville Power Authority, was getting ready to go home in a sloppy snow that had been falling that evening, when it happened. An audible alarm went out throughout the plant that jolted him from his usual, almost too relaxed, job of watching all the monitors and checking on his two men, Charlie Washington and Hector Martinez, as well as the security guard Lloyd Swanson. When the cell phone where he had been playing his favorite game quit, while he was half dozing off. Reality quickly set in.
All of the monitors went down momentarily while the backup generators kicked in as was planned for and drilled for in emergencies like this. The lights came back up again and so did the monitors, all resetting, when they suddenly went down again. This time, they didn't come back up, The control room was bathed in the eerie green light of emergency battery-powered lighting.
His usual means of communicating down, George reached for the button on the microphone on the console that had been little used in recent years, and shouted into the microphone… "Everyone report to me! We've got a major emergency here!" He didn't hear the usual reverberation of his voice on loudspeakers placed throughout the station and the grounds. The PA system was dead. Doing what was necessary, but not in the emergency procedure guidelines, George left the control room, searching for his crew. The first thing that he noticed in the dim light, was that all the card reader door locks weren't working. So he had to find something to jam into every door that he went through, or he couldn't get back in. Unfortunately, as he left the control room, that's exactly what happened… The door slammed behind him, and before he realized it, he was locked out.
George found Charlie coming toward him in the dimly lit hallway leading to the generating room where Charlie had been working on upgrading some of the equipment. He called out, "Hey, Charlie, I'm locked out of the control room and everything's dead in there. We've got a major situation going on. What happened in the generating room when everything went down?"
"Like you said, everything just stopped. And then it came back on again. There was a lot of sparking from the generators and even some of the lubrication caught fire. I got it under control, right away, but I don't think those suckers will be up and running anytime soon. Looks to me like the whole damn grid is down. We are in one terrible fix!"
"You don't know the half of it." George's heart started pounding in his chest like a jack hammer and he tried to figure out what they could do next to stop the inevitable from happening. All their procedures, emergency warnings, and call for backup required electrical power and communication. They had none, except their old walkie-talkies, and they didn't know if those were working, stored back in the dressing room area. They headed there.
Lloyd Swanson, in the guard shack out front, was in the middle of texting his girlfriend, telling her that he would meet her right after the shift at the Castaway, where they often met for a late night date before the bar closed. Suddenly, the lights went out, flickered, and then came back on again, only to fail once more.
When Lloyd looked at his cell phone again, it read, "No Server," and then went black. Try as he would, Lloyd couldn't get that damn thing turned back on. He knew the phone was charged because it always had to be for the entire shift. He picked up the wall phone connected to the control room and that was dead, too. Except for a dim overhead battery-powered emergency light, his world was dark and quiet… Quite unnatural. And then, he saw it. The snow had stopped falling a half hour before. The sky was filled with unbelievably colored Aurora Borealis. Is the world coming to an end? He thought.
Hector Martinez had been checking levels in the reactor area when the lights went out and came back on and then went out again. He made his way to the control room, also forgetting to block doors as he went through them, and soon found that his access card, along with his cell phone, weren't working. When he got to the control room, he couldn't get in. He looked through the small window in the door and saw no one there… Strange. Hector headed for the locker room and storage area where he knew he would find whatever clothing and tools he would need to help him with this emergency. Fortunately, the locker room did not have card access. The storage room did.
Hector found George and Charlie dressed in radiation suits and desperately trying to pry the door open to the storage area. He shouted, "Hey guys, the reactor's in trouble, let me help you!" The three of them worked on the door for a while, but couldn't get it pried open.
"Maybe they've got something out in the security area. We need tools if we're going to get into here." George's voice had an air of desperation to it. Even with gloves on, his hands ached from exertion. He turned to the guys, urging them on. "Grab some towels, we can't get caught behind any more locked doors."
They were easily able to jerk some lockers open and get some tools out and towels. There were rad suits and some personal items. With no Geiger counters, or other radiation detectors, just radiation patches that they pinned to their clothing before they left, they headed out of the building towards the security area, making sure they jammed a towel in every locked door they passed.
Lloyd could hear someone shouting! And saw the three guys manning the plant running toward him. Oh oh!, Swanson thought, this ain't no ordinary power outage… This is serious. He slid open the door to the guard shack and hurried to greet them.
"Have you got any heavy tools and Geiger counters?" George shouted as they approached.
"Yeah, in our prep room right around the corner. Here, let me unlock it for you. Take anything you need. I can see by your faces that this is really bad. I'll do whatever I can to help." Lloyd led them to the room behind the guard shack and unlocked the door. "Like I said, take whatever you need."
George looked around the room quickly. "Thanks, Lloyd. We've got to find something to break through some doors that are locked because our card system failed locked. We need to get supplies out of the supply room. I need you to stay here and help us communicate with anyone that comes down the road… The night shift… Anyone. Make sure you have your gun loaded and don't let anyone inside the perimeter that isn't authorized. This situation is very dangerous and we want to keep people out of the area as much as possible. Do you have any walkie-talkies that work?"
"I know we've got some pry bars and axes in the firebox over there in the corner. My cell doesn't work and I don't think we have any of the old walkie-talkies around anymore. We've got a couple of police radios in that cabinet, but we haven't used them for a few years and they're probably not charged. I'll work with whatever we can work-up."
"It will have to do… Thanks a lot for your help, Lloyd." All three of the men, with Lloyd's help, rummaged through what was available. They left with two pry bars, a fire ax, two different radiation detectors that didn't work, and, a couple that did. They had found some old radios, but they didn't work. Communication would be difficult if they separated.
In five minutes, the three were prying open the door to the storage room, hoping they would be able to prevent any serious consequences. After prying open two doors that were accidentally locked earlier, they made their way to the reactor room. Everything looked normal, but it wasn't. Charlie noticed right away.
"As soon as the power went out, the reactor went into failsafe mode and the backup generators kicked on, moving the control rods into the reactor core. You can see that they only made 3 feet. It's not enough to have any affect on the reactor. We have to get a way to monitor temperature very soon. With the pumps down, she'll heat up pretty fast."
Charlie was right. An old-fashioned thermometer dipped in the reactor cooling water showed that the temperature was 10° above normal and probably climbing at an accelerating rate. George took one look at the situation and said, "if we can't move those rods any further, were screwed… Let's get to work!" The others could see the sweat running down his face in the eerie green glow of the emergency lights. And they weren't even working hard yet.
Knowing that the rods were mounted in such a way that gravity would lower them into the core to stop the reaction, all three began working on the screw motors that were burned out and essentially welded to the rods by the flares and the resulting power surge. All they had was the pry bars and a couple of axes and hack saws to try to release the rods from the screw motors.
Hector went back to the store room and got a acetylene torch to go to work on the surge welds holding the rods in place. It was too little too late it took an hour just to release one rod. Dog tired, they worked until they freed four of the rods that, once free, slid into place deep in the core. They didn't know how long they worked, but knew the midnight shift wasn't coming to help them. As they worked, they realized that no one was going to come to their aid and they weren't going to stop the core from overheating.
Every few minutes, they had checked the reactor water temperature. When it came close to the boiling point and it became unbearably hot in the reactor room, George called it quits. "Guys, thanks for your help. We tried our best, but there's nothing we can do. She's going to go meltdown. Let's get the hell out of here!" He was crying from the strain and the inevitability of it all.
Five minutes later, the three men reached the guard shack running. George yelled out, "Lloyd, is your car working!"
Lloyd shouted back, "No, I checked several vehicles that I had keys for, and nothing is working!"
The sun was coming up in the east over the mountains as they all ran as fast as they could down the three mile-long road leading to the coastal highway and an unknown fate. Within an hour, explosions began to erupt from the station, and a huge plume of radioactive dust and gas spewed from the unattended reactor building. Within a day, radioactive fallout had already reached Idaho and Montana and the prevailing westerlies were spreading it out over the nation.
Copyright 2014 © Ronald W. Hull
12/1/14
