We stayed around long enough to see that the Rambler was loaded with enough of the essentials needed by the two Baja communities and 300 of the village inhabitants for a 5 day cruise to the tip of the Baja Peninsula and back. Something that would probably be repeated until the summer hurricanes made it impossible to go there safely.
The Starliner high-speed train to and from Las Vegas that opened in 2030 had been a huge success. However, air travel from LA and San Francisco, and the use of the 15 had dwindled except for trucking. The towns along the way that provided basic automobile services, quick stops and long-term and short-term rental housing for both travelers and the down and out suffered greatly. Truckstops and motels were the only real source of income along those Indians trails turned superhighways.
Barstow, at the intersection of the 15 and the 40, had become overrun by gangs and was in the strong grip of the Sinola Cartel. The truck stops there and along the other little towns became very dangerous with lots of trucks hijacked. I suspected trying to run our trucks through there would be difficult if the gangs were still in control. Like all public transportation in and out of LA, the Starliner was shut down from our aerial reconnaissance earlier and wouldn't be operating for a long time to come.
Instead, we flew the Diplomat II twin turbo prop from USA Aerospace's hanger, because it had a range far beyond the helicopter and could land on highways or level fields if necessary. It was a 10 passenger model. We used that extra space to carry essentials as gifts and key first aid and medical supplies that we thought might be needed from the list we got from Ensenada. We weren't sure there would be anywhere where we could get aviation fuel we needed. So, we had to have a long-range plane and the 3000 mile range of the dual fuel tanks made the Diplomat a good choice.
Once again, we took off at 8 am for Las Vegas to return the same day. This time, Derek flew because he was more experienced with twin turbo prop planes than I was. Wondah and Ginger took detailed photography from each side of the plane that we needed to make sure, or not, that we could run trucks to the Upper Midwest.
This time, thinking about what would happen to the twins, or the one growing in Melody, she decided to stay home rather than face any danger. We invited Daphne to go with us because she knew some show business people in Las Vegas. She eagerly agreed to go along, concerned about her friends, even though she was pregnant again from Ray.
We flew the familiar 15 to Victorville and saw thousands of vacant vehicles stalled that had attempted to leave LA the year before and didn't make it very far. There were some encampments, but they were deserted as well. As we approached Barstow, Derek climbed to 5000 feet. We took high resolution pictures and videos over the city because of what we had heard about the gangs there. I didn't want anyone shooting at us. The videos would show us human activity on the ground. A way we could assess who was still alive and moving around at all the little towns and encampments along the way. We saw some activity–pickups with guns mounted.
From there, we slowed our flight and flew low enough to capture more detail and video. Like before Barstow with the stalled cars leaving LA, on the other side, the stalled cars and encampments were all headed toward LA. Truckstops and turnouts at Basin, Baker, Halloran Springs, Mountain Pass (where it was cooler) and Primm at the border with Nevada were crammed with all sorts of vehicles and encampments.
But there wasn't any movement, any life, in any of them. Clearing the freeway would be a major undertaking even if Barstow could be cleared of its criminal element. Gasoline and diesel fuel would probably be nonexistent. We would probably have to bring tanker trucks to refill some truck stops. We flew on.
Arriving at Las Vegas after an hour and a half we circled the city and saw virtually no life. I could only surmise that once the stores and warehouses had been looted and the casinos trashed, the lack of food and water within a couple of months had driven the remaining residents to head into the desert in both directions. 0nly to run into a dead-end at Barstow with nowhere to go to get gasoline, food, and water after the easy stuff was gone. We could only imagine how terrible their situation was. Some probably still lived but we wouldn't know until we got there on the ground.
We talked about it as we flew along and realized that it might be quite a while before we could safely get to Vegas and if we did, we might not find anyone to work with us there at all. No way to refuel trucks if we tried to go beyond on the 70 to Denver and beyond that to the Great Plains. The Central Valley could provide all that the Great Plains could, for now. Unless we could find some people, trying to revive Las Vegas from what little water there was there naturally, seemed like it wasn't worth it.
But Derek said, “We've got a lot of fuel and flying time left. Why don't we follow the Colorado River south to the 10 and take that back to Los Angeles?”
I agreed, “That's a good idea, Der. But let's look at Lake Mead first. It's the closest major source of freshwater. If there's anyone still in this area, they would be there.”
It was a short five minutes to Lake Mead. Before we arrived we could see a major encampment by the lake… A small village. We flew over cautiously at first, using our cameras to see if we were drawing any fire. We saw a lot of people come out of campers and tents and start waving. Then, we flew over very low. There seemed to be 300-400 people. There was a stretch of road clear enough for us to land, so we did. Ending up about a quarter mile from where the people were at what looked like a thrown together checkpoint that was unoccupied. By the time we came to a stop many were coming in all kinds of vehicles.
We got out of the plane to greet them with automatic rifles in hand as the first people came up and shook our hands and then began hugging us. All were asking, “Where are you from? How did you get here to find us?”
We told them that we were from Los Angeles and the village we were building there with and for the survivors of the pandemic. They told us a terrible tale of how those that survived looted all the food and money they could find in the stores, warehouses, and casinos. It got to be very violent. City services disappeared and during the middle of the summer when the hurricane dumped flooding waters, the water system broke down.
With little or no uncontaminated water, a couple of weeks after the flood, they fled to Lake Mead because that was the only source of safe freshwater in the whole area. They had set up checkpoints on the road that were heavily armed because the gangs that were left in the city tried to make raids on what they had. And they had to hold them off. Many died at the checkpoints, but the campgrounds remained secure.
They told us there was no food left in the city and what they had was running out. Their greenhouses couldn't grow enough. Their only source of new meat was fish and hunting what little game the desert and Lake Mead provided. There were already squabbles breaking out among campers over what little there was. They were really desperate.
We asked if there were any leaders that we could talk to. No one volunteered. But almost everyone wanted to go back with us. We told them that we would see about bringing food by some form of airlift. It would take a while, maybe a year, before we could reach them by road, but we would try to do it sooner and bring food from the Central Valley. There was a rumbling among the campers and we tried to calm them down.
Finally, with so many wanting to go back with us, I laid down the law, backed by Daphne, who couldn't find any of her friends, Derek, Ginger and Wondah with AR-20s.
I brandished my Glock and yelled, “Everyone calm down! We will do the best we can. We can take four of your people needing urgent medical care. But that's it! We will see if in the coming weeks we can airdrop food for you. But that's it. Take it or leave it. That's all we can do.”
We unloaded all the food and supplies we had and there was a mad rush to pick out things from it. Some even opened the food and started eating. I warned them again to calm down, raising our rifles. They backed off and one or two came forward to take the supplies as we unloaded them.
The crowd calmed down and brought four people. A woman and a man in their 50s with severe malnutrition and a man in his 20s with three infected bullet wounds and a woman in her 30s who was very pregnant. We loaded them in the plane, promised again to be back and bring the four back, and took off… Glad we got out of there without being overrun by the crowd just to get our airplane.
From there, Drake followed the Colorado River south through several small reservoirs until we reached the 10. We couldn't stop anymore, but we saw several communities with people as we flew over low and waved our wings at them. There were three Native American communities that seemed to be the most normal. While Lake Havasu City was the largest community, it appeared to be abandoned. But across the lake in California, that community showed life and crops being grown.
Sustainability seemed to be the survival factor. The ability to grow food along the Colorado River and to keep livestock. Something the natives always had done. But most of the elderly residents that chose this part of the desert to live, relied heavily on grocery stores and city services no longer available. The same elderly were most susceptible to the pandemic.
Left without any support, the younger people probably drove off trying to find somewhere where they could survive and the elderly probably died terrible deaths. I couldn't imagine how many died in all these thriving desert communities like Las Vegas and Lake Havasu City. Some probably committed suicide rather than face certain dehydration after the water ran out. Others who had water, after there was no food anymore and they were dying of starvation.
We decided that we would only make contact and drop food to desperate communities until the roads were open and armed convoys could deliver food and other essentials like gasoline to these remote desert areas to anyone who was still alive and had anything to offer in return while eking out a living/surviving.
At the 10, we flew east for a few miles and noted that there was a line of stalled cars and makeshift camps, all abandoned just like we saw coming out of Las Vegas, apparently leaving Phoenix for LA. Without irrigation, what had been crops along the 10 had reverted back to desert again with lots of tumbleweed as the only vegetation.
Returning toward LA again, we noted that the stalled vehicles were coming out of the LA area, basically, to collide in the middle of the desert with no gasoline, way to charge electric vehicles, and worst of all, no food and no water. I imagined how many died on those roads to nowhere and it must've been staggering. I knew when we cleared the roads we would find lots of bodies or skeletons after the desert animals had picked them clean. It really made me thankful that we lived where we did and were able to grow food from day one. Something so many of these people couldn't, but risked their lives to try to find it and died trying to. What a shame.
Palm Springs, the only major city before reaching San Bernardino, was the same, abandoned. But we saw some life in the mountains where homesteaders had established self-sustaining places to live. To open up commerce east of Los Angeles would have to wait. I wasn't sure if we would be a part of it or not.
We were back in the village and landed on the Medical Center helipad to deliver our four malnourished, pregnant and injured. The pregnant lady delivered within a couple of days. And the young man had four bullets removed from his body instead of three, got antibiotics and was doing much better. As were the two that were malnourished to the point where they had already sustained some organ damage and would require hospitalization for a long time before they could be airlifted back with food to the Lake Mead community.
Within a week after returning from Baja, the Rambler took on a load of essential supplies and passengers and cruised north to San Francisco. After staying there for two days, returned, stopping at Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara. Captain Jensen was pleased with the fruit, nuts and wine they were able to acquire in trade in San Francisco. While there, they encountered a couple of small earthquakes like we had.
I was glad that through the cruises our hard-working village people were able to leave the city and all that hard work occasionally for a few days. Similar to those of us who had learned from Harlan how to fly. But, as I looked what needed to be done yet, it was staggering.
Copyright 2024 © Ronald W. Hull
3/31/24
