Beyond The Burning Shore Read online

  Beyond The Burning Shore

  Ron Foster

  Alabama, USA

  © 2017 by Ron Foster

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13:

  978-1541381964

  ISBN-10:

  1541381963

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Acknowledgements

  Sea Eagle Boats, Inc.

  Power Film Solar

  RELiON Batteries

  TNW Firearms

  O.F. Mossberg & Sons

  Daiwa

  Panther Martin

  Tangled Tales of An American Family

  Heracane Anne

  What If the Biggest Solar Storm on Record Happened Tomorrow?

  Hogan stared out through the window shades of his Atlanta apartment craning his neck to look towards the river and wondering if it would be a good day for fishing tomorrow. He had been diligently watching and researching space weather reports on the internet for the last week for many reasons. One of the reasons was his latest scientific and personal curiosity if geomagnetic storms affected game fishes predatory instincts.

  Some folks might say upon meeting him for the first time that this odd character seemed to be unusually fixated on the subject of solar storms. The reasoning behind this observation was because he often brought the celestial phenomenon up during conversations at the local watering hole that he liked to frequent after work sometimes.

  He would knowingly tell his bar patron friends as well as strangers that got within conversation distance of him on many occasions “Static on TV, a solar storm was causing it, phone not working... a solar storm was the problem, he would even advise tourists that they shouldn’t travel on a specific day because of the geomagnetic storms that were supposed to be occurring on a certain date increased the radiation they would be exposed to in the airplanes cabin.

  No conversation was ever complete or totally over in Hogan’s mind unless he had managed to mention somewhere in it a few of his explanations and thoughts about the great Solar Storm of 1859 known as the Carrington Event.

  He seemed to particularly enjoy talking about how that famous solar storm had managed to set fire to telegraph offices and wooden buildings worldwide back then and what did people think would happen today if a mega solar flare occurred again with our dependence on technology.

  Most people had never heard of or for that matter even considered the possibility of this type of disaster reeking havoc upon modern technology before. Hogan delighted in entertaining his questioners and skeptical listeners with his historic knowledge and rhetoric of what had occurred on that historic eventful day. He also had a few warnings and survival tips for those that asked or would listen to his advisements.

  The first thing that he had to do was get them to wrap their heads around just exactly what a solar storm was and wasn’t. Mostly all he wanted them to realize was that this type of space weather storm occurs all the time and that they weren’t some weird once in a lifetime historical fluke of note like the dinosaurs dying off from an asteroid.

  Pretty much everyone seemed to have already heard of the Northern Lights or Auroras that occur regularly lighting up the sky in the Northwest. As the magnetosphere gets bombarded by solar winds, stunning blue lights can appear over the upper reaches of the Northern hemisphere and the lower parts of the southern hemisphere.

  Many people knew about this phenomenon but most people don’t know the magnitude of destruction of the 1859 super solar storm. They didn’t know for example that it has been documented that the solar flares of that particular storm were so powerful that "people in the northeastern U.S. could read newspaper print just from the light of the aurora that night. He liked to detail how the telegraph operators of those times got electrically shocked and how telegraph systems all over Europe and North America had failed and sprayed out fiery sparks from telegraph poles that ignited widespread fires.

  Inevitably the subject would turn to modern times and he was asked “What was it he thought” professionally would happen in this technology jazzed up cell phone reliant world we lived in.

  “It is going to be like living in pure hell!” He would say with a warning sigh. “Not if, but when we experienced a repeat of the 1859 Carrington Event it would devastate the modern world and send humanity back technology-wise to the 1800’s. It was only recently that NASA just observed and recorded a non earth facing coronal mass ejection that was about double the size of the 1859 one which is very scary indeed. The scientists didn’t know until recently that those storms can go off the charts in power when trying to be measured with the instruments we had. “ Hogan would say with a serious look on his face

  Hogan would then go down the list of infrastructure failures a solar storm would cause like no gas, no ATMs, no street lights, no traffic signals, no cell phones etc. He would go on and on elaborating that compared to that event, today’s information superhighway, the telegraph system in 1859 may have appeared to be nothing more than a mere foot path or dirt road, but the “Victorian Internet” as it were was also a critical means of transmitting news, sending private messages and engaging in commerce. He mentioned lots of stuff people didn’t really want to know at first like our current fragile system of just in time grocery deliveries being affected by no gas for the trucks to deliver. But they got more concerned and interested in the subject as the night grew longer and after he added some recent history.

  Just a little bit of space weather interference can cause havoc like when the entire Province of Quebec Canada in 1989 went dark. When that particular solar storm started up the solar flare that accompanied the suns outburst immediately caused short-wave radio interference, including the jamming of radio signals from Radio Free Europe into Russia. It was thought that the signals had been jammed by the Kremlin, but it was only the sun acting up!

  Then In less than 2 minutes whoosh, the entire Quebec power grid lost power. During the 12-hour blackout that followed, millions of people suddenly found themselves in dark office buildings and underground pedestrian tunnels, and some experienced the panic of being trapped in stalled elevators. Most people woke up to icy cold homes for breakfast. The blackout also closed schools and businesses; it also kept the Montreal Metro shut during the morning rush hour, and closed Dorval Airport stranding travelers.

  Now keep in mind the Quebec Blackout was by no means a local event although you can get geographic based storms. Some of the U.S. electrical utilities had their own cliffhanger problems to deal with. New York Power lost 150 megawatts the moment the Quebec power grid went down. The New England Power Pool lost 1,410 megawatts at about the same time. Service to 96 electrical utilities in New England was interrupted while other reserves of electrical power were brought online. Luckily, the U.S. had the power to spare at the time…but just barely. Across the United States from coast to coast, over 200 power grid problems erupted within minutes of the start of the March 13 storm. Fortunately, none of these caused a blackout. But Hogan warned “It could all happen again… in the blink of an eye an event could cause grid down societal destruction.” That’s what he worried about, that’s what he tried to plan for.

  This was usually when the conversation went one way or the other and for better or worse. When he was asked what it was he thought about whatever it was the government was doing about avoiding the geomagnetic mega disaster he was predicting. Hogan explained it wasn’t a personal doomsday prophecy of his but that NASA said a CME of magnitude that could destroy infrastructure had a 10-12 % chance of happening at any given moment. It wasn’t an “if” but a “when” scenario. His reply as to what the Government was going to do emergency management wise when one actually did happen stunned and flabbergasted them no end. The fa
ct was that the Government was basically doing nothing more than talking about it. Talk! That’s all they have done for years is talk about it and the power companies lobby that the safety measures are too expensive for the anticipated risk.

  This is the particular point when the big change in conversation generally came about after Hogan admitted to being a prepper and enjoyed being part of that survival minded community. (Someone who prepares for disasters is called a prepper) He prepared for solar storms and grid down situations. He watched their faces carefully for their reactions whether positive or negative to this you would think a non politically correct statement by the reactions of some people.

  Generally, a tense laugh off response was necessary and an explanation that no, he didn’t have a bunker to go to followed by another explanation by him that he wasn’t one of them crazy “Doomsday Preppers” like you see on NATGEO. Seems a lot of people either don’t know what a prepper is or held a media influenced low opinion of all preppers as nut jobs in general.

  Some people however occasionally became more friendly and interested in what it took to be a prepper and a lively conversation was struck up. Many people could be heard to remark how sensible that outlook sounded in general especially in these trying times of world and climatic unrest. People also usually agreed with him that their grandparents all had big pantries so what was wrong with going back to living that way and storing some food for hard times and bad weather? People just didn’t seem to do that much these days and the majority weren’t even ready for something like a snow storm food wise, oftentimes.

  Hogan made sure to point out the fact that he was a Business Continuity professional first and foremost though as his job and vocation and that was what had brought him here to Atlanta. Being a practicing prepper as his hobby was secondary to his crisis communication and risk planning in outlooks and outcomes for his clients trying to make their factories and such more resilient to disaster.

  He explained that he wrote professional continuity plans for businesses to help try to recover their operations as soon as possible after disasters. This was his livelihood and he pointed out that it was in this bar right here that he had picked up his latest big emergency planning contract.

  Being in this business of disaster planning gave him and his clients a rather unique perspective on the effects of solar storms and electromagnetic pulses in general and the big insurance companies had even gotten involved and issued their own findings on financial risk estimated at 2.6 trillion dollars but Hogan didn’t know how they came up with that figure.

  Maybe a favorite client of his who was sort of a real-estate mogul in this city would wander in and add to the conversation while they were talking he explained, but it was doubtful. The more posh restaurants and country clubs were usually his thing. However his employer followed the insurance market and had some insights.

  Anyway, about six months ago, Hogan had been attending an annual symposium for Emergency Planners and had stopped in here for a drink one day when he got to talking to someone just like he was doing now. He had found out the guy owned as well as managed a lot of commercial properties and office buildings. To make a long story short, after a few meetings he had finally convinced the gentleman to buy what he called his ultimate business continuity planning package to include something special added on which the guy had first looked at him somewhat askance about.

  Mr. Salsec had been pretty doubtful at first about that special addendum Hogan had added on to the plan he was going to develop and Salsec was concerned that maybe he was going to be possibly scammed in some way by agreeing to purchase it.

  Hogan had mentioned that he had had coined the unusual term Space Weather Preparedness Planning as the title for this star wars thing addendum that he was trying to describe. This addendum would be something special above and beyond his normal all inclusive catastrophic planning package. He had even offered quite a discounted deal on the indices to Mr. Salsec but his client took some considerable convincing of its merits before it was accepted in full.

  It didn’t help matters any at all when Hogan was forced to sheepishly explain to him that he actually had no previous written examples of a Space Weather Preparedness plan to show the man. He had many regular plans from his many vested clients and completed high level licensing courses but none inclusive of space weather.

  Hogan finally explained to Mr. Salsec that to his knowledge none of the other Business continuity professionals he was acquainted with had ever written one either, let alone ever even conceived of the notion of just how to approach the subject.

  Hogan had hooked Mr. Salsec finally on the idea after he had carefully explained that in his less than humble opinion, that he was the most qualified preparedness expert to do a good job on creating such a plan because he understood prepper mentality and homesteading technology and those facts had perked up the man’s interest.

  It seems that his new client already had himself a bit of a survivalist bent going on for himself already way before they had met. Mr. Salsec had already taken many of his own practical precautions in order to insure his families survival grid down from any number of catastrophic events like a cyber attack, terrorist attack, dirty bomb, a tornado swarm etc. but he hadn’t given a whole lot of thought to space weather just yet. He had not also for that matter considered just what plain long-term power outages completely shutting down his businesses could do.

  What do you do with businesses that are forced to shut down for extended periods of time so that one day they can maybe reopen and return to profitability? Are there possibly any opportunities that can be taken advantage of during the rebuilding or response phases etc in the aftermath of such a calamity to benefit or profit from?

  Hogan really had to sit himself down and do a lot of deep soul searching to firmly decide to vacate his home and take on this particular job. The main point of contention for him in accepting this new position meant that he would have to move from rural Alabama to the big city of Atlanta for a period of at least nine or ten long months.

  This move was necessary primarily due to his new workload of having to be onsite to safety overview a lot of properties as well as personally inspect a whole lot of trucking supply roads and personnel highway escape routes. A job like this had a lot for him to consider and evaluate and he had seriously considered hiring and taking on some extra help to accomplish it.

  The owner and president of the company that he had contracted with had offered as part of Hogan’s compensation to let him stay in a furnished rental property for the duration of the job rent free as well as give him per diem for meals. This sounded pretty good to Hogan at first, he thought he might possibly be in hog heaven on this job until considering what exactly the offer entailed.

  Securing this contract would give him a chance to save up some money and also possibly expand his small business. However, he wasn’t very happy with the accommodations. The offered lodging was in an upscale, dead in the middle of downtown high rise apartment complex and there was no way in hell he was staying in a place that was reliant on an elevator or had not one tree in sight.

  After a bit of dickering on his part and a considerable amount whining about why he needed a little bit of open space that contained some green vegetation or a tree in it once in awhile, he finally got himself installed cost free in a nice common working man’s apartment in an adjoining town next to the Chattahoochee River called Roswell.

  He hadn’t told his boss about his paranoia of all things that had more than five floors or anything taller than a Fire departments hook and ladder truck’s reach so he was picky as to what was acceptable. Force of habit and his own personal safety measures and tastes as well as his love of just plain space consisting of grass and trees influenced his decision.

  He normally lived in a small house in the middle of five wooded acres that had a little garden and a tiny creek. He didn’t give two hoots at all that he just had turned down a pretty much free prestigious $5,000 a month apartment for a
common one that rented for $850.00. He had his reasons; he also had his personal sanity to think about. To him the apartment he had found was perfect and it was away from downtown and living that close to the river sounded like fun.

  Reason number one on that he had located where he did was that he had already figured out using his prepper sense just how close it was that he wanted to be to an aqueous door out of this city should a devastating fire occur. However, beyond that he had already started figuring out which road was the best way for him and his van to get out of this place fast come SHTF for a variety of nasty reasons that ranged from terrorist dirty bomb to a cyber attack destroying a satellite, etc.

  People could call him paranoid or say he had become preparedness balmy from doing that odd job of his if they wanted too, but he had the chance to pre-position himself in this move and he was going to do it practical and tactical.

  He had decided that his housing search started on the fringes of the city proper and must be near a water feature, a short commute to work as his number one priority to look for.

  Mr. Salsec or “Boss” as Hogan often referred to him amicably, using the boss title as a nickname was indeed his boss in many ways. Although you had to understand theirs was a strictly contractual agreement association and not an employer- employee relationship.

  Frank Salsec didn’t seem to get this strict division of freedoms at times though and they had their few small differences but not very often. This stubbornness on Mr. Salsec’s part was probably due to his affluence and age usually holding sway over Hogan’s objections, who in turn rarely had to remind Mr. Salsec he was an independent contractor and did things in his own way and on his own time schedule, but that’s another story.