End of the World Times

Not much to report here…haven’t gotten the field scanner working, and despite the abundance of digital cameras we have, no one thought they would be uploading any of their pictures while they were here (no cords). The least I could do for everyone out there is show how we set up the camp, or show everyone some of my beautiful artwork. I draw on the back of empty medical forms when I’m bored…which is often.

Actually it’s been pretty boring for all of us. The weather’s been unusually nice for the middle of hurricane season, and we haven’t fired a bullet in the past week. The first few days here, Sombras were abundantly pouring over the hillside about two every hour or so. They were easy enough to take down. When one was by itself, I’d send two men out with a shovel. We drag and bury them separately on the far side of camp. Voodoo, Catholic, Unitarian, I couldn’t care less, but I’m not going to forget that these people used to be people, and they deserve some recognition of that.

It has been nice to get to know the three medical officers and the locals that are now part of our small community. Soto’s done his best to train everyone in practical gun safety. I’d hate to get shot by my own people. Again. I’ll save that story for another time.

Several of us have actually taken to swimming in the lake on our off-shifts. It’s just for something to do, but there’s something pleasant about going for a swim every day.

Camp is as set up as it’s going to get. I’m out of things for us to build in our free time. We have a mess hall that could fit all eighteen of us in it, and two small huts with three beds in each of them. We’re using half of the plane for storage, and the other half for the Doc to do some lab work.

With the eighteen of us, we all take four hour shifts in groups of three doing something relatively productive. We built three glorified ‘towers’ about fifteen feet tall around camp with enough room for three people in the nests, which means there are always at least nine of us on watch duty. Two sets eye the northeast and southeast perimeters, while the third set eyes the western front.

It’s usually all quiet on the western front.

I’m going to be leading an expeditionary squad around the lake tomorrow. I would have left sooner, purely out of boredom, but Dr. Samuel insisted he tag along, and he just finished up his analysis on some of the ‘blood work’ he was doing in the plane. Doc said it would be a good idea to bring those of us that didn’t fell much of the effects of the viruses we were exposed to in the storm. He could have just said “Green, it’s going to be you, me, and Amanda going…doctor’s orders”, but I’m pretty sure he wanted me to figure that one out on my own. Wasn’t that nice of him?

The other medical officer, Dr. Richards is going to stay behind with Jack to keep the camp running smoothly. There are only six of us Military folk, and three of us are disappearing over the hilltops. Rick is going to continue working on the rest of the lab work while we’re away. We call Dr. Richards ‘Rick’ even though his first name’s Oliver…not sure how that got started.

I’m leaving this equipment in the hands of Rick and Jack. If they feel the need to get the word out about anything, I’ve given them a crash course on connecting this thing. The trick is to type it all up and wait for a good time to send it out.

We leave Camp Calloway at 0700. We should be back in five days time. It’s just a reconnaissance mission…what could possibly go wrong?

Semper Paratus

Okay, I hope this is working. I don’t have much time, so I’ll get out as much of an update as I can with a bit of backlog on what’s been happening around here.

Those still here in Phoenix are having troubles getting the electricity to work properly. Solar power isn’t working well due to the volcanic eruptions from Mount Rainier a while back. The ash cloud has affected the normally beautiful Arizona sunset and it looks rather gloomy these days with a reddish haze. Rolling blackouts can last for days, which doesn’t help for charging my phone and laptop to bring you this information. As it is now, I have about half battery power, but it’s the connection I’m more concerned about. As long as the phone connection holds out, I’m good, since I have to use my phone to plug into the laptop for internet access.

The damage California took on in the earthquakes has affected us as well with any transformer that feeds Phoenix. Micro-bursts have increased during this monsoon season, causing more damage to transformers and power lines with not enough people to work on them, and I’m pretty certain I saw a tornado the other day moving across the Salt River Reservation. It’s not the first one I’ve seen, but that’s just a bit too close for my taste. Where I’m staying isn’t far from that rez and we had to hide in the bathtub with a mattress pulled over us. There are no warning sirens for this area, so if we don’t happen to see the tornado, we’re out of luck. My cousin’s house on the rez was completely destroyed by the most recent one. They’re staying with mom and me now.

Partially due to the blackouts, water is scarce now within the city, and what I do manage to find outdoors has become septic. Perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes, which carry a new strain of the West Nile Virus—the one that has people walking like the dead around here. It’s rather creepy and has my imagination resorting to all those zombie movies I watched as a kid. The heat doesn’t help the situation, as it makes them even more lethargic, and the monsoon clouds seem to hold the heat in as well as the moisture, bringing humidity levels to an all time high for the area. The virus is much more contagious than before, and with what’s left of the CDC focusing on the new flu strains that have mutated beyond comprehension, amongst many other new diseases that have popped up, they haven’t had time to keep up with WNV.

I’ve taken to the nearby desert surrounding what is left of the Phoenix area to hunt barrel cactus for clean water. Unfortunately, I must contend with the wildlife for this, so I always carry my 30/30 rifle with me in case a mountain lion decides I’d make a tasty meal, since food is scarce for them, too. My cousin Daniel comes with me on these ventures because it’s not safe to travel alone anymore. Mountain lion has a very interesting taste to it, by the way, and I’m quite glad my father took us hunting when we were younger. It’s difficult to preserve any perishable food, so anything killed needs to be eaten soon or dried. When we kill something that size, we share it with anyone else who might be still around. There are a couple of families left in the neighborhood, but they’re getting ready to leave, too.

When I woke up for my morning run, the power was out again. The run is something I still do, even though the world is in a bleak state of affairs and my sneakers are falling apart. It is a custom of mine that I can’t let go. Besides, the rattlesnakes are less of a worry at dawn because they’ve fed. Daniel and I run toward the sunrise and when we stop, we take in the sun as it peaks the horizon, waving our hands toward us to bring us its strength and energy. Thus begins our day, with a spiritual connection to the universe. It’s the only way I can remain sane in this chaos. I’m not so sure about Daniel, but the man is a rock.

Here’s a picture:

On our way back, I cut into a barrel cactus and soak a bandana with the water while Daniel keeps watch. Then I transfer the water to my canteen. It’s a bit tedious, but it’s the only way to get fresh water, and it’s hardly enough for all of us so we do it as often as we can until we’re ready to leave.

Hard to believe that only three years ago, I sat on my back porch doing homework, studying geologic disasters. I never thought I’d see so many happen in such a short amount of time.

The city is no longer habitable, and I’ve run into some people who are heading north, coming up from South America and Mexico. Most of them have expressed going to Canada. My goal is to find a place with clean water and a lack of mosquitoes. Somewhere my mother will be safe. I’ve heard about a camp up north around Montezuma’s Well, which makes sense because I know there is a natural spring there.

So that’s where I’m heading. I’ll be on the road for a bit and will report back when I get the chance to…

An apology must be made for my absence.  There was a raid several weeks ago.  We’re not sure who was behind it, but fifteen people were killed, including a small boy named Jeremy.  I was going to say something about him before the raid, but it seems an obituary would be more fitting.  The only bit of mercy the raiders gave his mother was a swift death, otherwise she might have spent the rest of her life alone, barren from age and the lack of medical care in these parts.

None of my men were killed, but one was shot and the other kidnapped.  I suspect he won’t live long, not if the raiders were cannibals.  They’ve become bold as of late, apparently.  A short food supply might have forced them into entering the city, or maybe they aren’t satisfied scrounging along the edges and want to test the strength of the locals here.  The city folk failed that test and some of them believe the raiders will be back again soon.  I’m not waiting for them.  We’re building up some defensive structures and sending armed men on patrol.  When I say we, I mean the people in charge.  I have nothing to do with their decisions.  I’m an outsider, destined to observe like a weird museum creature.

I’ll have more to say soon.  Right now communications are limited and this is the first time I’ve been able to access the networks.  I suspect there will be much more to say soon.

To all those out there struggling to survive in this God forsaken world:  stay safe.

Camping out for so long is not what I wanted to be doing in this job. It’s boring and far harder to do than you’d think. Coleman stoves don’t carry very well, at least the propane tanks don’t, and they are getting scarce these days anyway. So I hunt. If I only catch little things, birds, squirrel, raccoon, I have to hunt every day. I carry a solar oven for meat about this size. It works well in our summers if the sun is strong, and attracts a lot less attention without a smoke plume. If I catch a larger animal, a deer maybe, I clean and butcher it as quickly as possible, and cook it over a fire. This will attract locals, and I’m only glad to share and trade with a stranger if they’re friendly. I usually will take some of their stories down for inclusion, and I’ll be posting some of them on slow news days.

It is very strange to hunt in the suburbs. It feels like playing cowboys and indians as a kid. You don’t hunt through trees so much, but around corners, under porches, you listen for packs of wild dogs, your ammunition doesn’t have caps and suction cups, there’s no Nerf involved.

Other than food, camping is boring. You aren’t trying to escape the job for the weekend, and so you don’t think too much about activities. It gets very stressful, because you’re always looking for danger, human or animal. There were always wild animals in this area. At the height of human population, there were the more typical animals, small birds, hawks and eagles, squirrels, possum, up to deer. Now you have household pets as well, packs of feral dogs, stray cats are common. But there are other animals that weren’t here when people were. I see foxes very often. (more animals) Coyotes were coming back, a nuisance species, really, and now are common to see. Wolves came back very strong, and there’s been some breeding between the populations, making coywolves. There are also big cats. I’ve seen lynx on a couple occasions, bobcat, and I even think I saw a large black cat, panther maybe? Some of these came from exotic pet populations, some from zoos. There were always rumors of some of these in the wild, but you never gave them any credibility before all this.

Most dangerous, though, are bears. Black bears are indigenous to the area, and humans just chased them out a couple hundred years ago. They came back now and occupy the suburbs. With lawns at a summer high since it isn’t like people are mowing them, you can be within 20 feet of an animal even of that size without seeing even a hint of their presence. If you scare one, and it decides to attack, it’s done. You won’t outrun them, you may get lucky if you have a handgun (I’m carrying one now, all the time, just in case Blankenship’s men find me), or really lucky if you have a good combat knife (I have one of those, too, now strapped at the ready on my thigh). But with those, you’ll only get one chance, and the odds are not good you’ll hit what you need to. So you carry some bells. They make noise that tells bears where you are. They’ll avoid you. You bury feces. You spread your scent around. You finish your food and discard remnants far from camp.

Soren says he is sending word on where to go soon. We’ll see what he brings me.

From the desk of Soren Ragnvald, Editor In Chief

The incidents in Fresh Kills New York are frightening, and I am grateful to the survivors of the incidents there for the safety of our reporter, Lori Kim, while at the same time, I express my sincerest condolences to the survivors for their fallen. I am going to send Lori to a safer expedition while I attempt to negotiate a resolution with Conrad Blankenship. I’m certain something can be arranged. There is no need for these kinds of actions in our world. We all need to rebuild. Lori, I’ll send you someplace as safe as I can make it for your next assignments.

We are able to receive word from AJ Green of what had been the Coast Guard, but unfortunately, I have no network in that part of the world. The Caribbean and Haiti did not have enough of a market to justify an entry to cover it. At the time of the trouble, Nordlander Telecommunications had only a small foothold in New England. We are receiving his broadcasts via satellite, but have no boats or resources in place for rescue. We will monitor the situation and look to provide resources as we can.

Ithius Sinclair continues to find stories in the Bay area in California. This area in particular has fallen on desperate times. Food and resources are scarce, and the competition for survival has divided the survivors into clans. The area is one of the most anarchic, violent and dangerous I have current reports on, and there are many rumors of cannibalism. Large wildfires still burn unchecked in the hills, while other places are flooded with glacial melt. Still, there are patches of survivors clinging on and rebuilding, and order has some hope of returning to the area.

In the Phoenix area, Michaela Blackhorse is just coming on-line. The area struggles for water, and the populations from Central America and Mexico heading to more hospitable climates to the north can lead to significant clashes. At the same time, there is a new strain of West Nile Virus that is finding a foothold in the area that appears to be exceptionally strong and has new dangerous symptoms. There is little ability to develop medicines or vaccines anywhere, and so this could spread to the rest of the continent if it isn’t contained there soon.

The End of the World Times continues to provide coverage of survival niches in our post-apocalypse world. Our reporters are independent agents who work on your donations. Please help us support their coverage.

35 miles the hell away from Fresh Kills NY – I don’t know where I am, but I’ve lost Blankenship’s thugs. Yeah, Blankenship again. Ran into them this morning, just before the explosion. Yeah, it’s been a great day.

Where do I start? We were very close to the miners. The line of people carrying garbage out looked like ants digging an anthill. They were so close. I left to take a break, have a piss off to the side when I was jumped by three men. I recognized one of the attackers as one of Blankenship’s top security guys, right away, his introduction wasn’t necessary. Can I just say it isn’t nice to jump a girl who’s pissing? I had my pants almost up when they grabbed me, so my hands were down, and my pants slid down as they dragged me. I made noise, but I didn’t think anybody had heard me. They knew their area, dragged me away from the paths most people take back to the community.

He had me in a bear hug, and was dragging me, kicking and struggling, away. The guy holding me was good. He kept out of the range of my head’s movement, so a head butt wasn’t going to work. Kicking was mostly out, everything I did with my legs dropped my pants lower. Only way to go was to break the grip. I feigned a few moves, then slipped myself a few inches lower through the grip, dug my nails into a pressure point in his hands and pulled as hard as I could.

He dropped me, and I managed to get a hand down to pull up my pants. it isn’t decent of them to attack me in such a state, but I knew I wasn’t going to a moment to buckle. I held them with my hand and made a break for it through the widest gap I could get through. As I ran, one took a step in with his leg. Big mistake. Left himself open. Gave a good sharp kick to his knee, and I’m pretty sure I broke it. Steel toes. Can’t beat them when you need to take out a knee.

That gave me a step away, and while that was nice, two or three were much nicer. I put on all the speed I could before I felt an arm grab my elbow. I rolled my shoulder and mostly broke free. I pulled hard, released his last grip on my sleeve, and ran hard, buttoning my pants as I went.

And then I was practically back to the dig site. I heard gunfire behind me. Fuckers were shooting. I can’t dodge bullets, but it isn’t going to stop me from trying. I made my run much more erratic, hoping I’d be able to get away. Good thing about guns is they’re usually effective. Bad thing about guns is their report is unmistakable and loud. The sound attracted attention from above, and when Adam Powell saw it was me running from a few men, he started running for me.

It probably saved his life.

There was a series of explosions up at the site. A fireball shot into the air which knocked down Adam and the few others who were coming my way. I could feel the blast of heat from where I was. The funny thing about being chased by a guy with a gun is explosions don’t necessarily scare you off. I ran for Adam, safety in numbers, and I saw others who had been up top running away, any way they could to reach safety.

Garbage was flying through the air, flaming papers and melting plastics raining down. And now that I’m writing this, I remember the graffiti “1,000 Years to Rain”. had to be connected, but I’m not going back there to investigate.

When Blankenship’s people saw the explosion, they turned and ran. We found shelter until the debris landed and then rushed up to the site. The place was obliterated. You could see the explosion started from deep in the mine, as the whole main tunnel had collapsed. There had been a secondary round of explosions near the mouth of the tunnel. this was the source of the debris. We rushed to help the injured, me constantly keeping an eye over my shoulder. There were burns, open wounds, it was a war zone.

I did what I could for hours, but my safety was still questionable. I stuck close to Adam, pulling people away from the site, treating them. There wasn’t nearly the first aid supplies we needed to treat everyone. People from the neighborhood began pouring in with what supplies they could, and the reinforcements began treating the wounds.

I worked into the evening last night, and there were several turns at guarding me over the night.

I can only give you a little bit of what this means. The men in the mine are dead, as are a lot of people in the tunnel. I don’t have a death toll of any accuracy, but I’ve heard estimates from 50 to 120. There are near as many wounded. Adam wasn’t sure if they would be able to continue the mining, if the project would go on there. Much of their equipment was destroyed. For a while he thought he was going to travel with me, and I would have welcomed him. In the end, he escorted me ten miles away before he stopped me, got off the back of my cycle and began walking back. He couldn’t leave his community like that, but he felt I was safely far away.

So that’s it. I don’t know what all of this means, who caused the explosion, or why, but I have to get away from there right now for my own safety.

FRESH KILLS, NY – I’ve been up at the site for five hours, and can momentarily take a break from helping to give an update. They estimate there is perhaps 30 feet to the trapped miners, and they have some very definite signs of life now. they say they are close enough to make out some words through the air vent. There is a cautiously celebratory mood from the camp. There’s still a ways to go, and another collapse could happen at any time.

They continue to work on the main shaft, the vertical shaft has been abandoned. They had several other issues with instability and collapse of the shaft and with the apparent success of the main lateral tunnel, all efforts are being focused on that effort.

There seems to be twice as many people up here helping out than when I arrived, making perhaps a hundred people in the tunnel alone. All of the garbage is removed by hand, with all of the cross-bracing in the tunnel, you can’t get a wheelbarrow or anything down there, but they do have a fireman’s line sort of thing going with about 30 feet between people. Dozens more haul the slag away for later sorting.

With such good news, the camp is bubbling with a sort of nascent euphoria, and I have to admit, it is contagious. I continue to man the pumps, we have to supply clean air to many more people now, so it is even more important to pump quick and strong. Looks like tomorrow we’ll have a celebration.

Outside Fresh Kills, NY – They say they’ll let me back up to the site tomorrow, my symptoms of toxicity are almost out of my system. I feel fine, but their project doctors have more experience on this than I do. The housing we are in used to be a suburb of moderate affluence, and every worker at least has a house for themselves. There is no shortage of housing these days. I’m living with one of the camp doctors, in a spare bedroom.

His brother is up at the site every day, and he is preparing for the return of the miners. After this long without food, their systems will need to be brought back up to a normal metabolic rate slowly using specialized easily digested foods. He’s prepared a good deal of these foods, finely ground grains that essentially look like mush. He says it is almost how you’d bring a newborn infant up to adult foods, but it can be done more quickly than the year it would take for an infant.

This community feels like a place of deja vu of life before. There are so many people here, it actually feels like a community, like there should be a park district and a little league, ice cream parlors and pizza joints. There aren’t many places like this left in the world. Most people moved into the cities for the companionship, or, if they were up to the survival challenges, stayed in the countryside, living off the land by hunting and farming.  A group of people actually living and working together.

The community is right now a restless place to stay. The comings and going from the site are round the clock, and all members of the community are contributing. There are a small number of female miners, but all the wives and women of the community are capable of the physical demands of subsistence living. They have gone into a high activity mode since the collapse, pushing to produce more support resources. They pump and carry more fresh water from the groundwater wells, carry it to the site, gather and harvest more food, haul more waste away from the excavations, their backs are as broken as the men who have been down in the shaft for over a week now.

For the most part, they ignore the thought that hangs over everybody’s heads, that the men trapped in the mine will never make it out again. The several that I’ve talked to all deny the possibility, say they will not allow the thought into their heads.

“We’ll get them out,” is what they say to themselves, between themselves, and they believe it.

It is frustrating to me to be trapped here. Still, I’ve heard some strange rumblings at night near my room, but cannot place them. There’s a lot of unknown  people coming through. Most of the people in the community think they are a blessing, some think they are only here to find a place where survival is provided. I understand the need to belong to something these days, and they say they will attempt to provide if the new comers stay, but that contingency is after they find the trapped miners. I hope all of these people have good intentions. Found more graffiti today in three places, all saying the same thing, “1,000 years to rain.” Don’t know what it means, and neither does anybody else. People who would leave graffiti in a time like this are bad news, if you ask me.

This is my formal declaration of an S.O.S. that I doubt many people will be able to do anything about, but at least it’s out there. There are eighteen of us at Entriquillo near the lake. The new camp location we’ve chosen seems secure enough, so I’ve decided to set up a rather permanent base here while we try to figure out what the hell is going on. Where was I? Ah, yes….we took off.

After we were airborne, it was hard to take stock in the situation. If it were only up to me, I would have went straight to Puerto Rico like we were supposed to…but somewhere in the flight, we heard about the flooding on the West Coast, so we decided to make for higher ground. I really wish our military was still making noise on the other end of our radio…it’s too quiet here now. We decided we’d head for Pico Duarte…it’s the highest point on the island, and we figured it was the best chance we had of not getting annihilated by seawater. There was a decent stretch of paved road that we landed on that was near the peak.

When we landed, we attracted a lot of attention to ourselves. There was a crowd near the peak that had flagged us down. Interesting lot of about a hundred or so. The quicker ones got to us first, explaining that they wanted to leave, something I assumed had to do with the flooding we’d heard about mid-flight. Amanda took this time to point out that in the middle of the ‘crowd’, there was a batch of locals with sticks, bats, and farming tools. I thought they were going to try to take the plane by force, but they were facing the other direction…they were fending off a bunch of their sick/dead/re-living peers. It seemed like they had things under control until I realized that there were only ten of them down the hill fighting off the . And only five of them were up with us. Hundred…fifteen…uh oh. Some quick mental math and I suddenly found myself back in the cockpit firing the engines back up. Two of the locals were overwhelmed by them when one of their sticks got stuck jabbed in an eye. I would’ve just dropped it and ran, but then again, I was already in the plane.

I remember hearing them scream “No en las sombras”…which means “not into…” something. I can’t remember what sombras means, but at the time I thought they were screaming ‘zombies’. It was really eerie hearing them scream like that. Despite the distraction of taking the plane off and the mental translation (and being on a tropical island), their cries for help still gave me the chills. By the time I got the bird off the ground, we had only lost three of the crowd. The silence from the cargo hold was their own homage to their fallen saviors. Not sure if that’s completely true, because I was busy flying a plane off of a mountain highway, but it’s better than the alternative of them being silent because they were dead and getting ready to eat me or something. Luckily this was not the case.

One of the survivors, Miguel Soto, decided to make a trip up to the cockpit. He sat in Robert’s old seat…It still hadn’t hit me that Robert was one of them now. Soto suggested we head North to the airport in Santiago. We cordially shot down his idea and Jack got out the charts to find someplace else with some decent altitude.

We decided to head South to the Baoruco Mountain Range. I didn’t want to land. Who knew the amount of damage that was going to be caused by this supposed flooding. So, I spent five hours practicing the four basics of fixed wing flight. Ascent, Descent, Turns, and Straight & Level Flight. God, I was bored. I always find flying boring when there’s a lack of destination, lack of somewhere to land, or a lack of ability to do power dives.

The Radio wasn’t much help when it came to decision making, so we decided to land on the range near the Haitian border before we were entirely out of fuel. Practical enough for me. 3,000ft is a lot of distance for the ocean to suddenly swoop up and consume us. I felt safe, and that’s all that mattered to me….because I was driving.

We waited on that range for weeks. When we did get a radio transmission, it usually involved something going wrong somewhere  in the rest of the world. I think the worst part about it was the slightly clueless feeling anyone had when they spoke over the radio…almost as if they weren’t sure it was really happening. The weather was quite nice, and the view spectacular. To the south was more of the Caribbean, and on our North side were the mountains we just flew from about 40 miles away. Halfway between us and those mountains, a beautiful lake that shimmered in the sun like nothing else. Even in disaster, I could still find beauty in the world.

The weeks were spent finding new sources of food (couldn’t go eating all of the government issued emergency food for the Puerto Rican Flu survivors…so we only had half) and fighting off the occasional cluster of “Las Sombras” as the locals like to call them. It literally means “the Shadows”, but every time I swear I hear ‘Zombies’. Maybe I’m just paranoid. We stuck close to the plane…emergency situations were inevitable, we just weren’t sure when. It turned out to be last week.

I was tinkering with some of our emergency broadcast technology. I wanted to try and get the internet working and see if there really was any flooding. I could see to the ocean and wasn’t seeing any changes. It was then that I read about the disaster in Washington, the  washing over of LA, and that we actually survived six hurricanes. I found it ironic that the first one this season was named AJ.

It’s time to start my building shift. Between the eighteen of us, we’ve been doing quite well for ourselves. The camp is centered around the plane. We taxied it closer to the lake to get a better view across it. We have one tower up right next to the plane that we use as the camp sentry, and we’re in the process of building more permanent housing, a stock room, and another tower at the edge of the lake. The tents from the plane are great and all, but I’m not a fan of mosquitoes. Or bugs in general.

Most of the locals can speak English, and most of us can speak Spanish, so I suppose that’s good. Soto’s been a big help here. He was an English teacher, so I sort of declared him the go-to guy when anyone really needs anything. And by anyone, I mean me, because I can’t remember a damn thing from the 3 years of high school Spanish I slept through. I can understand a lot more than I thought I remembered, but my head is so messed up with Polish, French, and German that I can’t remember my Spanish anymore. Odd to think that was ten years ago.

Can you tell I’m procrastinating? I really don’t want to go build, but I suppose being late to my own shift  in a system I came up with would be  a bad thing.

More from Camp Calloway when I can find time. I scheduled us to be busy to keep from getting bored.

Semper Paratus

Fresh Kills, NY – The pains I have been feeling have been getting worse. I’m off site about a mile away, in the worker’s living spaces. I’m not as used to the toxic environment as they are, and their doctor said the toxins in the air were building up in my system. It will take a few days, and I’ll get back to normal, relatively. I’ve never had such wretched vomiting in my life. My abdomen is pulled from it, my throat is scratchy, and my skin is pale. I can only guess at how many pounds I’ve lost. They call it newbie syndrome with a chuckle. But I can keep food down now.

We’re north west of the land fill in what had been New Jersey. I saw the old state sing on the roads. Most of the time, the winds blow the gases away from here. The air really couldn’t get cleaner. Used to be in a city like this, there would be pollution, the environment would be horrible, now, no cars, no people. I know Jersey has a rep for, you know, smells, but that has largely gone away. No chemicals production, no cars, no new pollution. That’s what happens.

I’ve been helping prepare food for the men who are still at work on the landfill. No survivors have been pulled out, but they are optimistic. They have taken to pouring water through the air ducts to keep them hydrated, and they still report sounds they think are voices coming back up.

Yesterday, I was able to speak with Randy Cahill, the man leading the drill straight down faction of the workers. He says his work is proceeding. He has his equipment in place and has been drilling for two days. The work is slower going than he had anticipated. He said his shaft is 30 feet deep, and has had problems of the equipment falling out of level after issues of sinking. The structural integrity of the landfill was solid when it was closed, but the mining has upset the underlying integrity.

When the equipment moves out of level, it has to be re-set. He’s on his third attempt at a hole, and he feels he has now worked out the technical issues he has had. They also must turn the drill by hand, as there isn’t enough fuel to run it. They have rigged levers and the thing he describes sounds like a medieval mill, or torture device.

I asked him about what he thinks of the tunnel strategy. He laughed a little.

“What happens if the tunnel collapses? Those guy’s air supply is gone. All of that work is only going to unsettle more layers above them. No, we make a shaft, reinforce it on the way down. Nothing to interfere with their lifeline. And how far do they have to dig? Much further than us.”

I also asked him about their environment. He thinks with the constant fresh air being delivered to them, they should be in good shape. He has to believe they are.

He thanked me for helping them pump air, and then left.

There are people coming from the area to help with the efforts. Some won’t go close to the mine, but they bring food, provide whatever support they can. Others go up to the mine, spend an afternoon clearing in the tunnel, turning the drill, or pumping air. There’s been maybe 50-60 more people who came to help out already, and others trickle in. Word is traveling.

Something I’ve never seen before has popped up in at least three places in the community, graffiti carved saying “1,000 years to Rain”. Nobody seems to know what it means, but the people that I know from the mine say they’ve never seen it before this situation and new people started turning up.