All of these and other recommendations are listed in our free downloadable eBook, The Solar Apocalypse Survival Guide.
We will continue to transmit bulletins as long as we are able to.
For more information go to www.CMEResearchInstitute.org & click on “Bulletins.”
11.
Onboard ISS
The last time they received communications of any kind it was not good. Both NASA and the European Space Agency warned of severe disruptions or worse from the CMEs that were pounding Earth, and the larger ones coming their way over the next few hours or days. Thankfully, although their communication equipment was useless, their other systems were functioning and were fairly well protected against the coming onslaught. The other five astronauts were going about their normal duties, as well as double-checking the ISS’s safety protocols and the two escape capsules to make sure that nothing was missed, in case they had to bug out quickly.
They were about as protected as they could be, with their shielding specifically designed to take massive doses of radiation while in orbit above the protection of the magnetosphere surrounding the Earth. Otherwise, they would have already left for terra firma now.
Their larger concern was how Earth would fare in the next day or two. From what R.T. read from the last CMERI Bulletin, the size of the one or more CMEs headed to Earth were among the largest ever recorded and they were coming fast. Assuming they are as large as estimated, the devastation would be enormous. He remembers reading a book called “EMP: The Escalating Threat of an American Catastrophe” which talked about what would happen if an EMP from a nuclear bomb or CME were to hit North America. All power would be out for months, years, maybe even a decade. The world as they knew it would be over. All they could do now was wait and see what happened. Wait, and pray.
R.T. stared, through the porthole before him, at the seemingly benign colorful clouds below and he felt utterly and completely helpless.
12.
More Prepping
Upon returning from his ranch, Max unloaded Miguel and a few of their supplies at Miguel and Maria’s home in town. Then Max headed back to his own beach home. Max never noticed the late model Chevy truck that had been tailing them the whole way down. He had other concerns.
About four hours before reaching Rocky Point, Max noticed a tweet on his phone. It must have downloaded when he had WIFI service at his ranch house, since he didn’t subscribe to Internet data on his phone. The tweet was from @1859Storm, one of the Tweeters that he followed whose avocation for following CME data was better than any solar physicists, except perhaps, Dr. Reid at CMERI. This one Tweet was one of his many daily Tweets reporting each day’s number of CME’s. It read, #CME summary: 15 coronal mass ejections in past 24 hours. (For updates visit: http://t.co/KlepA5unnr).
“Wow, fifteen in one day,” he had said out loud, but not loud enough to wake Miguel who was sleeping off the previous day’s work in the front seat. The sun normally emits anywhere from one to four CMEs during solar maximums and one every other day during solar minimums. They were definitely in a solar maximum, so multiple CMEs were expected each day. However, this number was completely unprecedented.
Max couldn’t open the picture because of his lack of Internet connection now. He considered this and all the other bulletins, emails, & Tweets he had received the past couple of days as he turned onto Avenita Mar De Cortez.
He was no scientist, but he knew all the information was pointing to one thing. He was out of time. They all were.
He pulled into his other house across the street from his beach house, what he calls — to himself — his beach warehouse. It was on a double lot between other lots already graced with two and three story edifices, all outfitted with many windows and terraces designed to afford sweeping views of the ocean over the on-the-beach homes, like those owned by Max and the Kings. These weren’t technically beach lots, because they were on the other side of the street and their views were obstructed by the beach houses in front, so all were half or a third of the price of similar sized homes on the beach. This made beach living affordable, or for many, with the lower cost labor and materials in Mexico, the ability to build big without the hefty price tag of a lot right on the beach.
Max’s lot and structure were built for a wholly different purpose, but were designed to look similar to all the other homes on either side of him. His structure was three stories as well, but instead of a typical second-story master bedroom with furniture positioned to take advantage of the stunning sunrises and sunsets, the large room contained the top of a 2-story 100,000-gallon gravity fed water supply tank. It sat on a reinforced concrete pad, hefty enough to support a 15-story building. Built around this, the rest of the house was an enormous warehouse, a two bay garage which were reinforced in case of attack, caged against an EMP, and insulated to protect its contents from the extreme heat of the Sonoran Desert summers. In the warehouse, he stored enough foodstuffs and supplies to feed and outfit an army, or in this case, enough for two years of survival for him and his only family, the Kings.
The master bedroom, besides having two feet of a water tank protruding through most of what would be the floor, had a spiral staircase leading up from the ground floor and going up to the roof terrace. Inside, the only furniture in the few unused square feet was a lounge chair placed in front of the sliding glass window and balcony, which faced the beach and ocean. Sometimes, when the Kings weren’t in their home, Max would park himself in this chair and enjoy the views and peace its isolation offered him by not being directly on the beach. Some nights, he found himself sleeping in what was probably his most comfortable chair. Then he would wake up with the window open to the sounds of the ocean, and the lively aromas brought in by the breeze. He also felt safe here, even though it wasn’t as protected as his safe room in his beach house, but he loved the ability to see miles in each direction, especially from the terrace above.
The terrace on the roof provided the best views of everywhere surrounding their homes. There were two chairs underneath a canopy for protection against the sun, where they could see any approaching combatant. Others around him built their top-floor terraces to soak up the sun and the ocean, whereas Max built his terrace specifically to afford the best vantage point if someone or some group attempted to take what he and the Kings had. Elevated above everyone else’s terraces for protection and secrecy, Max’s terrace had reinforced walls that could withstand bullets and an inside threshold on which the bipod of his new sniper rifle currently rested, with a special weather-proof cover, mostly protected from an unknown enemy below.
13.
Darla
A light breeze blew. One by one, the sounds of morning, announced the coming day. The flapping flags flying from their flagpole, signaled homage to the US, the state of Michigan, and the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame; the calls of sparrows going through their morning rituals; the approaching roar of a jet ski, slicing through the calmness of the lake; the water lapping against the seawall from the newly created waves. These sounds were part of the melodic music Darla King knew as summer at her grandparent’s lake home in Michigan.