Chapter 36

Energy and Expansion

With the entire family here and the huge expansion of people the next couple days were extremely chaotic. I convinced everyone to register themselves and their skills with Gerald and Momma who it seems were becoming quite close. They were also the two people that everyone seemed to look up to and trust the most. With this population survey, things became quite a bit easier.

Andros island now had 312 residents on the AUTEC military base. 253 Adults, 41 teenagers, and only 18 kids. However, that was enough to accomplish what we needed done. I located several power and generator technicians and led them over to the generator shed two days after the population survey. Instead of turning the power on like I expected they ask me to show them to the nearest sub-station. I look at them like they are talking another language.

They explained to me that if they turned on the generators now those generators would be trying to power the entire island, not just the base. It turns out that when the generators normally get used the base is already cut off from the islands main source of power. However, with the zombie disaster they were afraid that we were still hooked up to the main power station. If they used the generators they might be overdrawn which would cause a whole bunch of issues. If they find the substation they can isolate the base from the rest of the power grid.

This is why I looked for experts. There is no way that I would have considered something like this. I would have just turned everything on and hoped for the best. While it would have worked short term, in the long run it would have ruined or seriously damaged our power grid on the base.

Two of the electrical specialists left with two guards to track down the substation for the base. Everyone else started asking me about long term plans.

“Look, I hope to one day go back to normal power distribution. The reality of the situation is that we are going to have to rely on alternative energies for a long time. I collected as many solar panels and wind turbines as I could from Jaxport and I believe you all brought some with you also. You are the experts. You need to figure out a way to integrate them so we have power on the base even if it is only during the day. If we have to spend the nights in the dark so be it, but we have to at least have power during daylight to operate machinery, charge batteries, and do things to improve our situation. I would like to save the generators for emergencies like night time raids and such. Fuel is limited and will become more so in the future.”

With all the nodding heads it looks like they agree with my overall plan even if I don’t know how to put it together personally. This group breaks up and starts discussing placement of panels, wiring, loads, and finally start getting into specifics that I can’t follow. This is where I give up and go look for something else I can help with. My first group was a success and I am pretty sure we are going to have power on the base in the next few days.

I head back to the docks and look for my brother Benji and my daughter Brittany. Once I locate them I give them a long term task that I hope will pay off someday.

“Look I know you can’t just throw something together, I am not asking for that. What I want you two to do, along with anyone else that you need to help, is in your spare time design a small nuclear reactor. There are hundreds of tons of usable material and it would provide a stable long term solution to our power needs. If you manage to get something put together in the next five to ten years I will consider it a win. Like I said it is a LONG term project. The materials are not going anywhere, we can go pick them up with radiation suits whenever we need too.”

I think that they are actually starting to understand my point. Solar panels and wind turbines will last us for quite a while. The only problem with them is that eventually wear and tear is going to ruin them no matter how well we maintain them. The chances of us being able to make new ones anytime soon in the future is not very high either. However, a small pebble bed reactor just uses radiation to heat water and turn a steam turbine. The hardest part will be putting in safety measures. We don’t have to worry about radioactive material either. No one is going to go around stalling radioactive stuff in the apocalypse so we can go pick it up whenever we need it.

The other consideration is that I want a small reactor. Just something large enough for 1,000 to 5,000 people. A normal nuclear reactor provides power for tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of businesses and households. Our needs for a long time will be much less. That means any stored radioactive material at just one of these nuclear plants will last us decades if not longer.

Now that I have short term and long term power being worked on it is time for some island sweeps and agriculture. Most people will be confused as to why I am combining both of these activities, but to me it is rather obvious. I need to find some locals who know the land and seasons so we can make the correct decisions on where, what and when to plant. It would do us no good to clear and plant enough land to support us only to have it die due to soil conditions or weather we did not know of.

I check in with Gerald and momma and look over the list of people so I can put together a group to head out tomorrow. I think one driver two shooters and a nurse should be sufficient. That means I can stick with my normal group or I can start to meet new people. I will go with my normal group, if I need to meet someone they will be introduced to me and I know I already work well with my group. So tomorrow I will have Billy, Michael, Olivia and myself go and search the island for survivors. Come to think of it, to be more efficient I should take an agriculture expert with me just to speed things up. They can observe and take notes on the types of crops they see and scout for close locations we can set up fields. I can even take my duck boat out, that way if there is a problem we can always retreat into the ocean where the zombies can’t follow us.

The next morning saw my little team gathering at the vehicle carpark that was set up. Everyone had brought an extra rifle and triple our normal ammunition as it could be stored in the vehicle. Joining us today was Nan. Nan was a country girl through and through and a 3rd generation farmer from the piedmont region of South Carolina. I figured Olivia being outnumbered by guys all the time must be getting old so when I went looking for the ag expert last night I tried the female ones first. Nan introduced herself to the rest of the group and I outlined our objectives for the day. First try and find any survivors within five miles of the base before lunch. Talk to them and see if they would be willing to join our group. Second to map out the area and allow Nan to observe the types of crops and plants that were being raised locally. If the morning went well, we would extend our search range after lunch.

No one had any objections to this and we set off in high spirits. The first hour we managed to keep our high optimism. By the end of the second hour with no survivors being found our pep from this morning was starting to dwindle. We had at least come across several hobby farms of a large enough size for Nan to make some notes and figure a few things out so the trip had not been a total waste. I figured another hour or two at the most and we would stop for lunch and regroup. Maybe this wasn’t that populated of an area. There were occasional houses, trailers, huts, and farms, but no large clusters. It could be that our luck is just bad.

Another 90 minutes saw me and the rest of the group becoming increasingly frustrated. We should have run into something by now. First we have the unusually large number of zombies on the island, and now we have only found three survivors who were the only ones on the base. I was just about to give up and pull over from lunch when Michael shouted contact 4 o’clock. We all swiveled our heads in the indicated direction and saw a person waving a makeshift flag on top of a roof of a house. The house itself was surrounded by at least a dozen zombies and probably a few more that we could not see. Finally, we had a survivor. The numbers were easily dispatched by my veteran group.

After arriving and clearing out the zombies the gentleman who had been waving the flag to get our attention climbed back through an upstairs window and we could hear several people inside coming towards the front door. The first out was the gentleman who had signaled us and behind shuffled a raggedy looking group of survivors. There was a total of nine survivors in this group. Two men, three women, and four kids. The lead guy spoke up.

“Thank you for your kindness, my name is Dajan Cox. Behind me are my brother, his wife and her sisters and their four kids. Without your help I do not know how long we could have survived. We only have enough food and water for a couple of more days.”

“Well I am glad we could be of help. We are a group of survivors that came down from the mainland and have set up camp at the local military base. We have over 300 people with us and we would be glad to have you join us, especially as we need some local knowledge.”

They could not climb onto the duck boat fast enough. I guess the past week or two had been relatively hard on them. They did not even want to bring anything with them. It turns out that the house they were in was not even theirs. They were trapped in it while scavenging for supplies and looking for a safe place. As we drove them back to the base for processing I learned a few things that filled in my gaps of knowledge about the island and its weird zombie numbers and lack of survivors. It seems that they were part of a large group of survivors, more than 80 when they last counted, but over a week ago the group decided that they should travel to the capital Nassau and seek help there from the remains of the government. A mass breakout was planned.

The entire group would travel down to the closest fishing village and get on boats and then make their way to the capital. On the day of the break out three of their family members were sick so they decided to stay behind and join the group in a couple of days. This decision turned out to have saved their lives. It seems the whole plan was thrown together without much planning or scouting. After being left behind the family group heard many sounds of fighting and then silence. A few hours later two of the group that left stumbled into the original compound covered in wounds. It turns out that there was only enough working boats and space for eight to ten people at the fishing village and people started fighting over the spots. The fighting attracted more and more zombies and soon the group was overwhelmed. No one actually made it off the island and the two that returned suffered great injuries escaping. They later passed on the next day.