When the Sun Burps - Homebound Part One

It’s late February, the snow is still on the ground but the sun is shining and it is about a balmy forty degrees. You don’t feel like going to work, so you play hooky and look forward to watching Days of Our Lives.

After lunch you take a trip to Starbucks, treat yourself to a latte, make an afternoon snack and snuggle on the couch. Stephano Demera has risen from the dead … again and just when Bo and Hope are going to reunite for the umpteenth time …. Everything powers down. Lights out.

Without warning, a large X10 solar flare has unleashed a powerful CME that smashed into earth and caused a geomagnetic event.

You hear a loud whistle sound, an engine whistling. An airplane? It grows louder, faster, louder. You run to the front door just in enough time to see a large passenger plane dropping from the sky. It lands in the distance but close enough for the ground beneath your feet to rumble and the explosion causes your ears to ring.

Further away you hear another and another. You literally see four planes fall from the sky. No power, no lights. You need answers. People are confused. They are in the street, some are screaming that they have to get their kids at school … it is immediate mass hysteria.

An X10 solar flare not only causes massive radiation doses to those in the air, it can cause CME’s which in turn could trigger EMP’s that knock out power grids, not for hours but for weeks, if not forever.

What do you do?

But at the moment the lights go out, planes fall from the sky, you haven’t a clue what’s going on.

Your house is dark, you have no power. Who the heck has a battery operated radio anymore?

First thing first. Give it five minutes. Allow news stations and others to transfer to generator power.

Check your cell phone first, call the electric company. They may have a prerecorded message informing you if it is an all out outage or local. If that fails, do you have a laptop? Internet? Does it work? Let’s say it doesn’t. What now?

Without power, without a radio, phone, internet, how can you find out what is happening?

Anyone? Anyone?

Yes, the car. Theoretically, anything that is not running during an EMP will run. Do not start your car, merely switch it to use the battery and access the radio. Look for stations that may have news. If there is nothing there, do not give up hope. Try again in a few moments.

Remember, the worst thing you can do is leave the safety of your home or neighborhood. Stay put, get informed, assess the situation, then devise a plan. Listen to the advice of authorities.

Now let’s say, after a half an hour, you finally hear a news report. You are told about the CME and that it has affected most of the country.

Massive blackout. No power. No power no gas stations. You have a half of a tank of gas, not enough to make it to Aunt May’s in Nevada where they have power.

The city is being shut down. You are now stuck in your home until order and power are restored.

What do you do to survive?

Over the next several days I will be walking you through the process of being homebound, in cold weather and surviving until the event is over or you can move safely to another shelter.

Tune in tomorrow …. As we move onto part two.