Chapter 100

1100 Wednesday Morning 25 January Kariwase

Medic Sargent Greagory Falter another quick thinker who was also on the short timers list. Had almost completed his BS in Biology (Pre Med) and was looking for a Medical School. I passed the information onto Dr. Sink and added that The Wappinger Nation would pay for him to have a full ride scholarship.

The University Medical University at Albany excepted Greagory was as a Medical Student for the Fall Semester. They would allow him to attend classes to finish his BS. Just to keep busy he would earn an EMT Certification. The Wappinger Nation would also pay for the courses. We would also give him a stipends to live on and a place to live.

We filled the ground floor of our Headquarters Center with Five hundred Guests on cots. This would allow us to house Eight Thousand People. At the time of our morning briefing, we had Seven Thousand-Two Guests. This was our last expansion of Guest accommodations. With Two more days of wet snow and night temperatures below zero we expected more building to have roof failures. The latest major collapse was the Center City Mall. The Mall was at the time closed by the storm and only had a small maintenance team in the facility and all managed to escape uninjured.

Samuel Lafayette had decided to send out electric distribution damage survey assessment teams with the morning Patrol and there assessment was not verry encouraging. Sixty percent of the power poles were damaged and would need replacing. Over a Thousand pole electrical transformers were damaged due to the damaged power poles. An estimate of Two trees downed for each power pole damaged that we would have to clear. Almost One Hundred percent of residential power lines were down. One of the men said he had seen less damage to the grid by a Category Four Hurricane.

There were not enough line maintenance people, repair equipment, or replacement items on hand to repair the damage. A team of supervisors produced a plan to help repair the damage. One, use Marines to remove trees and aid trained power maintenance people in repair work. Two, load a freight train equipped with a plow with all the needed replacement poles, transformers, and wire and ship the supplies to us. Three, use the Watervliet Arsenal as a staging area for the shipments. Four place construction articulating lifts on the back of Military Trucks and tie them down. Surround the cage with a rubber mat to protect it from damage if it hits a hot wire.

These ideas taken as a whole, and implemented, would go a long way to speed up the restoration of the power grid. It would take the cooperation of a score or more of different Commands and Disciplines to get approval, but it would work.

We will closely monitor all team members for fatigue and wintry weather casualties.

General Carrington approved the use of the 1st Battalion 2nd Marines if they had basic power grid training and we supervised them with trained professional crew members. Training starts at 0900 led by Commander Lafayette USN (ret).

After contacting Three different construction equipment rental companies we had Forty-Two articulating lifts that could reach all residential power pole heights and Forty-Two Two-man team power augers that could drill a Nine-foot-deep hole in the frozen ground. One of our engineers designed a claw that we could attach to the articulating lifts. They could grab and remove broken power poles from the ground, then lift the new power poles to place them into the new holes in the ground. We had the equipment, the people in training, now the snow had to stop, and they could get to work. We also acquired Forty-Two Bob Cats to accompany each crew, to dig out the snow to ground level. This would allow the proper setting up of all equipment.

A local transportation museum in our area had an antique steam train engine with a steam powered snow blower that could clear Twelve feet of snow from the tracks. They happily agreed for us to rent it and a crew for Five thousand a day. We would need to provide coal and water to keep it operational. We found out that the Arsenal had One Hundred tons of coal they never disposed of after switching to natural gas for their operations. We could have all of it we could use. Another of our engineers devised a way for people to pump water from tanker cars to the engine to extend the range from One Hundred Fifty miles to Six Hundred miles. We provided a Bob Cat and operator to move coal from a transport hopper car to the engine coal hopper. This the operator would do at the Six-hundred-mile stop. They would start clearing operations at 1300 today as soon as they finished maintenance on the system and get the boilers up to operating temperature.

Our requested for replacement equipment, poles, and wire we made to Utility operations south of us. Utilities would load on a train starting in North Carolina and as it headed to us stop at various locations and load more required items on to the train. The snow clearing engine would meet them at Philadelphia and lead them North to us. The Wappinger Nation was paying all the bills, we would seek repayment from the Local, State, the National Government, and utility companies for our expenses.

Our weather team said snow, high winds, and extreme cold would end by 1000 Friday 27 January so we had Forty-Eight hours to train crews, get replacement parts, and make a plan that would return the power to the most people the quickest. We had good people doing the planning and good people that would do the work, we were ready to turn on the power.

At the morning court session all our guests at the urging of their attorneys pleaded guilty to one Federal Count in plea bargain agreements.

Jaden Allen Moses with One Federal Felony count assault on a FEMA Shelter Staff Member and was place on Five Years supervised probation. The court requires him to pay court, detention costs, and restitution for damages and injuries. He was to pass anger management training as part of his probation.

Mr. and Mrs. Alberton Ryen Forsayth on One Federal Felony count each of interfering with a FEMA Shelter Operation and sentenced to Three Years supervised probation and required to pay the court and detention costs.

Mr. James Dewitt Frisk One Federal Felony count on possession with intent to distribute Marijuana of less than 100 Grams and sentenced to Five Years supervised probation, attend, and successfully complete a residential substance abuse rehabilitation program, and the court require him to pay court and detention costs.

After their guilty pleas, Robert permanently expelled all Four from Wolverine Field, Wappinger Nation property. They were immediately transported to the nearest New York State run shelter then released to their attorney’s custody. All had a court order of where and the time and date of the appointment to report to their Parole Officer. Failure to appear would result in an arrest warrant being issued for failure to appear and contempt of court. All the original charges the court would reinstate as they did not make a plea to them.

Thankfully, they were no longer our problem but the Federal Courts to deal with. They did serve a purpose to us as word got around. If you cause problems or break the rules no matter who you are we will have you arrested and charged with a Federal crime and appear before a Federal Judge. We had very few other problems with Guests. Those who thought they were privileged went elsewhere, those who came to our shelters excepted our placement and rules.

Our NICU/PICU had more volunteers as holders and rockers that we had to put them in a shift rotation. Raleigh had found a friend Five-year-old Louise Lopezes who was wandering in One of our halls. He had escaped from the PICU where we were holding him for observation. His sister Maria was in the NICU after both the Medical Staff found they were suffering from frost bite and hypothermia in the arm of their mother who had died from the conditions aggravated by poor nutrition due to narcotics addiction.

Raleigh

I saw a little one in the hall on the far side from the NICU/PICU and he asked me, can you help me find my sister? She is only Ten days old, and I am the only family she has in the entire world. Mama is dead and no one knows who our daddies are. I took his hand and led him back to the NICU/PICU. Nurse Pulman-Usher on seeing him said to him, must we restrain you to your bed. I told her, he just wants to see his Ten-day-old sister Maria Lopezes. Nurse Pulman-Usher replied the Two of you come on it is her feeding time, and you can feed her.

I sat in a rocking chair and with Louise on One knee and Maria on the other knee we both fed her and all Three of us fell asleep in the rocker. Nurse Pulman-Usher covered us with a blanket and let me sleep for an hour before waking Me. I was surprised, I had slept.

Nurse Pulman-Usher moved Louise’s bed into the room with Maria and noted orphan siblings keep together. I rose with Louise in his hands and placed him in his bed and covered him, saying I will see you both later and left the room.