Jakarta Pandemic, The (7 page)

“Like last year? That really sucked. Please don’t take us out of school for no reason again,” Ryan said.

“We didn’t take you out for no reason. Swine flu had the potential to be worse than the avian flu, and the avian flu killed close to fifty thousand people in the U.S. in 2008. We weren’t ready for it at all, and it really scared the, ah…you-know-what out of us. Fill in the blank, honey?” Alex said.

“Ha ha,” Kate said through a fake smile.

“But nothing happened, and it was embarrassing. Plus, it took me forever to catch up! Remember some of the teachers didn’t want to let me make up some of my tests?”

“That won’t happen again,” Kate assured him.

“What does a pandemic do to you?” Emily asked.

“Sweetie, the pandemic flu makes you really, really sick. Worse than you’ve ever been before. That’s why you get a flu shot every year.”

“To keep from getting the pandemic flu?”

“No, you get the shot for the regular flu, which can make you pretty sick, too. The pandemic flu is worse though,” Kate said.

“Don’t worry about it, sweetie. No one in this family will get sick, I promise. Just finish your dinner and start your homework. Then we can have some dessert,” Alex said.

Emily dug into her stir-fry as Ryan finished his plate. Alex saw that Emily still looked worried.

“More stir-fry, sweetie?”

“No, thanks, Mom, I had more than enough. Everything’s great, especially the soup,” Ryan replied.

Chapter Seven

Friday, November 1, 2013

Kate and Alex sat together on a dark brown leather sectional couch in the great room. Two recessed lights over the mantel cast indirect light over the entire family room. The flat-screen TV showed FBC news anchor Kerrie Connor framed next to Dr. David Ocampo, Director of the ISPAC’s Live Trend Analysis Division. Information displayed at the bottom of the split screen indicated that Dr. Ocampo was broadcasting live from ISPAC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.

“Dr. Ocampo, thank you again for your time. Good luck to both you and your organization.”

“Thank you for the opportunity to educate the public, and if I may, your viewers can always obtain the most updated pandemic information on our website,
www.ispac.org
.”

“Thank you again, Dr. Ocampo. When we come back, we’ll hear about the massive preparations underway on the Florida peninsula in preparation for the anticipated landfall of Hurricane Terrence.”

Kate paused the recording and looked at Alex, slowly nodding her head.

“Rewind to the part about the WHO underestimating the flu’s potential,” he said.

Kate scrolled back a few times to find the right segment.

“That’s it. Right there,” Alex said.

“Dr. Ocampo, WHO representatives have repeatedly criticized this premise, labeling your organization’s research in this area of study as flawed. They say that your casualty projections are excessive and that your assessment of the impact on essential services is exaggerated. Dr. Pierre Neville, head of the WHO’s pandemic impact study group, is quoted saying that the ‘ISPAC’s predictions are alarmist science fiction.’ How do you respond to the WHO’s stance toward the ISPAC’s projections?”

“The problem with their criticism of our projections is that the WHO leans way too heavily on the experiences of the 2008 pandemic. They insist that 2008 is the perfect model for all future pandemics. On the contrary, we believe that the 2008 pandemic flu strain was a relatively weak pandemic strain, especially compared to the 1918 Spanish flu, which killed millions. In 2008, the world’s healthcare system and essential services infrastructure was barely challenged.”

“How so?”
Kerrie pressed.

“During the avian flu pandemic, hospital-based care remained available to a majority of sick patients, at least in most modernized and developing countries. This drastically improved outcomes and contributed decisively to the low overall case fatality rate. Although the situation in many developing nations approached—and in some cases crossed—the tipping point, most modernized nations’ systems were never truly challenged by the 2008 pandemic. This outcome would be different in the face of a deadlier and more infectious virus. The tipping point for inpatient healthcare availability, in both modernized and developing nations, would be reached quickly, and the result would be catastrophic.”

“Even for the United States?”

“Everywhere. In any given area, we calculate that all available inpatient services such as hospital beds, ventilators, and medical staff would be occupied within two to three weeks of a pandemic reaching that area. In the U.S. alone, based on 1918 pandemic flu patterns, every existing hospital bed would be occupied within a few weeks. Once inpatient capacity is filled, patients would be given a set of home-based care instructions and turned away.”

“Turned away? Where would they be sent?”

“Home.”

“Really? That doesn’t sound like a great option.”

“It isn’t. The predicted survival rates for hospital-based care versus home-based care differ greatly. 80 to 85% versus 10 to 15% for a medium-risk patient. If you’re a high-risk patient with secondary complications like heart disease or diabetes, you’re as good as dead.”

Kerrie looked stunned by his last statement.

“Kerrie, this isn’t science fiction. It’s a common-sense-based statistical prediction. A complicated one that accounts for hundreds of factors and balances trends from several pandemic models. Not just one, like the WHO model.”

Kate stopped the recording. “That’s sure to cause a stir within the WHO.”

“At the White House, too. They’re all in each other’s pockets. He basically put it all on the table. Tomorrow should be interesting,” Alex replied.

“How can anyone really ignore or dismiss what he said? You have to stop and at least think about it.”

“Don’t worry. First of all, nobody wants to believe it could be a real problem. Most of these people don’t give a shit about any potential crisis.” He raised his hands, gesturing toward the neighborhood. “If it’s not happening to them right now,” he continued, “they don’t care. Oil prices are lower than a few months ago? Great. Forget about the fact that the price threshold rises every year. Why do anything? Got a little scared during the 2008 pandemic? Sure, but what’s the chance that it will happen again so soon? Not likely, according to the government. And last year’s swine flu pandemic turned out to be a joke, so why should anyone worry? The local news hasn’t even picked up on the possible cases right here in Maine. Who knows what it’ll take for people to take it seriously? Which reminds me, I should check out our stockpile. I haven’t been down there in a long time, and it couldn’t hurt to see what we have on hand. I packed the pantry and hall closet with stuff from Hannigan’s earlier today.”

“I saw that. I wish I had done the same thing.”

“We really don’t need anything. I just couldn’t drive right by Hannigan’s and not stop. I picked up a bunch of wine and beer, too. I’m not taking any chances.”

“Smart man. So…you go measure the Frito supply while I check on the kids and clean up.”

“I’ll be up in a few minutes.”

Kate got up from the couch and walked behind it toward the doorway leading from the front of the family room to the staircase in the foyer. Alex placed the empty glass on the coffee table and held his hand over his head for Kate’s hand. She grasped his hand over the back of the couch and kissed it.

“Love you.”

“Love you, too. I’ll be in the bunker if you need me.”

He picked up his glass and walked into the kitchen, glancing at the clock on the DVR. 8:12. He placed the glass on the kitchen island and grabbed a yellow legal pad and a pen from the kitchen desk, turned toward the basement door, and headed towards the dark stairwell. He turned on the lights to the basement and descended the unfinished stairs.

Facing him on the way down, a storage shelf stood against the concrete wall directly across from the stairway. The shelf contained larger kitchen items that didn’t fit in the kitchen or pantry. Alex scanned the shelf and saw a cobalt blue Mixmaster, an espresso maker, a blender, dozens of large wooden or stainless steel bowls, and several large plastic serving trays.

He reached the basement floor and turned the corner into a large, well-lit, unfinished area that encompassed two-thirds of the total available basement space. The area was filled with lawn furniture, several bicycles, two kayaks, a dehumidifier, an old sofa, assorted luggage, and a working refrigerator. The front wall of the basement, adjacent to the stairway, was occupied by stacks of fifty-gallon plastic storage bins that held everything from summer clothing to painting supplies. Everything without a place in the upper floors of the house ended up stored in one of the bins.

Alex walked along the staircase wall toward another door located toward the back of the basement, just past the spare refrigerator. As he walked to the door, he glanced to his right at the seasonal storage area, which gave him a general feeling of disarray. Every year, he intended to better organize this area, but each time the weather turned colder, he found himself hauling everything through the bulkhead door at the last minute and jamming it in, wherever it would fit.

He approached the door inset in a wall that ran from the back of the staircase to the back wall of the basement. He took his key chain out of his jeans pocket and located the key to the door. He opened the deadbolt lock with one of the keys and then the doorknob lock with another, pushing the door in a few feet and reaching his right hand into the pitch-black room to find the light switch along the wall. He flipped the light on and walked several feet into the back room of his basement. The three overhead light bulbs, spaced evenly from front to back, exposed an unfinished basement area that stood in direct contrast to the room he’d just left.

The room was immaculate and well organized. Floor to ceiling storage shelves stood flush against most of the outer concrete walls. In the back southeast corner of the house, almost directly across from the door, stood two 275-gallon fuel oil tanks for the furnace. The furnace itself was located in a slightly recessed area about fifteen feet to the left of the tanks, along the southeast side wall of the basement. An oversized water heater sat a few feet to the left of the furnace. In the middle part of the room was a large, rectangular, cream-colored plastic box, standing three and a half feet tall, four feet deep, and six feet wide—the PowerCube Generator and Storage (G/S) 900 module, configured to store the electricity generated by their south facing rooftop solar panels. He could tell by the full bank of green LED lights that the system was fully charged and operational, free of any detected faults. One PowerCube could provide 6000 Watts of continuous power output, for as long as the batteries held a charge.

Alex looked back over his right shoulder at a five-foot–tall, black, metallic safe next to the door. The safe was three feet wide and had two built-in locks, one toward the top and one at the bottom. The locks were opened by the same key, which hung on a small nail, hidden nearby in the basement rafters. The black steel rectangular box was a gun locker. The weapons inside were clean, oiled, and ready for action, and the locker also held ammunition.

He turned his head back toward the center of the room.

Where to start? Fuel tanks.

He walked nearly straight ahead to the two fuel tanks and checked their fill gauges. One tank was completely full, and the other was two-thirds full.

Pretty good levels for the beginning of November.

They’d filled the tanks at the beginning of May and had only used one-third of a tank to heat water for nearly six months. Three years before, they had installed a second tank in response to skyrocketing oil prices. He wrote in his notebook:
Call Dead River Oil to fill tank.

He turned around and decided to start at the wall adjacent to the door. The metal storage shelves started there and extended to the front concrete wall of the basement and contained spring water in two-gallon containers. Each four-level shelving unit held thirty of these containers, all on the lowest three shelves. The containers were stacked five in a row, two rows high on each shelf. There were eight shelving units along this wall, together holding nearly five hundred gallons of water.

All of the containers were marked with their date of purchase. Each week, at least one of the oldest containers was removed and placed in the kitchen for consumption. During the weekly grocery run, the container would be replaced, ensuring that the water supply stored in the basement was slowly turned over throughout the course of the year, preventing the inevitable decay of the plastic containers.

The system employed to rotate water through the shelves was also applied to most other stockpiled items. They regularly rotated food, water, medical supplies, batteries and other shorter shelf-life items into their daily lives, and replaced them on a weekly—or at least monthly—basis.

The Fletchers had started their stockpile by first purchasing all of the shelving units, which had cost a small fortune, and then slowly filling them with essentials. They hadn’t bought everything at once, but instead had purchased a few items in each essential category, once or twice a week, until the shelves were filled. It took them less than a year to fill the shelves with enough food and supplies to survive at least a year.

Alex quickly walked down the row and checked for any obvious leaks pooled on the floor. The only thing that caught his attention was the date marked on the front of the newest container, 2/12/11, and the thick layer of dust covering the rest of them. The systematic rotation of their stockpile had ceased after the 2010 swine flu scare, which had fizzled just as quickly as it had arrived.