Catastrophy of the highest order..part six

It was around 9 o'clock and you were making pretty good time rolling down the four lane. Out in the country like this even on a regular day traffic was real sparse. You think that you'll be home in a short short.
What you didn't know, and what you don't have the resources to find out, is that a electro-magnetic pulse had hit the U.S. A terrorist group had detonated nuclear warheads 100 miles above the earth's atmosphere in 3 critical locations. The results were that it knocked out the power grid immediately and fried all the electronic components in every piece of machinery and communication device. There is no way that you will be able to find out the horrors that it has caused or is about to cause. A few of the passenger jets that were above the atmosphere weren't affected but the control towers were. Some of them landed safely without any ground guidance but others simply ran out of fuel trying to find a clearing or an open runway and crashed. Others that were in the process of taking off or landing had their guidance and control electronics compromised and just crashed. No rescue vehicles were able to respond because they were rendered useless also. A lot of tragedy had gone on during the first few hours of the crisis. What also happened and what was happening was the people in this country who were insulin dependent had their medication compromised. Insulin loses it's shelf life after 1 day from not being refrigerated. At this very moment thousands of people were going into diabetic shock and not recovering from it. These and lots of other sad stories are things that you don't know or realize right now. If you put thought to the matter you'd probably figure it out. However there was no way that Ann Curry or Matt Lauer could pass the information on to you or anyone else. What you also didn't know was that the power grid wasn't going to come back on for a long time. It was going to take about 3 years to even establish one again and that would be just for the metropolitan areas. Maybe they will redesign the grid to become pulse-resistant in the next application. But right now at this moment, you are left to figure that out all on your own. Could the U.S. be under attack right now? How could you know if it was or not. What about all the people in nursing homes? Who would bring them their medication or food? How could they survive without care, medication and nourishment? Thinking of death makes you wonder what or who would take care of the bodies that are bound to be piling up. There most certainly won't be any ambulances to carry anyone away nor will there be any morticians in business if they couldn't be paid to carry out an internment. There is now not any money to be had and even if they were, what good would it do you? No one is going to want money now. What they will be wanting is food, shelter and water. How are they going to get those items? There is already rioting in the bigger cities and the shelves in every grocery store within a 50 mile radius is bare to the walls. Employees of the stores had been killed and ran over top of. Even some of the looters who had made off with the goods were killed for the food they had just stolen. It was bad and getting worse quickly.
You wonder about your sustainability and how you will be providing for your family. These are thoughts that are boggling your mind as your continue your drive home.
Just as you wonder about how you are going to be taking care of your family, you see some folks up ahead taking care of theirs.
A group of people had set up a make-shift camp in a parking lot of a grocery store and had gas grills and coolers set up all around. There were a few all terrain quad cycles, a few tables and chairs set out and a few tents. It was obvious that they were taking care of the food supply that had been in side the I.G.A. supermarket. That was probably a pretty good idea to cook all the perishable meats before they spoiled because that would make them last longer. You also notice that there is a camp-fire set up right in the middle of the lot with some of the meat on a type of a pyre. You hope that it's meat out of the store and not from some other source. As you draw closer you notice that there are some armed spotters in each of the corners of the parking lot. Two members of the community are each setting on a quad-runner making a total of eight of them. You guess that this party is by invitation only and you're not invited. Everyone gives you a curious look but no one is threatening you and you pass quickly on by.
"So that's what I have to look forward to later on" you think. You wonder how close knit the community you have just passed will become once the food in the grocery story reaches a very low level. Only time will tell you think.
You are still thinking about all of this and how it's going back home.. You are now getting ready to cross the state line into South Carolina. It's eleven o'clock.