10:05 PM

Today’s Weather- Sunny, blue skies. High 44. 36 degrees now.

One death in the development in the past 24 hours. Heart attack. Ed DeSoto, mid-fifties, relatively good health. Woke up at some point during the night, told his wife he didn’t feel well and went downstairs. Wife fell back asleep and then come morning, she found him splayed across the kitchen floor and stiff. I didn’t know him too well, or his wife. They moved here last March from New York and our paths never really crossed socially.

Lori, on the other hand, knows his wife Marie fairly well. They were both part of the same unofficial, and informal Windy Creek Wives Club back in the pre-war days. She’s been over at the DeSoto house since this afternoon along with some of the other wives.  I suppose the burgeoning cemetery out on the golf course will be receiving more business by the end of the week. It was smart to have dug a few extra graves out there and cover them with tarps after Jennifer Talley’s passing.

While Lori was over with Marie DeSoto, the rest of us here took inventory of our food. At the current rate of consumption there is enough left to last the four of us through the beginning of March, give or take a week. If we cut down on calorie intake then the food can be stretched to April. At the moment we’re not getting anywhere near as many calories and nutrition as our bodies need. Especially Alex and Megan. I’ve discussed this before.

The simple fact is that no matter how much we try to stretch out our present supply, one day it’s going to run out. And we have nothing to replace it with. The same goes for just about every other family here, I imagine.

I believe some hard decisions will need to be made by the start of the new year.

Tuesday, December 20, 2022

8:45PM

Today’s Weather- Sunny. Low 40s. 37 degrees now.

George Brubaker is a retired fireman and the majority of his friends up in Lititz are retired firemen and police officers. Most of them have some type of military experience, and are very proficient with firearms from what I saw. Bob McDaniel fits in well with them and it became clear that he has been in tight with them for quite some time both professionally and personally. Like I said last night, George and his crew gave us a lot of useful information that we are going to be able to put to good use.

George filled us in on Lititz and what went on there after Bob’s departure. Again, as I said, Bob’s forecasting was on the mark. Weak leadership, lack of a solid plan, and corruption doomed the town. The mayor and his cronies really clamped down, restricting the movement of citizens and assessing a food tax as well. In short, Lititz would take 1/3 of a families on-hand food and supplies and in return promised to provide food and other essentials for families when they ran out.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what came next. People started running low on food, medication, and water. They turned to the town government for help, but there was none to be found. The mayor thumbed his nose at the people and sat on the food and supplies. Well, the police chief saw this and resigned immediately. Took his family and left Lititz for parts unknown. Within two weeks the police department had disbanded totally. Cops and their families drifted away in pairs. By the time the mayor realized the position he was in, it was too late to do anything. The word is him and his pals barely made it out of Lititz before angry citizens stormed the township offices.

Since then, Lititz has fragmented into smaller colony type areas. Each one has a very distinct ideology and occupies maybe a half mile of the town. They’ve adopted a policy of live-and-let-live between themselves but now that’s starting to fray because there’s very little food left in that area. They police themselves and lately there’ve been some confrontations. George Brubaker said it is steadily escalating. Him and his people have steered clear of the mess, however, he figures it’s a matter of time before they’re dragged in.

This is why I really think might be beneficial for Windy Creek, and George’s group to establish some kind of formal relationship. Like I said, they’re good people and seem to have kept their heads while everyone around them didn’t. Bob agrees with me. This afternoon we went and talked it over some with Dennis, who appears to like the idea. We will talk more about it tomorrow.

As for the National Guard’s arrival, two of George’s people are former Guardsmen. They told us the Guard has practiced for disaster relief types of incidents. Somewhat like this, but at the same time altogether different. Going by what they remember of Guard contingency plans, they think the first step will be to set up and secure a staging area in the city and start trucking in relief supplies. Distribution starts with city residents, and then as more convoys arrive, smaller staging sites are set up in surrounding towns and the process repeated on a smaller scale.

So I guess we’re in that first step now. I hope the Guard brought some firepower because I’m sure there are still at least some gang-bangers down there looking for a fight. Its time to neutralize those bastards once and for all. Tomorrow we’re sending out some folks to poke around the area and try to gain some idea of what else is happening in Manheim Township and the immediate area.

This was a quiet day in Windy Creek. No major problems, deaths, or anything falling off the rails unexpectedly. To quote Ice Cube, I’d have to say it was a good day.