James Rawles - Expatriates

Jake and Janelle habitually carried guns as well. They both had SIG P250 pistols in Blade-Tech hip holsters—his chambered in .45 ACP, and hers in .40 S&W. Jake also kept his loaded Saiga-12 shotgun behind the store’s front counter at all times and the RRA LAR-8 by his bedside.

To avoid setting any patterns that could be exploited, Tomas was encouraged to take his breaks for meals and errands at sporadic, unpredictable times. He often took advantage of Janelle’s home-cooked meals, which the Altmillers provided to encourage Tomas to stay in the store as much as possible. His meals were usually brought to him by Lance, who idolized Marichal. The boy called him “our store’s soldier.”

Both the two-customer limit and the silver coin pricing were unpopular at first, but these practices were soon emulated by many other local businesses after word came that several stores in Orlando and Leesburg had either been looted or had their entire inventory sell out in a matter of days.

Since the Altmiller’s Hardware building had been built in the late 1940s, it had pre-air-conditioning architecture, with spacious screened windows. Even better, it had a raised pagoda center section roofline that provided exceptionally good natural light and ventilation. While ventilation wasn’t a big issue at the onset of the Crunch in October, by the following July, many other businesses had to shut down or relocate. Their almost windowless architecture turned them into humid saunas in the post-grid power era. Worst of all were the tilt-up slab buildings that had become popular in the 1980s and beyond. These relied heavily on fluorescent lighting and air-conditioning since they had few, if any windows. With rolling blackouts and the eventual failure of the power grid, these buildings became little more than unbearably hot, humid, dark caves. Jake was thankful for both his store’s architecture and its PV panels. As part of the Old Florida—both culturally and architecturally—Jake and his family were far better prepared for the Crunch than most.

Rumors began to circulate about Cuban raiders in the Florida Keys and on both the east and west coasts of the Florida peninsula. The concern was that they would start to loot inland regions. There was even talk of a full-scale Cuban invasion. When Janelle brought up these concerns in the store one day, Valentin immediately dismissed the rumors. “The Cuban army couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag.”

Valentin, however, later admitted to Jake, “Papa Fidel may be dead, but they’re still a bunch of commies down there. I have no doubt that they’ll come and loot in Florida, if they have the chance.”

Surrounded by three large lakes, Tavares effectively sat on a peninsula. The economy of the region was dominated by theme parks. There was not just the Walt Disney World resort, which included four theme parks, two water parks, and huge resort facilities, but also the two Universal Studios parks, SeaWorld, and many minor spin-off tourist traps in greater Orlando. They all had brought throngs of visitors year-round. The local saying was, “Directly or indirectly, everyone works for the Mouse.” Or more derisively, “for the Rat.” Even before the Crunch started in earnest, Disney World tourism dropped to nil, and everyone felt the pinch.

In Tavares, the locals were nervous, but they felt comfortably isolated by the lakes, which eliminated several potential avenues of approach. The town conscripted a levy of armed men to man the roadblocks. Each man between ages eighteen and sixty was expected to do an eight-hour guard duty shift five days of each month. There were very few exceptions made—only those with chronic health conditions were excused, but even these men were expected to pay the daily wages in silver for substitutes to stand duty during their assigned shifts.

Eventually, the roadblock levy rules were liberalized, allowing more substitutions. A few men served as substitutes for three or even four others, which provided a way to make a decent living just by standing guard duty. These men soon went by the nickname Suntanned Soldados, given the many long hours they spent manning the roadblocks. A few men tried to claim noncombatant status because of their religious objection to being armed, but they were told to report for duty anyway and serve as unarmed “runners” or as medics.

The men at the roadblocks were in constant radio contact with the police department. It was initially the police, bolstered by more than a dozen recent combat veterans, who formed the Quick Reaction Teams (QRTs). They would be called up anytime a sizable force of looters was spotted. The attrition rate at the roadblocks was low, but on the QRTs it was surprisingly high. They lost an average of one man a week—either killed or wounded so badly that they couldn’t return to duty. By the end of the first year, there had been a complete turnover; only two of the pre-Crunch police officers were still with the force.

The Lake County Sheriff Department’s heaviest weapon was a Barrett semiauto .50 BMG rifle. Lake County had a National Guard armory in Eustis. The 2nd Battalion, 124th Infantry Regiment at the Eustis Armory had several .50 caliber M2 Browning heavy machine guns, and its anti-tank unit had TOW missile systems that could be mounted on up-armored Humvees. These weapons, however, were essentially worthless because no ammunition was kept on site. All of it was stored in bunkers at an Ammunition Supply Point (ASP) eighty miles away at the Camp Blanding Joint Training Center near the town of Starke. The Eustis National Guard Armory also had sections of 81 mm and 60 mm mortars, but it was the same story: mortar tubes, but no mortar bombs. Only their M16s, M4s, and M240 light machine guns were put to use, but only with very limited ammunition that was scrounged up locally. The 5.56 and 7.62 NATO ammo that they needed for these was in very short supply and traded as if it were gold.

Up until the 1970s, Tavares had been a somewhat distinct community with its own identity. But Tavares and all of the area along U.S. 441 from Orlando to Ocala and along U.S. 27 from Clermont to Ocala became known as Greater Suburbia. Most of the region became a continuous commercial retail strip. It was as if Central Florida transitioned from a collection of towns into an amorphous shopping experience . The sense of community was lost, and only the extremes of the Crunch brought part of that back in a defensive instinct. Tavares as “town” concept was restored only as a protective community to delineate “us” from “them,” with the “them” meaning the riffraff in Orlando. Once this concept crystallized, the roadblocks went up.

Tavares became a law-and-order stronghold for several reasons. Not only did the lake-dominated geography limit avenues of approach, but Tavares was the county seat and had a rather imposing Justice Center (with county jail and courthouse). The Lake County Sheriff’s Department headquarters were also in town.

When the Crunch set in, the local citizens were already quite well armed and most of them believed strongly in the right to keep and bear arms. As a base of operations, the police, National Guard, and local citizens groups were able to maintain law and order and create a relatively stable and free community where a barter economy developed.