Glen Tate - 299 Days - The Preparation

“OK, Dad, what’s the situation?” she asked. That was a pretty mature thing for a sixteen year old to say.

Grant described the stock market and, more importantly, the bond rating. She had seen the news about the California and Mexico situations, but thought that was far away. She instantly understood why the bond rating and other crises were a problem. Grant told her about his phone call with Bill Owens.

“I don’t expect the refugee problem to be affecting us all the way up here,” Grant said. That was downplaying his concerns, but he didn’t want to scare her unnecessarily. “The Federal Government is freaking out right now. They are losing control of Texas and probably California, Arizona, and New Mexico. This is a dangerous time because the feds might try to overreact.”

Manda was taking it all in. He had never seen her so focused on what he was saying.

“I don’t think we need to bug out right now,” Grant continued. He didn’t really believe that, but he was trying hard not to overreact so he told himself things like that. “Maybe we never need to. But we need to do as much now as possible, in advance, so we can leave on a moment’s notice.”

“I understand,” Manda said. “What can I do to help?” Whoa. Did she just say that? The girl who never picked up her room was asking how she could help the family evacuate? Awesome. Evacuating was way more important than picking up her room.

“Start by getting all the stuff you need — I mean need, not just want — and making a list so you could throw it together quickly,”

Grant said. “Think about what you use every day.”

“OK, Dad. I understand,” Manda said. She was serious but also seemed relieved that her dad was taking care of her. She knew how hard this was on him, but he was doing whatever it took to protect her and Mom and her little brother.

“If I need to, I’ll ask you to come and talk to Mom with me,” Grant said. “Can you do that?” Grant knew what the answer would be.

“Of course,” Manda said with a big smile. She realized that talking Mom into leaving was what she could do. Manda was proud to have an important role in all of this. “Mom needs to understand how much better off we’ll be at the cabin than here.”

Wow. Grant couldn’t believe how Manda got this but her mom didn’t.

She’s on board. You did a good job , said the outside thought. He hadn’t heard it in quite some time.

Keep doing what you’re doing. That was reassuring.

Grant realized he was anxious to get this going. To get the Collapse going. How odd: hurry up and collapse. He was like the eccentric meteorologist who predicts snow in June, gets laughed at, and then sees the snowflakes and gets excited. Grant wanted the snow to come down. Hard.

Then he realized that he really didn’t want the Collapse to come soon. He had plenty of things to get done before then. He was very well prepared, but even he could use more time to get everything together and do more. There was always more to do. No, Grant didn’t really want the Collapse to come. He just knew it would.

The garage door went up signifying that Lisa was home. Great. Reality check. Time to quit thinking about the end of the world and return to being a supportive suburban husband. This double life thing was getting harder and harder as the Collapse approached.

Grant thought back to Civil Air Patrol right before they would go on a search for a downed plane. It was a combination of excitement and boredom. They were excited because they were about to do something big and possibly even dangerous. Something thrilling. But it was boring because they had so many tasks before they could go.

Checking gear. Making sure their radios had batteries and they had the right frequencies. Having current maps. Making sure they had supplies, like food. Rounding up the search team and coordinating their transportation to the base. Then waiting. Just sitting there. Ready to go, but not going. “Hurry up and wait” they called it. The waiting was difficult because they were delayed from doing what they had been preparing so hard for.

Grant was feeling that same way now. He knew he would be doing many thrilling and dangerous things in the near future. He would be living his life fully in the next few weeks, months, maybe years.

This was what he had been preparing for. Since… well, childhood. Of course, he didn’t know when he was a kid that a collapse was coming. But he could see the path of his life and how it led from Forks to Olympia. He grew up hard and had to toughen up. He knew how to live in a rural area; chopping wood, hunting, fishing, canning. Then he forgot all that and became a suburban guy, which was necessary for him to learn how to be a lawyer who could help people fight corruption. Then he married a doctor who would be able to save lots of people. He inherited a cabin in an area where his family could live when the city got too dangerous. He got on a pick-up team of civilian gunfighters. He met a Special Forces Oath Keeper. He got hooked up with a survival podcast and learned how to store food and a million other things. Then he had a front seat to the corruption and collapse of the state. He had inside knowledge on how bad things were. Yes, he had been preparing, knowingly or unknowingly, for this for his whole life. But now he had to wait.

Grant made great use of the time. He knew that the delay, as maddening as it was, actually helped him and his family. He knew that after the Collapse he would look back to before things fell apart and say, “I wish I would have had time to….” The delay was a blessing. It was just so hard to wait.

He focused on the uninteresting parts of prepping, like getting his documents in order. He rounded up the wills, birth certificates, passports, banking and credit records. He scanned them and put them on a thumb drive. He made sure the originals were in a safe deposit box at the bank. He had scanned the documents in case banks closed down for an extended period of time. It seemed reckless to keep the originals of those documents at his house; for all he knew, they would be bugging out of their house with no time to pack the documents. Besides, when everyone was cut off from the originals of their documents, banks and other institutions would just have to get used to copies instead of originals. There would be no other way to do business, if there would be any business to do.

Grant made sure he had at least one key for each lock he would need. He had about five keys to the cabin. He spread them out so that he could always have one. This included hiding one out at the cabin. It was like the can openers in the tubs of food; some critical things are useless without something to open them. He got a few new padlocks and set all their combinations to his family’s house number so they could all easily remember it. He had to make duplicates of some keys and he did so. He tested the keys. Surprisingly some of the cabin keys didn’t work. He was glad he found that out now instead of later.

He made some extremely accurate directions to the cabin in case Lisa had to come out on her own. Grant always drove when they went out there so maybe Lisa wouldn’t know how to get there if she had to on her own. He planned alternate routes to the cabin. This was hard because, given the fact that Pierce Point was on an inlet, there was only one way in and out. But there were a few ways to the nearest town before the one-route-only road to Pierce Point started.

Grant wanted to make sure he had access to as much gasoline as possible. He knew that regular gas stations would run out. He had always noticed those gas-card stations that truckers used. They didn’t have any attendants. Truckers needed a special card to use them and were billed directly. They were basically a members-only gas station. Perfect. Fewer people would be able to use them, so there might be more gas there. Grant found out that regular people could sign up for the cards. He got a couple of them for the various gas-card stations in his area and he mapped out where those stations were. They were off the beaten path, which was good.