Evacuation.

I’m an armchair historian, not trained or educated in history. I mean, I learnt history in school, and I read, but Now it’s only for fun. So going through my fathers storage locker on day I found my great, great grandfathers notes and letters was a revelation. I never knew anything what he lived through, or what happened at that time, and how it affected the family. Well, so anyway, no boring reference points, no side notes, just me telling it like I read it. It’s amazing.

‘It all started with an alert on his ham radio in his home office at midnight while he was researching something on the internet. There was a massive release of protoplasmic gas from Yellowstone volcano, super heated, quiet, racing outward at extremely fast speeds, thousands of miles an hour in all directions from the volcano, killing everything in its path, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, eastern Nevada, southern Canada, eastern California. Forests were exploding into wildfire infernos, people, livestock, wildlife were incinerated instantly.they didn’t stand a chance. If the heat didn’t kill them, the poisous gases did. My great, great grandfather jumped into action, gathered their go to bags along with his guns and threw them into the truck, woke his wife, my great, great grandmother, and told her to evacuate the property NOW. He released all the live stock, gathered all the bags of seeds in the greenhouse, as well some bags of potting soil, and they were off. As they drove on the empty highway, he told her what was happening. They lived in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, above Marysville and the Central Valley, which probably saved them, as the hot, poisonous gases swept over the peaks of the mountains and gave them an escape window. His plan was to get to his old base, Vanderberg Air Force base by Pismo beach, Southern California, which also hosted one of six space force ports around the country. Where he knew the base commander.He didn’t know if they would let him in, but he was going to try. His old base commander told him if “the shit hit the fan” he was to come to the side entrance of the base and mention his name. He would get in. As they drove, he listened to the radio, and after hours of driving, small reports of the volcano were coming out. He knew what was happening, he was a volcanist and knew all the research about super volcano’s around the world especially Yellowstone, being so close to him. He knew that when one erupted, it could be the end of life on Earth as we know it. He also knew that there were plans to colonize the moon and Mars, and that Vanderberg space port hosted Space X and Blue Origin Rocket launches on a regular basis. He was aiming to get on one of those launches.

By the time sunrise came they were almost there, and most of the world did not know what had occurred. The gas emissions had stopped, but now huge plumes of ash and lava were being ejected. The lava flows were pouring out from the crater in liquid rivers, but it was the huge thick plume of hot ash that was the climate killer. The plume was more than 10 miles high, and the winds blowing east had already covered the entire Eastern United States, and Canada. Reports were coming in that it was falling in the U.K. Soon it would encircle the entire planet, and a nuclear winter would set in. Crop failures would occur, famine would haunt the plant, and most people, if not all, would starve to death. Calls for people to seek shelter underground were given, with addresses and locations given, but my great great grandfather knew it was not going to save anyone. The planet was doomed.