I am kinda stunned. For the last ten years, I have been writing a book about how do homo sapiens build back an entire culture. A bit dystopian, but grounded in reality. Everyone leaves their bunkers at the same time. I am afraid of Americans. I am terrified by Americans. You cannot trust an American. I built a bunker so I could describe it in the book. Just last week, there were 73 fires that formed a ring around our Appalachian village. Rain put out the fires. But my air filters didn’t work properly, and although this was an experiment, smoke filled the bunker itself. I learned a big lesson. It can all fall apart in one second. When Hurricane Helene hit as a level five, the gigantic wall of water that hit us filled the bunker with water in under five minutes. Fire. Rain. Wind. Smoke. Flooding. The roads were down. Huge holes in the pavement. Cars going nowhere. You could not get out. Unless you had a dirt bike. I call the book Dirt Bike Town, and it’s about a road trip that goes from bunker to bunker in a country that has been devastated. I have seen many bunkers. Including one that was built inside an ICBM missile silo. There is no romanticism going on here. ICBM missile silos leak water like faucets. That’s a lake at the bottom of a very deep and very dark hole. From what I have seen, there are always problems that are difficult to predict. The idea that you will avoid any number of crises by digging a hole to only emerge – exactly when. The pipe dream is an illusion. – Tim Barrus