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The Fraying Web

As the diablovirus pandemic progressed, it began to put strain on all aspects of society. Not only did it overwhelm medical facilities, it also began to break down other fundamental services.

One of the first things to break down was the supply chain that brings merchandise to stores, from the corner convenience store to the big-box mass merchandisers that anchored strip malls all over the US. The phenomenon is familiar on a smaller scale in any region that gets large-scale natural disasters. After a hurricane or a blizzard, shelves will often be empty, especially of food and other necessities of life, for several days while roads are cleared so trucks can bring in fresh supplies.

However, in this case it wasn’t just one region. It was everywhere at once, which meant that there wasn’t slack available to restore stock levels. Worse, it wasn’t just a problem of trucks not being able to get through impassible roads. In many cases, there simply weren’t enough drivers available to keep the trucks moving. Casualties were high among truckers, at least partly because they have a tradition of not letting mere illness get them down, so they tried to force their way through the early symptoms. In the process, they also infected many of their fellow drivers, as well as the support personnel at depots and truck stops around the nation, further intensifying the breakdown of the transportation network.

In addition to the obvious shortages of food, toiletries, pharmaceuticals and other ordinary necessities, fuel soon began to run short. Initially the problems were masked by the reduction in the level of driving ordinary people were doing. However, it was only a matter of time before other kinds of fuel began to run short. For instance, fuel for backup generators began to disappear, right about the time many coal-fired and oil-fired power plants began to have trouble getting fuel.

Coal was generally delivered directly to the generating stations by train — but locomotive crews were also being stretched thin as a result of the pandemic. Even worse, many of the coal mines were having trouble keeping all shifts staffed as more and more miners called in sick. Some of them would return to work, but far too many did not.

As a result, many of the coal-fired generating stations had to either shut down altogether or run at reduced capacity — and the oil-fired power plants that would normally pick up the slack were running out of fuel oil, with little or no hope of getting supplies in.

This led to what would previously have been considered unthinkable in the US — widespread rolling blackouts as electric utilities struggled to keep at least some power flowing. And with shortages of fuel to power emergency and backup generators, even essential services could not maintain electricity. Hospitals went dark. Refrigerators and freezers in grocery stores failed, resulting in enormous amounts of food spoiling and having to be discarded.

Even water treatment and sewage treatment facilities began to fail. In urban areas of the US, people had come to take the availability of clean water for granted. Intelectually they knew their water bills paid for the pumping, purification and distribution of the water that came to their taps, but few people really thought about the logistics of this process. Even during power outages, water came on when they turned on the tap — until the day it didn’t.

At that point, things began to get truly desperate. Without clean water, basic sanitation began to break down. Without those fundamental systems, the shining modern city soon began to descend into a horror of filth more akin to an ancient or medieval city, further exacerbating the death toll of the diablovirus pandemic.

—– JS Reinholt, essay for civics class.