I'd been asleep for about two hours when I was woken up by what I first thought was thunder. About the time I got awake enough to be paying a reasonable amount of attention, the building rattled fairly hard.
I immediately concluded that I hadn't heard thunder. About that time, I heard another blast, or what I concluded was another one. It sounded strange, but I wasn't sure what else it could have been. It sure wasn't thunder. Something was exploding. A couple of somethings, I suspected. Before my sleepy mind got that all processed, there was a third fairly serious sounding ka-boom. None of them seemed to be particularly close.
I reviewed things, and put Mike on the case. The second there was anything about it on the air, he'd know what was being said. None of it seemed close enough that I was personally worried, but if it's close enough I can hear it, I really want to know what's going on.
Mike informed me about thirty seconds later that there had been a big explosion on the George Washington Bridge for starters. That was the one that had gotten me awake. Initial reports were that the Bridge was down. He then started on the second, funny sounding one. That was the Holland Tunnel blowing up. The third one had been the Triborough bridge.
Don messaged me. “Do you think we stuff everyone into the basement?”
I replied. “No. And you don't either, or you'd be getting it done instead of asking me if we should.”
He was noting that it all seemed fairly far away to him when there was another blast. This one rattled the building about the same way the first one had. I messaged back “I'll meet you in the Cafeteria.”
He was there when Rover and I arrived. About the time we got through the doors, there was another blast, slightly further away than the last one. Things didn't rattle very much at all that time.
Don announced that he was not liking this. I noted that I wasn't particularly amused myself, but I still didn't figure that it had anything to do with us, other than that we were in the same City where it was happening. About then, another one went off. It was the faintest of the bunch, so far.
I was getting a lot of inquiries from the staff about what was happening, and I had canned a stock message. “Whatever is happening is probably not related to us in any way, and appears so far to be directed at local infrastructure. Happily, we are not close to any of that which is of any major importance, so I don't think we are in the line of fire. For safety's sake, though, stay away from windows and keep your blinds and drapes closed just in case something explodes closely enough to cause any flying glass. The situation is being monitored, and we'll let you know if anything changes.”
Don picked up on the message, and noted that staying away from windows was a good call, then shook his head. “I'm not thinking right yet. Neither are you. The windows are in no danger, short of perhaps a Nuke. The building shield went on at about 2300, once they got the power plant wired in and running.”
That gave me a bright idea. “How about we get up on the roof and see what we can see from there?”
We couldn't see much of anything, actually. There were large areas where the power was out, but it was a bit cloudy, and other than a couple of suspicious looking clouds that might have actually been smoke, we couldn't see anything worth noting, so we came back down after about five minutes.
We returned to the Cafeteria. The news was announcing that all Cell Phone transmissions in New York City had been shut down. Someone had managed to blow up three bridges and two tunnels with truck bombs. Another one had gone off on the approaches to the Brooklyn Bridge. The Police had another two dozen suspect trucks surrounded.
Scott wandered in and poured himself some coffee. He announced “The Jihadis are restless tonight.”
Don announced that we didn't know that for sure, and I offered to bet him any amount he cared to risk at three to one that Scott had it right. Don declined to bet on it, adding that he did not say that Scott was wrong, but simply that we didn't know that for a fact yet.
We discussed the probability that we were not going to be able to get anything at all done for the next week or so. I noted that it was lucky that we had gotten food in today, because we probably wouldn't be able to get any deliveries by truck for a fair while in the future.
We spent the next couple of hours monitoring the situation and concluded that whatever had happened was all that was going to happen. I took Miss Rover outside. When we came back in I announced that I planned on catching another two or three hours of sleep, being as there would be very little else going on for the next couple of days. I went up and went back to sleep until about 0630. I then got up and prepared to face a long day on short sleep.
I was monitoring the news intermittently, but had my usual 48 hour rule in effect, and was not taking anything they said too seriously. They had managed to snag three more explosive laden semi-
s when they shut the roads down and shut off all cell phone traffic. It was the Jihadi folks, and they'd come up with a fairly effective approach. They'd constructed their bombs inside shipping containers, then loaded the containers inside a large
. They had apparently hooked a GPS System up to send a signal at a fixed location, and that signal went to a cell phone that detonated the bomb. The locations they picked were the middle of the various Bridges and Tunnels.
There was massive reluctance to turn the Cell Phone network back on among the powers that be, but the natives were already getting seriously restless about that part. They were talking about banning all trucks over about 10,000 pounds from the City, but that one would not work either, and they knew it up front. They would have people going without food before next Friday if they did that.
The hand wringing and demands that someone “do something” were endless. Apparently passing Laws and Regulations that left half the City without food and eight out of ten people unable to make a telephone call were the only appropriate responses that most people in power could think of.
Around 0800 I got a call from my wife. She was not amused that I was hanging around places where things were blowing up, for starters. She was also not amused that I was letting Miss Rover chew on people. Beyond that, she was particularly not amused that I was hanging around in New York instead of getting back to see her. Once she got through explaining all the things that I was doing wrong, I inquired if she wanted to come to New York.
She did, she didn't, and I was an idiot for asking in either case. Beyond that, I was a complete idiot, because the news was saying that there probably was going to be minimal traffic in and out of New York for the next few days or weeks. She couldn't get there even if she did want to, although she made it quite clear that she wasn't saying she actually wanted to.
I immediately concluded that I hadn't heard thunder. About that time, I heard another blast, or what I concluded was another one. It sounded strange, but I wasn't sure what else it could have been. It sure wasn't thunder. Something was exploding. A couple of somethings, I suspected. Before my sleepy mind got that all processed, there was a third fairly serious sounding ka-boom. None of them seemed to be particularly close.
I reviewed things, and put Mike on the case. The second there was anything about it on the air, he'd know what was being said. None of it seemed close enough that I was personally worried, but if it's close enough I can hear it, I really want to know what's going on.
Mike informed me about thirty seconds later that there had been a big explosion on the George Washington Bridge for starters. That was the one that had gotten me awake. Initial reports were that the Bridge was down. He then started on the second, funny sounding one. That was the Holland Tunnel blowing up. The third one had been the Triborough bridge.
Don messaged me. “Do you think we stuff everyone into the basement?”
I replied. “No. And you don't either, or you'd be getting it done instead of asking me if we should.”
He was noting that it all seemed fairly far away to him when there was another blast. This one rattled the building about the same way the first one had. I messaged back “I'll meet you in the Cafeteria.”
He was there when Rover and I arrived. About the time we got through the doors, there was another blast, slightly further away than the last one. Things didn't rattle very much at all that time.
Don announced that he was not liking this. I noted that I wasn't particularly amused myself, but I still didn't figure that it had anything to do with us, other than that we were in the same City where it was happening. About then, another one went off. It was the faintest of the bunch, so far.
I was getting a lot of inquiries from the staff about what was happening, and I had canned a stock message. “Whatever is happening is probably not related to us in any way, and appears so far to be directed at local infrastructure. Happily, we are not close to any of that which is of any major importance, so I don't think we are in the line of fire. For safety's sake, though, stay away from windows and keep your blinds and drapes closed just in case something explodes closely enough to cause any flying glass. The situation is being monitored, and we'll let you know if anything changes.”
Don picked up on the message, and noted that staying away from windows was a good call, then shook his head. “I'm not thinking right yet. Neither are you. The windows are in no danger, short of perhaps a Nuke. The building shield went on at about 2300, once they got the power plant wired in and running.”
That gave me a bright idea. “How about we get up on the roof and see what we can see from there?”
We couldn't see much of anything, actually. There were large areas where the power was out, but it was a bit cloudy, and other than a couple of suspicious looking clouds that might have actually been smoke, we couldn't see anything worth noting, so we came back down after about five minutes.
We returned to the Cafeteria. The news was announcing that all Cell Phone transmissions in New York City had been shut down. Someone had managed to blow up three bridges and two tunnels with truck bombs. Another one had gone off on the approaches to the Brooklyn Bridge. The Police had another two dozen suspect trucks surrounded.
Scott wandered in and poured himself some coffee. He announced “The Jihadis are restless tonight.”
Don announced that we didn't know that for sure, and I offered to bet him any amount he cared to risk at three to one that Scott had it right. Don declined to bet on it, adding that he did not say that Scott was wrong, but simply that we didn't know that for a fact yet.
We discussed the probability that we were not going to be able to get anything at all done for the next week or so. I noted that it was lucky that we had gotten food in today, because we probably wouldn't be able to get any deliveries by truck for a fair while in the future.
We spent the next couple of hours monitoring the situation and concluded that whatever had happened was all that was going to happen. I took Miss Rover outside. When we came back in I announced that I planned on catching another two or three hours of sleep, being as there would be very little else going on for the next couple of days. I went up and went back to sleep until about 0630. I then got up and prepared to face a long day on short sleep.
I was monitoring the news intermittently, but had my usual 48 hour rule in effect, and was not taking anything they said too seriously. They had managed to snag three more explosive laden semi-


There was massive reluctance to turn the Cell Phone network back on among the powers that be, but the natives were already getting seriously restless about that part. They were talking about banning all trucks over about 10,000 pounds from the City, but that one would not work either, and they knew it up front. They would have people going without food before next Friday if they did that.
The hand wringing and demands that someone “do something” were endless. Apparently passing Laws and Regulations that left half the City without food and eight out of ten people unable to make a telephone call were the only appropriate responses that most people in power could think of.
Around 0800 I got a call from my wife. She was not amused that I was hanging around places where things were blowing up, for starters. She was also not amused that I was letting Miss Rover chew on people. Beyond that, she was particularly not amused that I was hanging around in New York instead of getting back to see her. Once she got through explaining all the things that I was doing wrong, I inquired if she wanted to come to New York.
She did, she didn't, and I was an idiot for asking in either case. Beyond that, I was a complete idiot, because the news was saying that there probably was going to be minimal traffic in and out of New York for the next few days or weeks. She couldn't get there even if she did want to, although she made it quite clear that she wasn't saying she actually wanted to.
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