[chico20854]

January 4, 1998

As relocation and disorder continue in the US, city dwellers flee to the country and the country folk are not prepared to deal with what rapidly comes to seem to them as an invasion. Initial efforts of humanity and goodwill toward the victims of a nuclear attack rapidly turn into a grim battle of survival between seemingly endless mobs of refugees and the embattled farmers trying to save their food crops, then their seed crops, and finally themselves and their families from the ravaging deprivations of hungry, cold and desperate city folk. Northern Ohio has been severely depopulated by the nuclear strikes on the cities of Lima and Toledo and the fallout from the Michigan and Canadian nuclear strikes. Most of the population of the large urban centers of Ohio flee to the rural areas without encouragement by the relocation orders.

Even with all the goodwill and humanitarian intentions in the world, nothing could have prevented much of the suffering of the winter of 1997-1998. In Florida, there were just too many people and not enough of anything else. Left to freeze in the dark, New England's urban populace began a blind search for warmth and food. More than ten million people began descending on the farms and picturesque towns in the countryside. Hundreds of thousands died each month of illness, hunger or winter exposure. Thousands more died each day in the fighting that erupted as the farmers and citizens of the towns tried to stop the locust-like approach of the urban refugees. Even when there were surplus foodstuffs, the resources could not be delivered to where they were needed most; no communications network existed to identify stocks, and no effective central authority remained to coordinate the relief effort.

Unfortunately, there was more than enough evil, malicious and deliberately criminal misconduct, misinformation, and out-and-out disinformation circulating to compound the horror beyond any hope of retrieval by men of goodwill.

The fires and destruction in the US caused by the bombs are gradually brought under control, and governmental control of most urban areas is slowly regained (although some cities, like Boston, are never really brought back to order after the strikes). Civil unrest in New England has settled down as it becomes clear that New England is not to be a target. Only extreme measures bring back a semblance of order to New York City. Millions have died in New York City during and after the nuclear attacks and millions more have fled. Because of the damaged transportation network and the lack of fuel, there are minor distribution inequalities and some civil discontent, but little out-and-out rioting.

The American harvest of 1997 was larger than average, but it is not evenly distributed through the country. Most of it is still in silos and elevators in the Midwest. The large harvest had driven commodities prices down, and many farmers have withheld part of their harvest in hopes of getting higher prices later in the year. Theoretically, this grain is also subject to rationing, but there is a great deal of concealment in on-farm storage bins by individual farmers. Fuel is also hoarded, although both of these actions are illegal.

The mayor of Aldergrove, BC, Walter Rousseau, with support from local RCMP members, assumes dictatorial powers over the town.

One of the Atlantic fleet's last operable nuclear attack submarines, the USS Newport News, surrenders her berth and heads back to sea, leaving New London for the last time.

Unofficially,

The container-barge carrier Kirin Carrier is delivered in Mobile, Alabama. It, like its sister delivered a week and a half prior, is taken over by the US government. This marks the end of new ship construction in Quincy.

Paratroops of the 13th Guards Air Assault Division fall upon the lightly held outpost line of the 1st Brigade, 47th Infantry Division's 1st Battalion, 168th Infantry (Iowa National Guard) in a driving snowstorm, driving the startled guardsmen from their positions into the snow.

In northern California, members of the Hells Angels biker gang knock out the power to the Pelican Bay State Penitentiary with well-aimed rifle fire, then descend on the prison. The prison's guard force, understrength due to the draft and desertion in the weeks since the nuclear attacks, is oriented against threats from inside the prison, and within 15 minutes the bikers have captured the prison's command center (assisted by liberal application of demolitions against barriers and heavy steel doors). The bikers release the inmates within; their members and other prisoners that have a biker vouch for them remain at the heavily protected facility. The Hells Angels have gained a hardened facility and over 300 additional recruits.

More French and Belgian units arrive in southern Holland, linking up with the previously isolated French 8th Marine Parachute Regiment. The Dutch territorials of the 302nd Infantry Brigade have expended their remaining artillery ammunition and anti-tank weapons (mostly 1950-vintage M20 3.5-inch Super Bazooka rounds, everything more modern long ago sent to fight the Soviets). They begin retreating to the northwest as engineer parties complete the opening of dykes and irrigation systems, turning the low-lying polder into freezing swampland.

To the east, the 101st Mechanized Brigade arrives in Eindhoven from the Leeuwarden area minutes before the lead Scimitar and Scorpion light tanks of the Belgian 4th Regiment of Chasseurs à Cheval, the lead reconnaissance element of the Belgian I Corps. (The Belgian Corps has split, with the main body heading up the Meuse valley and a secondary effort headed for Dusseldorf on the Rhine). The French II Corps has overrun the final organized elements of the German territorial 45th Grenadier Regiment and reached the Rhine opposite Wiesbaden, leaving several large American garrisons isolated. In the center of the Franco-Belgian effort, I French Corps has brushed aside the remnants of the territorial 42nd and 46th Grenadier Regiments and advanced, despite the efforts of the various German obstacle detachments, past the exclusion zones surrounding Spangdahlem and Bitburg Air Bases where they are held up by a scratch force of Luftwaffe trainees at Ulmen.