Free Survivors by Rich Goldhaber

on the sides of each apartment building.
By the time I returned to the energy plant, George
had found everything he needed to reroute the wiring. First he checked with a voltmeter to make sure
the power from the solar field was disengaged.
    He had found several fifty foot sections of
heavy duty wire. They must have been at least one
inch in diameter, and George had stripped the insulation from both ends of the wires. He then removed the power input wires from Florida Power
and Light going to the North Lake Village distribution panel and attached one end of each of the
heavy wires to the input terminal on the distribution panel.
    It took both of us to string the heavy wires
over some pieces of equipment. George wanted to
make sure the wires weren’t lying on the concrete
floor where they could get wet. George began working on the solar field power control panel. He removed the inputs from Florida Power and Light
and then removed the output wires leading to the
engineering campus. They would no longer receive
electrical power.
    Finally he hooked up the other ends of our
fifty foot wires to the output terminals of the control panel. “Now,” he said, “power from the solar
field will go directly to our complex during the day.
While you were gone, I checked on the system performance specs. We’ll be using just fifteen percent
of the solar field’s maximum output; it can supply
almost a quarter million watts if we need it. That
should be more than enough to meet our shortterm needs. I’ve got some ideas on how we can get
some power during the nights, but I’ll discuss that
with the others tonight.”
    “So are we ready to throw the switches?”
“We are; do you want to do the honors?”
“George, it’s your show. The honor is all
yours.”
    George stood at the control panel and threw
several large circuit breakers. He then walked over
to the North Lake Village distribution panel and
checked the voltage. “We’re good to go; we’ve got
power.”
    He threw the circuit breakers on the outputs of the distribution panel, and once again confirmed the voltage. “Okay,” he said, “Let’s go over to
the apartments and turn things on.”
    George checked for voltage at the apartment complex utility box, and after confirming the
presence of electrical power, he activated more circuit breakers. George smiled and said, “Let’s have
everyone gather outside building H for a little ceremony.”
    Ten minutes later, everyone in the area had
gathered outside the building. Mary held little Carla while Jack and Bobby played in a nearby pile of
sand. George smiled and said, “Let there be light.”
    He threw the main circuit breakers and
several lights came on inside the building. More
importantly, the air-conditioning unit on the side
of the building started up. Everyone clapped and
why not, we would now have the comforts of cool
apartments during the day. George bowed graciously and everyone gave him hugs and high-fives.
    While the others fine-tuned the electrical
power to the apartments, I decided to head over to
the water filtration plant over on Alico Road.
Chapter 11
    The team at the water filtration plant was
busy assembling the solar array on the plant’s flat
roof. Jessie, who was working on the electrical system, stopped what she was doing and updated me
on the group’s progress. “We found a 6000 watt
solar kit in Opti-Solar’s warehouse. The kit has
everything we need to power the well pump and
some other key equipment. We also took some
Hawker gel batteries. At 24 volts they can each
generate 1100 amp-hours of power.”
“Wait,” I said, “I’m lost already; why do we
need batteries?”
    “We’ll use the extra electricity from the solar array to charge the batteries during the day. At
night, there’s enough power stored in the batteries
to keep the pump running, so we should have water pressure 24/7.”
    Bill was supervising the assembly of the array on the roof, and Jessie was working on